This is a HUGE Problem 

Intentionally setting up a misscramble would be a very convenient way to eliminate dangerous competitors

It would be pretty easy to make a computer program or even a phone app to verify scrambles just by taking pictures of them

There's probably miscrambles that have occurred creating worse scrambles and stopping world records, but the competitor never knows, because they only check when there is a world record. Thus, misscrambles are just double penalising people.

I hope this gets more recognition. Somewhat unbelievable that a scrambler's mistake can lead to repurcussions on the solver's side.

This may be a far-fetched idea, but we could use the GAN robots to scramble for us

Completely agree with your recommendation of "flagging" high profile solvers to double and triple check their scrambles. This is logistically the best way to do it IMO.

I definitely agree that misscrambles are a huge problem, hopefully the WCA does something about this.

I really believe that Yiheng should get the WR, only the AUF being different, as opposed to almost any other misscramble altering almost the entire solve.

if felix's 6.88 is allowed, then how come a misscramble which is 99% identical to the original scramble isn't allowed? it just feels like a whole double standard to me. maybe standards have changed with time, but i believe that the world record should be Yiheng's 4.75

it was very pain to watch his reactions in person, this misscramble is really unfortunate

The organizers for South East Champs last year actually did mark the top competitor’s score card, though it was mostly to let the runners know to take that cube to a more experienced judge. I can see the same thing working for scramblers too

it sucks so much that misscrambles have caused many results to be dnfed lately. also it is crazy that a scrambler would purposely make a scramble easier for top solvers because they should no that if they get a good result the scrambles will be checked and it will just create drama and waste time.

I think the best way to prevent misscrambles is to have one of those Rubik’s cube robots scramble the cubes so there is no mistake.

I feel like a pretty simple solution to this is have a picture of the scrambled cube. Like there's websites that can show what the final scrambled cube should look like for a particular scramble. Quickly checking that can avoid misscrambles if integrated right

Watched this live, it was so heartbreaking and soo so annoying I believe Yiheng's solve definitely should count

I really hope if WCA is still discussing this, they can reverse the decision. This case is the bare minimum for a misscramble, so if this doesn't count as a correct solve then no future misscrambles should count.

I can imagine having a way to check scrambles. One way would involve a box with four mirrors in a square tilted at 45° to show 4 of the 6 sides simultaneously, along with one face shown directly (not in a mirror), to show five sides overall. Stereo imaging could overlay the image of this with a reference image to immediately reveal any pieces out of place. And of course, the image could be displayed on a monitor/projector, for everyone to see and so everyone can know it was a fair scramble.

I mentioned on Yiheng's video about 3x3 robot scramblers before. Also simple handheld scanners can be used very easily and quickly to scan the scrambled cube and compare it to a predefined scramble in it's software, app. It can notify if it matches or not. There would also be a need to have senior delegate person or persons overseeing everything that leaves the scrambling table. It's not rocket science. If we can send man to the Moon reducing or eliminating these mis-scrambles should be a walk in the park. I've never once picked up a tin of beans in a supermarket to open it and find peas. It's up to WCA to get their act together 👍

This was my thought as well. Appoint a "scramble checker" for fast solvers' cubes. Your idea with two scramblers' signatures is great. One scrambler scrambles and checks, the other double checks.

Your suggestion about marking the scorecards for high-level solvers to promote double-checking is a very good idea, though. I help organize comps (printing the scorecards) , and I will incorporate that into my workflow. Thanks for the idea!

I was the scrambler for Jode Brewster's 3.88 and I was initially a bit worried it could have been a misscramble - I was checking my scrambles but not really thoroughly. Fortunately the reconstruction showed scramble was right.

looking forward to this vid. u don't disappoint

This was so painful to wait for 😭😭

I scrambled for Zayn Khanani’s 1.02 WR Average, the delegate checked the scrambles before they were even sent out. It’s crazy what’s been happening recently

Very insightful. I'm sure this is something that can very easily be automated. A simple app that loads the scrambles, verifying the scrambled cube with the camera (three adjacent sides should be sufficient). Sure this takes extra time for the scrambling process, but as you said, this could be an extra step for more experienced/faster cubers (although this classification is subjective and will undoubtedly lead to more discussion).

0:37 im taking credit for this connection, i pointed it out in the livestream What you said at the end with the extra checks for top competitors, I think most of it is good. Actually the idea where both scramblers check is would be smart and relatively easy to implement. The thing is, where to draw the line for "top competitors" is very ambiguous. Should it be anyone who is a world record contender? Continental record contender? National record contender? Anyone who may podium in a major competition? Anyone in finals? How about local competitions? The point is, everyone always needs the same scrambles to ensure fairness. Whatever measures used for the highest level of competition must also be used for anyone else.

Thanks for all this new information that I didn’t know before! Thanks.

4:24 max park type scramble is very possibly what will get a sub-2 second solve with 12 tps in the future

I was scrambling a fair amount at the European Championships last summer and we had to write our ID numbers on the score card so that any problems with the scramble could be traced back to us. This is also the case for all the local comps I have been to in the past 5 years. I would be surprised if they weren't doing that at the SE Asian comps mentioned in the video. I think having another experienced competitor check scrambles for the top solvers might be a good idea. But if they are doing that then they might as well be scrambling instead of the more in-experienced scrambler. I have two suggestions: The WCA could introduce a rule which requires any scramblers for the fastest groups to have a minimum amount of experience scrambling or competing. Or if a scrambler is found to have deliberately mis-scrambled a puzzle then all their results from the competition are DNF'd or some other disiplinary action.

They should invent a robot for the WCA to do scrambles

Great research for this video

this is one of my favourite videos EVER! on the whole of RU-vid!

Wait... people who are part of speed cubing have specific scrambles done to their cubes before solving? That's... weird...although i guess it makes sense... but another question is, does the competitor themselves scramble it or an event personnel? if it's the event personnel how can it be at fault of the competitor? im confused.

Why not just have a 3rd party check the scramble before the attempt starts? Right before the cube is placed on the table. Each scramble could have a corresponding image set so that each side can be verified before the attempt starts.

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really good video thanks

It's super-frustrating. In Sydney recently, a guy got one of the best SQ-1 solves ever - around 4 seconds. But, of course, it was a misscramble and didn't count. I usually record my solves and I've found at least one misscramble, but only by one extra move at the end (possibly an accidental turn in the box). I DNF'd anyway as it was a blind solve, but it's annoying to have to sometimes do extra solves because someone messed up. I agree with extra checks for top cubers. In fact, maybe the scramble should also be checked under the box, to make sure no accidental turns occurred. Or you could have a cover that holds the cube in place or something.

Would it be possible to get one of the robots that have been custom designed to *solve* these cubes involved? I would imagine OSS could easily be developed that would scramble a cube to whatever config was desired. OSS would mean that the code could easily be verified by the community and accepted as valid with little to no issue.

If you set a cube in front of a camera with 3 sides viewable, some vision learning on a laptop and some code, could it detect 90% or 100% of miss scrambles? Heck maybe even doable in a phone app

I'm not a cuber but from an outside perspective, this just seems unprofessional and embarrassing for the cubing community. they should definitely need to fix it

At my last comp, One of the scramblers was intentionally scrambling randomly and not following the scramble. I got a extra because of it.

come on it's 2023, automate the scrambling by a machine

Excellent video. Thanks for explaining mis-scrambles. A second person should sign off on all scrambles. It would hardly add any time to the process.

6:32 hey that's me at the top

Sounds like there needs some software validation either through a picture with algorithm or small scramble devices on the table that will follow a shuffle input and just set it down and not let anyone touch it.

As you suggested at top skill levels to have two scramblers to verify, why not have two cubes both be scrambled and reference them to make sure they're in the same position before starting?

5:42 A friend pointed out to me that I was in this video. Didn’t notice until watching the video a second time. lol

as someone who has had a world record taken away due to a misscramble i 100 percent agree that there should be further action taken against this issue

It wouldn't be hard to have a computer display the sides of the cube to the judge and have the judge check the cube before presenting it to the competitor. If you had multiple redundancies, you could easily find misscrambles before they are given to the competitor. Another solution would be to create a program that takes the misscramble and checks to see if it's still a legal scramble. If it's off because of one minor move, the WCA should automatically just ignore it. One opposite move is not going to make that much of a difference even at the highest level. Obviously each puzzle should have their own tolerance for this, for example square one would be a lot different than 3x3. And finally we're not have like a a gan robot scramble all of the cubes? You don't need a Bluetooth cube to use something like the gan robot, and having a robot do the scramble means that it's probably going to be correct every single time.

It's really painful for Yiheng

print out the scramble and have it checked right before the solved.

RU-vid seems to recommend me the most random videos sometimes. So obviously I watch them cuz... Anyway I am amazed to learn that there is this serious of a competitive Rubik's Cube scene. Wow.

On miscrambles themselves: Most of the miscrambles go unnoticed. Yes, really. Because of survivorship bias, we only notice the ones that break records. Also, at least in my short organiser/delegate/competitor experience, the fastest groups are prone to having the most issues with misscrambles. Why? Because the most experienced scramblers are competing in this group. The remaining best scramblers tend to avoid scrambling duties because they want to watch how the fastest ones solve (this is not absolute everywhere, but that's my experience so far). What remains are usually nowhere near the top and thus, errors begin. Rule imposed double-checking the scramble before sending it out is a nice idea, but, considering the paragraph above, the second "more experienced" checker isn't as experienced as we would like. Usually, the scramble is checked with 2-4 sides matching, because checking more than 4 is really, redundant. Still, it takes time; even to check 2 sides optimally, you'll spend at least 2 seconds (look at screen, side A -> Look at cube, match side A, look at cube side B, look at screen, match side B), given that the cube is already in your hands. It might seem like not much, but if we did that for every finals scramble, it would quickly pile up and bottle-neck the whole processing of the competition. Although, I tried punching in numbers and it wasn't anything too bad. Still, finding an extra person from organisational perspective sounds like inconvenience at best. In my practice, top 3-5 competitors always receive double/triple checked scrambles, especially in the finals. Sometimes, we only allow the best scrambler of the group scramble for them. This is my and only my opinion: a misscramble is not fair scramble. period. All records (read: all results) should be achieved on fair scrambles. period. The standard (so far) proceeding is this: if scramble is found to be unfair while the competition is not over, it should be replaced with extra. If scramble is found to be unfair after the competition, the result is illegitimate, as it is not done on fair scramble and thus, it should be removed. Even considering one move misscramble that only affects AUF, it is slippery slope to allow it; because it's an arbitrary selection of how many moves and when applied to the scramble can be allowed and when not. This (as far as I know) goes against the spirit of WCA, which values fairness (check 11e3 regulation) over dubious results every time. My biggest condolences to the competitors that did everything right and got punished for errors of others. Again, disclaimer: this is my personal opinion and in no way representative of WCA's. But, given the fact that the punished top competitors showed being able to do it on almost-a-fair-scramble, it's only a question of time when they will do it on a fair scramble. The scrambler robot: logistics make it very unfeasable. It's not cheap, you have to store it somewhere, you have to transport it, you have to protect it from accidental damage. As a delegate/organiser I already have 1/3 of all my containers filled with comp equipment. The twisted corner advice: If you notice a twisted corner during your solve and you're sure you didn't twist it yourself, don't stop the timer and ask for delegate to come to you. Stopping the timer indicates that you've finished solving and twisted corner is not solved cube (duh), thus, you'll have harder time convincing the delegate to give you an extra instead of dnf. Meanwhile, if the timer is running, the incident isn't technically over AND you technically don't know if you have a bad result, which is indicative for a motive to purposely alter the puzzle to get an extra. I learned this from Von Bruchem myself, lol. You'll get extra 95% of the time, if not more. These are my 5 cents.

Im also concerned about corner twists during scrambles as there’s no way to check that.

Why cannot the whole community digitize the whole scramble process? The assigned scramble is sent via an app and after the scramble the faces of the cube get scanned by the phone's camera to check for the correctness. This shouldn't be hard to implement.

Great video here

I think that accidental misscrambles should be allowed. After all, it's still all up to randomness how the cube turns out.

For 1-2 move mistakes, you could just put an asterisk next to the time to notify that the solve might not have been 100% correct or whatever

A more immediate solution is to add a 'Misscramble' tag to the records list, so if there is a WR, it can still be up there, but viewers will need to decide for themselves whether this truly counts as a WR.

What was the motivation for deliberately creating the easy scrambles?

In my opinion once a record is set it should be held. Unless the can prove it was intentionally tampered with, to make it easier

Double (or even triple) checking scrambles, at least on national and worlds events would definetly be a good idea. Also, there could be some experience requirement for 1 or 2 of the people who check the scrambles, just to try to get rid of neglegent checking. I think there should also be a clear rule, that the inspection of the scramble should not be done by the one who scrambled the cube. Another option would be to set some requirements for people inspecting the scrambles. This would likely involve training, supervision etc. and it would end up being quite costly, but it's effectively the system in industries where mistakes can have serious consequenses. Probably overkill for cube community. My personal preference would be to build an official app, where you verify the scramble before handing the cube to a competitor. It would only need some way to identify which scrable is supposed to be used (could be done with a QR-code, or a system based on name, ID number or some other kind of identification), and then two pictures of the scramble (3 sides on each picture). Identifying colored squares on a grid isn't exactly a hard problem for a modern smartphone. Once the app has verified the scramble (pass/fail system), you'd still need 2 people to verify the result given by the app.

Is it so hard to check the cubes before giving them to the competitors.?

I like the star on the card idea a lot. . . they should implement that

It would be so simple to create an app that would show each face after the scramble. Require a second scrambler to verify and I don't see how non-malicious misscrambles still happen

i believe we should have machines do them and humans checking but that might be hard if cubes are of different sizes like a 53mm and 57mm 3x3

Might be time for Robots to be used for the high level comps. Or an App that can check with a camera if the scramble is right.

Why are misscrambles punished on the solver? And why are the solver banned from competition at a intentional misscramble? I mean, its not the solvers fault if the scrambler cheats in favor, and this could be used to eliminate competitors scramblers dont like. A idea would be this: If a misscramble is caught: If its for another solve - then just record the time for that solve. For example: If the 2nd solve is given the 3rd scramble, record the time as 3rd solve, and then intentionally give 2nd scramble for 3rd solve, and record 3rd solve in column for 2nd solve. If its a scramble for a already completed solve - record the best time for that solve, and award an extra solve. If other scramble, use a computer program to compute the MOST optimal solve for the intended scramble, and then count number of steps the solver took. If solver took fewer steps than optimal solution for intended scramble, take his time, and divide the time with his steps + 1. So if solver took 20 steps in 2.1 seconds, his "per step time" is 0.1 sec. (2.1 / (20 + 1)) Then add the difference in steps to his final time, so if optimal solution was 25 steps, he would finish with a time of 2.6 sec. This should compensate for the advantage the solver got due to the misscramble. If solver took equal or more steps than optimal solve for intended scramble, then just award time as-is with no modifications, since then solver clearly got no advantage.

i should say that they should develop scrambling robots like gan robot but one who can do scramble on a non smart cube

oh my days that is so sad

I feel bad for Yiheng

its the first time I heard about scrambling, but yeah, makes a lot of sense that something like this has to exist

Robots should be doing the scrambles, verifying the scrambles and boxing the scrambles in little paper boxes. Give each a 1-5 star difficulty rating or whatever. Maybe even have a printout of what the scramble should look like so both the competitor and the judge can verify before starting. If something as simple as placing the cube on the table wrong can be the difference between WR or not, then you can’t leave it up to chance.

Was the extra not the original scramble?How did rihan get a 6 sec when it was basically the same scramble

In the cases where misscrambles have been deliberate, do we know the motivation? Are the folks doing the tampering trying to help competitors by giving them an easy solve, or trying to get them disqualified?

A potential control could be to have two people scramble two cubes and make sure they match.

i think for averages like yiheng's he should get an extra for the last solve too because he didn't need a good time when he first did it

I think that problem could be solved with a cheap webcam, OpenCV, QRcodes, and like a few hundred lines of python.

as long you see 3 of the faces, it shouldn't be hard to have a program in a phone to check if the cube is in the right state after a following the scramble steps

Scrambling multiple cubes seems wiser than checking scrambling of one; unlikely to make the same mistake twice. Also delivering them to the table together; even if the tray falls, they're unlikely for all to get same errors. Different ppl can scramble different cubes of the set if you doubt intent as well as precision.

Love it!

man i dont get why it's so hard to scramble correctly

the live stream was historic

we need to have machines scramble the cubes.

This was sad af😭😭😭😭

If there's a problem of scramblers making misscrambles that are easier to solve on purpose, then the body that validates world records needs to have some lasting power over the scramblers. Either by payment structure, or by holding publishing rights to records they hold, or by publishing their names and giving them honour in the general community. If the body that validates or publishes world records doesn't have power over scramblers that lasts beyond the conclusion of these competitions, your problem is going to continue indefinitely.

Hopefully the “time base” will solve this

he said he'd do it he did it also was there for the live stream

how are they not using a robot scrambler?

Putting a hair in the cube would be very deadly for lockups.

its not possible that it was turned bringing it to the station because the cubed would have to turn 3 times

Huh I thought a verification system for the scrambles is already in place, considering the highly competitive nature of these competitions.

Feels like a machine should be doing the scrambling

My unscramble time is going on 40+ years.

As someone who only found this video by pure accident: The easiest solution would be an app on your phone. Take a picture (or more) and the app could check against the intended cube scramble.

how is there not machines to scramble?

Why not show an image on the computer of what the cube should look like at the end?

just put a checkbox on the site to include misscrambles or not :P

They could just use image recognition to verify every scramble

me living in vietnam and not knowing there's a cubing competition