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Your first WCA competition: what actually happens on the day

Guide · about 8 minutes

Almost everything that makes a first competition stressful comes from not knowing the shape of the day. The cubing part you already know how to do. This is the rest of it.

Before you go

You register online, in advance, through the competition's page on the World Cube Association website. Competitions have a competitor limit and popular ones fill in minutes, so registration closing is a real deadline rather than a formality. Most charge a small fee, and most require you to pay before your spot is confirmed — registering without paying is the single most common way people find themselves on the waiting list.

When you register you pick your events. Pick fewer than you want to. A first competition is long, tiring, and much more absorbing than you expect, and there is no prize for entering seven events and being exhausted by the third.

Bring: your puzzles, spare puzzles if you have them, lube if you use it, a water bottle, something to eat, and a phone charger. Do not bring a puzzle you have not used in weeks and expect it to feel right on the day.

Arriving and registration

Get there for the stated check-in time, not the start time. Registration is a desk where you confirm you are present and collect a competitor badge — usually a lanyard with your name, your WCA ID if you have one, and your events listed on the back.

Wear it. The badge is how organisers know who you are when they call your name, and at larger competitions you will be asked for it before you are allowed to compete.

There is normally a newcomer briefing near the start of the day. Go to it, even if you have read the regulations. It is where they explain the venue's specific arrangements — where the stage is, how the calls work, where to wait — and those are the details that actually trip people up.

The rhythm of the day

A competition runs on a schedule of rounds, and each round is split into groups. You are assigned to a group, and your group has a time. Between your groups, you wait.

This surprises first-timers more than anything else: a competition is mostly waiting, punctuated by about ninety seconds of intense activity. You will spend six hours at a venue and spend perhaps ten minutes actually solving. Bring something to do, and talk to people — the community is the best part of the day and everyone there is interested in exactly the same thing you are.

Being called up

When your group is called, you bring your puzzle to the designated area and hand it over. It goes into a bag or a cover, and a scrambler scrambles it out of your sight using a scramble generated in advance. You do not see the scramble until you sit down.

You will be directed to a solving station: a judge, a Stackmat timer, a display, and a chair. The judge is another competitor — everybody judges. They are not there to catch you out.

The solve itself

Here is the sequence, in order:

1. You sit down. The puzzle is on the mat under a cover.
2. When you are ready, you tell the judge, and they lift the cover. Inspection starts the moment the cover comes off.
3. You have strictly less than 15 seconds to inspect. You may pick the puzzle up and turn it in your hands, but you may not apply a turn to it.
4. The judge calls "8 seconds" and "12 seconds" out loud as those points pass.
5. You put the puzzle back on the mat, place both hands flat on the timer pads, wait for the green light, and lift off to start.
6. You solve. When you are done, you release the puzzle and stop the timer with both hands.
7. The judge inspects the puzzle, then writes your time on the scorecard.
8. You check the time and sign the scorecard. So does the judge.

Two penalties matter at a first competition. If you start the solve after 15 seconds of inspection but before 17, you get +2 seconds. If you have not started by 17 seconds, the attempt is a DNF. The other common +2 is finishing with a face misaligned by more than 45 degrees — one turn away from solved. More than one turn away is a DNF.

Read the regulations guide for the full picture, including how a DNF affects your result differently depending on the event.

Signing the scorecard

This is the part first-timers skip, and it is the one that costs people results.

The scorecard is the official record. If the judge writes 14.32 and you actually got 13.42, the recorded time is 14.32 unless you say something before you sign. Once you have signed, you have agreed the times are correct, and there is very little anyone can do afterwards.

So: read it. Every attempt, every time. It takes three seconds and it is the only moment in the day where you have any power over the outcome. If something is wrong, say so immediately and calmly — the judge will call over a delegate, and it will be sorted out.

Judging

At some point you will be asked to judge, and you should say yes. Competitions run on competitors volunteering; a competition where nobody judges does not happen.

Judging is simple. You sit with a competitor, lift the cover when they are ready, start the inspection count in your head, call "8 seconds" and "12 seconds", watch that they start the timer correctly, and check the puzzle at the end. Then you write the time and both of you sign.

The thing to know: if you are unsure about anything — a penalty, a misalignment, a timer that behaved oddly — raise your hand and ask a delegate. That is the correct answer to every judging question you do not know. Nobody expects a first-time judge to adjudicate an edge case.

Judging is also the fastest way to stop being nervous. Watching twenty people sit down and solve, some of them badly, makes the whole thing feel much less like a test.

What newcomers actually get wrong

• Turning the puzzle during inspection. You may hold it and rotate it. You may not turn a face. This is an automatic penalty and it is easy to do without noticing.
• Starting the timer badly. Both hands flat, wait for green, then lift. Rushing this causes a false start, and a false start costs you far more than the second you saved.
• Signing without reading. See above.
• Entering too many events. Six events on your first day means you will be tired and rushing by the afternoon.
• Not eating. Competitions run long and venues are often nowhere near food. Bring some.
• Expecting your home average. It will be slower. This is universal, it is not a sign you are bad at cubing, and it improves the second time.

The result

Most speed events use an average of five: you get five attempts, the best and the worst are dropped, and the middle three are averaged. This means one disaster does not ruin your average — one DNF gets dropped as your worst attempt and the average still counts. Two DNFs and it does not.

The bigger events, 6x6x6 and 7x7x7, use a mean of three, where all three attempts count and nothing is dropped. There, a single DNF ends your mean.

Results are uploaded to the WCA site within a few weeks, and at that point you have a WCA ID and a profile page that will follow you for the rest of your cubing life.

How to prepare for the parts you cannot practise at home

You can practise solving. What you cannot easily practise is the specific combination of an enforced inspection, five attempts that all count, a result you cannot restart, and a room full of noise — which is precisely the combination that makes people slower on the day.

That is what the competition simulator is for. Pick the competition you are actually going to, and it will pull the real event list and round format, generate competition-legal scrambles, enforce the 15-second inspection with the 8- and 12-second calls, and score the round under WCA rules. It will not let you restart a bad attempt, which is the entire point.

Do a few full rounds before the day. The first time you sit down at a real competition should not be the first time you have experienced five attempts that count.