Montevideo en Llamas 2023

Inside the halls of Grupo Altavista Lab and Trend, the quiet concentration was broken only by the rhythmic clicking of puzzle mechanisms and the thud of hands hitting the timing mats. Competitors stood huddled over tables, inspecting complex scrambles under bright venue lighting before committing their solutions to memory. A field of 39 competitors assembled in Montevideo, Uruguay on December 3, 2023, ready to contest 10 separate events across 12 fast-paced rounds of play.

In the mean-of-three events, the margin for error vanished completely. Unlike the standard average format that discards a competitor's slowest solve, disciplines like 3x3x3 Blindfolded and 4x4x4 Blindfolded demand absolute precision across every attempt, where a single miscalculation turns an entire round into a DNF. Nicolas Campanario handled that pressure masterfully, securing victory in 3x3x3 Blindfolded with a winning average of 22.65 and a best single solve of 21.18, ahead of Christian Goñi with 49.26 and Sebastiano Benato with 2:01.24.

The unforgiving nature of blindfolded solving was even more apparent in the 4x4x4 Blindfolded contest, where Nicolas Campanario captured the title behind a winning single of 4:01.84 despite an incomplete average. Bruno Lezama followed in second place with a single of 5:00.94 in the two-person field. Lezama had his own triumph in the endurance test of 3x3x3 Multi-Blind, where memorising numerous puzzles at once is required, finishing first by successfully solving 15 of 18 cubes in a time of 57:56 over Christian Goñi and Sofía Rojo.

The premier 3x3x3 Cube event drew a large lineup of 37 entrants across two rounds of intense speedcubing. When the final 3x3 results were tallied at Montevideo en Llamas 2023, Agustín Diano claimed the championship by posting a sub-ten winning average of 9.97 to go along with a best single of 8.67. Brian Hambeck finished as the runner-up with a 10.39 average, edging Bruno Lezama who took third on the podium with a 10.40 mark in a tight finish.

Away from the top steps of the podium, several competitors delivered massive leaps forward in their official times. Ismael Pereira made a huge splash by cutting his 2x2x2 Cube personal best down to 4.59 seconds, an improvement of 47.4 percent over his previous mark, while also setting a 3x3x3 Cube best of 20.99. Leonardo Andrés Castiglioni Armstrong improved his Pyraminx personal record by 44.8 percent to 15.57 seconds and dropped his 3x3x3 mark by 38.3 percent to 39.16. Cristian Marquicio shaved 28.4 percent off his classic Rubik's Cube best to finish at 13.96 seconds, while German Echeverría dropped his Pyraminx best by 35.6 percent to 13.03 seconds and notched a 7.83 in 2x2x2 Cube.

First-time attempts and official debuts added further energy to this WCA competition. Alan Arballo entered his first WCA competition, taking on three events and securing a tenth-place finish in 2x2x2 Cube with a 4.93 single. Juan Pablo Chans also made his debut appearance at Montevideo en Llamas 2023, claiming ninth in Pyraminx with a 6.27 single. Lihuén Constantino registered their first official attempts in both 2x2x2 Cube with a 6.42 single and Skewb with a 7.62, while Joaquín Volpi Yemini took on Square-1 for the first time to record a 43.65 single on his way to an eighth-place finish.

Across the side events, Bruno Lezama put together an exceptional day of speed cubing, adding multiple tournament victories to his record. Lezama won the 2x2x2 Cube event with a 2.83 winning average and a 2.51 single, finished atop the Skewb standings with an average of 3.68 and a single of 2.03, and claimed the Square-1 title with a 14.42 average. In total, the host nation earned 22 podium positions across the tournament, alongside five for Argentina and two for Venezuela.

The single-round events rounded out the busy schedule of this cubing competition with tight finishes on the leaderboards. Brian Hambeck won the twelve-competitor Megaminx event with a 45.76 average, while Sebastiano Benato took the Pyraminx crown with a 3.01 average over Hambeck's 3.27 and Mateo de León's 3.67. In Clock, Mateo de León led the pack with a 5.02 winning average and a 4.01 single, holding off Santiago Cabral and Xabier Monsalve. As Montevideo en Llamas 2023 concluded its full day of action, the year 2023 closed with memorable performances across every puzzle format.