No One Wanted To Believe This… 

I can’t wait for the next 2x2 WR single to be -0.37 Seconds

The negative time... Is because he was touching the cube before the timer started...

I'm pretty sure there's a rule un the WCA regulations that proves this is not allowed: A4) Starting the solve: A4b) The competitor uses their -fingers- to touch the elevated sensor surfaces of the Stackmat timer. The competitor's palms must be facing down, and located on the side of the timer that is closer to the competitor. Penalty: time penalty (+2 seconds). So you should have your fingers on the pad when starting the timer, sliding seems to me like you're using your fingers first, but at the end you're starting with the back of your hand (almost your wrist), which shouldn't be allowed. Also, i've seen that sometimes Yiheng starts turning the cube before the timer started, which should also go against the rule that you can't touch the cube while starting the solve.

"See some kids not only slide their way down the slide of the playground but also slide down to times faster than you" hits hard man...

It's pretty clear cut for me, it breaks a couple of existing regs; B2b) When using the Stackmat timer, the competitor uses their fingers to touch the elevated sensor surfaces of the timer. The competitor's palms must be facing down, and located on the side of the timer that is closer to them. Penalty: time penalty (+2 seconds). A4b1) The competitor must have no physical contact with the puzzle while starting the solve. Penalty: time penalty (+2 seconds). Kit Clement was on my stream on Thursday and said, in his opinion, the average shouldn't count and it's very clear cut based on those regs. However... it wasn't possible to catch this in real time, and that's arguably the bigger issue. I predict an adjustment in the regs to make things a bit clearer and less open to abuse. And if that's the case, the Ellery .53 should be binned too as that's an even more obvious abuse of the regs! I didn't know about that one, but seeing it now it's super sus! Just my 2c lol, let's wait and see what happens. Also, another great vid, nice work 🙌

Looks like sliding is the new meta. I think it‘s a slippery slope.

That intro was FIRE 🔥

solution: make 4-pad mandatory, it won't be perfect, but it will definitely cut down the timesave by a very significant margin, as well as make sliding very difficult, thus making the problem not as severe

Yiheng's starts for sure break the regs. WRC precedent makes it problematic to actually *apply* the regs here, but starting the timer with your palms/wrists is clearly illegal (not to mention the 0.74 where he *started turning* before actually starting the timer)

2:30 - Part of the rules is that you cannot touch the timer with your palms when starting the timer, you have to use your fingers. „A4) Starting the solve: A4b) The competitor uses their fingers to touch the elevated sensor surfaces of the Stackmat timer. The competitor's palms must be facing down, and located on the side of the timer that is closer to the competitor. Penalty: time penalty (+2 seconds). A4b1) The competitor must have no physical contact with the puzzle while starting the solve. Penalty: time penalty (+2 seconds).”

Maturity is when you realize that all of these are going to be nostalgic after 5-10 years when we start droping sub 0.50 second averages 💀

i knew it. It was his next video

Oh man, good point about what the point is for self-filming. I suspect we'll see people privately film, but then not release them (I lost the footage in a boating accident).

Epic videos man. Took a little break from cubing and came up to this. more inspired than ever.

Update timer. Have a mat measuring for downward pressure when cube lifted it starts and ends when cube dropped.

I'm just waiting for yiheng to come out of no where and get the 4x4 world record...

The WCA should remove this record because of 2 rules about starting: 1) You need to start with your fingers and 2) your palms need to be facing down on the side of the competitor. Sliding move your fingers to the point they aren't touching the surface of the timer and your palms are now on the timer, and not at your side. Solution to prevent this: switch to 4-pad in all events. We will be fine.

Just straight up, this needs to not be a thing. I know that there are several drawbacks to trying to enforce proper timer starts, but the sanctity of the results should be the most important thing here, and sliding starts explicitly break the rules. The WCA’s vision is to see speedcubing as more of a sport and less of a hobby (which is a whole Nother matter) but when even addressing this problem is controversial, it’s hard to take the WCA seriously.

Once Yiheng gets older with big hands he would end all competition, like Feliks basically. You’d strive for WR2.

Dude this is crazy AND COOL

Keep up the good content man

Yiheng Wang is sliding into a new era.

A couple things to note. Sliding is undoubtedly an illegal technique that will result in a +4 if caught by the judge. The key phrase here is caught by the judge. The way sliding starts look make it almost impossible to tell in real time if it was a legal start, which makes frame counting solves the only reliable way to tell. The WRC has a precedent about disallowing frame by frame analysis for timer starts. This means unless it is caught by the judge in real time (which sliding starts are hard to do) you can’t retroactively +4 the solves. People in the WRC are currently discussing the matter, and have stated you should NOT attempt sliding starts as they ARE illegal. I know I will certainly be looking out for the technique from now on as a judge.

6:12 Nice segway... 😜

if the avg gets disqualified NOONE will post their wrs online...

Good video!

Amazing video

This is a great video that really well explains sliding, but you shouldn’t be acting like it’s legal, and encouraging people to slide until the WRC releases an official statement. There have been delegates saying it allowed, and others who say it’s completely illegal so it’s probably not the best idea to tell everyone it’s legal until a statement is released.

That last line. Sliding in kindergarden 😁 Big dub bro, big dub.

4:10 Moreover, judges usually don't even look at you when you start, they look at the stopwatch (which IMO is a mistake), so you could abuse it even further.

I Like the music choice in your vids

Dude this is so crazy!!

Dude, every single video is a masterpiece of content. I love your chanel men, real

Yeah the reason you can get negative times is becouse if you look at some yihengs solve you can see that he is doing the first move and the timer still shows 0.000

0:41 This went harder than it should ngl

Good job yiheng you've officially killed 2x2

Speed stacks need to be updated so that they vibrate and/or beep to signal a start after a random amount of time with the fingers contacting the pads. They can program them so that there is a minimum required time discrepancy between hearing/feeling the beep or vibration signaling the start, and the fingers leaving the pads. Or, the better solution in my opinion is to have a device that the cube rests on that records the moment that the cube leaves the surface. It shouldn’t be hard to do these days; maybe it would require a thin, electrically conductive sticker to be placed on the white center cap for example.

It seems like better technology might be needed soon. Like something that detects contact with the cube itself. What if a slider is still touching the StackMat when they pick up the cube? How is a judge meant to tell when it might happen for only a fraction of a second?

I wonder how much the times are going to be cut down with sliding in 1x1 events 🤔

Just add another StackMat sensor under to cube to start the time, remove pick up time and make it equal for everbody.

The easy solution to fix this problem is to use the new gen stackmat with thumb function right?

Has there been any discussion on four-pad timers such as the StackMat G5?

Delegates at my comp i had today mentioned this and had to announce it during 2x2: SLIDING IS ILLEGAL. You cannot make contact with the cube before the timer starts, and only your fingers are allowed to be on the stackmat to start the timer, ending it is fine to use palm though. THIS MAKES SLIDING ILLEGAL, MEANING WHEN STUCUBE CHECKS THE REGS (no offense btw), HE MISSED THOSE RULES. SLIDING ISSUES A +4 PENALTY BECAUSE YOU ARE BREAKING 2 +2s

Need new tech to change the timer to start on cube pickup and then end on the double tap. That way everyone is on the same playing field

Just regulate the timers and make the slopes go the other way, or something to the shape that stops this.

I like when you say that people will have a better time without getting better at the event...but this is the event ! If anybody can train and achieve the same result, it's part of the game. It's like saying that lubing and setting up the cube, having 120 magnets in it, using a coating or those small pouchs used to warm up or remove the sweat is unfair just because it wasnt used 10 years ago.

sliding is super hard I tried it a lot but I'm bad at normal pickup so that checks

Since this technique exploits flaws in the equipment used to start the timer, the community has to decide if this fits within the spirit of what they're trying to speedrun (i.e., executing the turns necessary to solve the cube) and how important it is to maintain this spirit. Then the rules or the equipment will have to be updated according to what the community values. This is a similar sort of discussion that leads to new categories in many videogame speedruns, especially those that have been rendered almost unrecognizable through stuff like arbitrary code execution or extremely heavy use of glitches, where it can be argued that this is no longer playing the game. But at the end of the day, this totally depends on what the community values in their competition, since the rules are ultimately arbitrary.

Just wondering whether people use the same methodology to analyze solves from other people's, and what are the results

Saw the notif on Discord because RU-vid never sends their notifs lol. 😅

This is another reason for maybe introducing a weight sensitive mat. Let the moment the cube is lifted activate the timer and when it hits the mat it stops (fumbles and accidental drops could be discounted by using a “lap times” setting so nothing needs resetting to record the final solve time). I don’t see it as cheating though. Learning to finesse the technology of the timer and interpreting the rules to your advantage is no different from pushing the technology of the cube with lubes, magnets, tensioning etc which are all legal yet can confer huge advantages over standard and/or unmodified cubes. “Fingers must be on the timer” leaves a lot of leeway. If the rules stipulated *fingertips* (or finger pads) must remain in contact with the timer before the solve starts, then sliding could be deemed illegal.

that outro scared the shit outta me😭😭

Me and some of my cubing friends have a discord server and me and like 5 other went into a VC to practice sliding together this morning💀

This is like when that pro Tetris gamer invented the controller technique known as “rolling” years ago.

I cant wait for the -0.62 wr single

it should not be legal at all. going by the same logic, you could literally already just put your hand closer to the cube, no need to slide. oh but guess what? thats bannable sliding is the same thing but adding motion to it. theres no reason why this should be deemed legal by WCA its literally breaking the rules

nice can't wait for the 0.0X 2x2 world record by yiheng wang

Solution? High speed camera conteolled by AI that detects when the cube is touched, and only then it starts the timer.

Honestly, if a time seems like it is wr it should be framecounted instead of using the stackmat time. Negative pickup times are ABSOLUTELY cheating, no matter how you twist it.

Time to start sliding in clock 😂

wait isnt there a regulation that your fingers have to be on the timer right before it starts, and sliding has it start when the palms are touching the timer

the cfb of cubing

If you can't touch the cube while holding the timer, then shouldn't negative pickup time runs be disqualified? It seems like a risky strategy to me.

Please give me a stackmat slide tutorial 🙏

1 view and 9 likes goes crazy edit: good vid stu 😊

Now we need to create a timer that starts when we move ours hand not lift.

I swear how

Yo this kid is unreal

The problem I have with sliding is that it is possible to do turns in inspection before the timer starts (this can be seen in one of the solves of Yihengs at home 0.71 average), which means that times and records could be irrelevant. Like if I have a time of say 0.49, but then frame by frame shows that I held the cube for at least 0.55 seconds, did I really solve the cube in 0.49 seconds? Does my time mean anything?

yeah so 2x2 is about to be destroyed with this technique i might practice it as well since i have a 1.11 average

Everyone talking about sliding but i keep thinking Yi Heng pulling up in hood to drive-by the opps.

basically rolling in tetris if you think about it

beliver

You can simply use footage to accurately count the time. Of course, the cameras would need to have high frame rate and every single solve would need to be filmed perfectly. A nightmare in logistics and not practical to use in worldwide competitions. But technically, possible.

Eventually, sliding and timers will be irrelevant. They'll all be smart cubes.😊 The clock will start on the first turn, and end on the solve. Besides, it happens so fast you can't even see it... Are we going to do slow motion camera reviews of every solve in order to determine its legitimacy? You're going to need expensive high speed cameras and monitors to do that. Then, like in sports, sometimes you still can't tell. 😅

doesn't regulation A4b prevent sliding?

I really like this content though

When is the 2x2 wr going to be -2 seconds

Tbh I think sliding should result in a dnf because it’s just making cubing easier tbh and giving people unfair advantages

lol all the short events now are probably sub 1able for official ao5 with this technique

I knew this was gonna be posted since someone broke a wr

The only sliding I’m good at is into dms

19 tps is just insane for 2x2 like what

If sliding is as effective as we think it is, the WR single would be 0.28 😮

4-pad is coming

i have no idea why it was recommended to me and have no idea about cubes. isnt placing timer on the top of the mat solving it?

yiheng slided in the #1 ranking for 2x2 (HAHAH GET IT CAUSE HE SLIDED (i know its hillarious))

But this sliding method takes the fun out of speedcubing in my opinion :(

Hi

1:51, that's a 4 ten thousands, not 4 thousands

when a pro 2x2er gets a 4 mover and uses sliding (or yiheng) they are getting a sub 0.3

HI

He didn't tell us a 6 year old is faster than us this time!

Bro look at Teodor Zajder

They are probably nerfing sliding in the next update.

good video, but I didn't quite catch your explanation on why sliding is sus or illegal or wrong. In another comment you said it's common sense, but I don't get it at all! Help me out here!

imagine sliding in skweb

The timer slide has turned into a technique, shouldwe should all implement it in our solves? Or would we be abusing it?

I don't see the problem. As long as he's not touching the cube before the timer starts, then it's perfectly legal.

nigel jumpscare