Cal Poly SLO Winter 2023

The morning light poured across the tables at California Polytechnic State University, SLO, as competitors converged on San Luis Obispo, California, USA, on February 25, 2023. Bags were unzipped to reveal mats, timers, and carefully lubricated puzzles, with participants having travelled along the Central Coast and beyond to test their skills under official tournament conditions. Cal Poly SLO Winter 2023 gathered 41 competitors eager to take on a slate of 5 events stretched across 10 rounds of rigorous head-to-head play.

The 2023 speedcubing calendar featured plenty of ambition, and this official WCA competition gave entrants an ideal platform to benchmark their speed. Across a single dense day of speed cubing action, the main arena accommodated everything from lightning-quick rotational challenges to complex multi-layered puzzles. The atmosphere inside the venue captured the focused intensity unique to a live cubing competition, where split seconds dictate positions on the final leaderboard and every turn carries weight.

At the summit of the classic Rubik's Cube event, Paul Mahvi delivered a dominant showcase across three rounds of play. In the final stage of 3x3x3 Cube, Mahvi recorded a winning average of 8.21 seconds, backed by a best single solve of 7.20. Dan Tran secured the runner-up position with a 9.10 average, while Nipun Das rounded out the podium in third place at 9.50. The standard of the 3x3 results proved remarkably high across the entire 41-person field.

Beyond the standard puzzle, the weekend featured an impressive demonstration of endurance on the massive 7x7x7 Cube. Over two rounds featuring 12 competitors, Paul Mahvi topped the field once again, registering a winning average of 2:24.68 alongside an event-best single of 2:19.62. Dan Tran followed closely in second place with an average of 2:34.06, while Jack Flynn Stewart claimed the third spot on the podium with a time of 4:24.82.

Mahvi added a third gold to his collection in the 3x3x3 Blindfolded discipline, where memorisation and execution collide. Out of 7 competitors across a single high-stakes round, Mahvi posted a winning single of 2:13.50, despite concluding with an average of DNF. Jack Flynn Stewart earned second place with a time of 3:02.21, and Taylor Conolley captured third place by locking in a single of 5:56.43 without sight of the puzzle.

The fast-turning Skewb and Square-1 brackets produced intense battles of their own. In Skewb, Wilson Xie clinched victory with a blistering 3.90 winning average and a single of 3.34 across two rounds of 22 competitors, edging out Jack Flynn Stewart at 3.99 and Paul Mahvi at 4.41. Meanwhile, Calvin Nielson commanded the Square-1 event, producing a winning average of 8.85 and a top single of 7.43 to finish ahead of Stewart at 12.16 and Tran at 14.24.

Beneath the top podium places, the competition saw tremendous breakthroughs from dedicated entrants across the roster. Robert Charles Bakalian delivered one of the weekend highlights by lowering their 3x3x3 Cube personal best to 28.06 seconds, an improvement of 49.9 percent compared to their previous mark of 55.98. Spursh Deshpande took on 5 events, cutting their Skewb personal best by 44.2 percent down to 5.84 seconds and finishing 4th in 3x3x3 Blindfolded. Sophie Jose dropped their 3x3x3 Cube personal best to 38.08, shaving 27 percent off their earlier mark, while also recording a first ever attempt at Skewb with a 15.12.

Fresh milestones continued throughout the arena as Brandon True entered 4 events, taking 5th in 7x7x7 Cube while logging first attempts in Skewb at 7.16, 7x7x7 Cube at 4:31.24, and Square-1 at 19.91. Sean Huffman secured 4th in Skewb, posted a first ever 7x7x7 Cube attempt of 7:37.12, improved their 3x3x3 Cube best to 9.99, and lowered their Skewb mark to 4.69. Gabriel Sanchez-Rivera finished 6th in 7x7x7 Cube with a first attempt of 5:29.04 while dropping their 3x3x3 Cube mark to 9.75. Additionally, Ian Arreaza completed their first WCA competition across 3 events with marks of 20.54 on 3x3x3 Cube, 11.89 on Skewb, and 55.54 on Square-1, while Ian Kemlo made their debut with attempts of 29.19 on 3x3x3 Cube and 24.01 on Skewb.

Altogether, competitors representing the USA accounted for all 15 podium places across the five disciplines contested throughout the schedule. As the tables were packed away at Cal Poly SLO Winter 2023, the journey home gave every solver an opportunity to reflect on their milestones, personal records, and technical execution, setting the stage for another memorable season of competition.