CubingUSA Western Champs 2023

 

So last weekend was cubingUSA western champs 2023, its one ofthe like 8 regional competitions that happens around the country. 

https://cubingusa.org/regional

https://www.worldcubeassociation.org/competitions/CubingUSAWesternChampionship2023#general-info

and this year's westerns was in NorCal, Berkeley!! Very ideal. Last year's was in UCLA in socal and I couldn't go. 

There's not much else to talk about. I scouted out the skewb roster and it was pretty stacked, with stanley chapel, jack stewart, cameron miller being my main problem. My gameplan was basically to kinda go all out and try to get some good averages in final round.

But yea theres TONS OF famous people. Max Park, Max Siauw, Sameer Aggarwall, Tommy Cherry, Stanley Chapel, Graham Siggins, Elijah Brown. Rowe Hessler too but he didn't end up coming. That is SUPER EXCITING. This was my first ever big comp.

And I know I said there's not mnuch else to talk about lmao but I also was going to be staffing for this event which ended up making things SO FUN. Man this competition will be a memory. 

FRIDAY THINGS THAT HAPPENED

 - didn't go cuz itsall blind eventslmao

SATURDAY THINGS THAT HAPPENED - https://photos.app.goo.gl/iL96KqbzFQzgRW2r6

 - BART at like 6:30 AM to berkeley

 - I remember walking into pauley ballroom and seeing like max siauw like first thing and being like "OKAY???????!!!!" it just felt so random to see that guy walking around like a normal person lmao

 - but yea i picked up my staff shirt and there were three separate stages for this comp to make things run smoothly and overall the staff had things super organized

 - i spent the first day competing in 3x3, skewb, helping scramble for pyraminx and judging, running, doing TONS of staff events and things

 - We got free pizza for lunch and free chipotle catering for dinner which was so convenient. The chipotle catering was FIRE because there was guac. Dude taht chipotle catering made me so happy, that food was SO GOOD. You will see in the google photos

 - I also met up with Brandon Lin, a guy from binarysearch who is pretty cracked, also a CM on codeforces. My second person i met from binarysearch. Crazy! We took a photo that is in the album

SUNDAY THINGS THAT HAPPENED - https://photos.app.goo.gl/b5paqK9vZvvjmAGb8

 - BART at like 6:40 AM to berkeley with my sister cuz she was gonna do research at her lab or something

 - so for breakfast I ate this bar that CLEARLY had cashews in it, it literally said in the ingredients. But like one bit in I was likeOHNAH OH NAH OH NAH and man that ruined my entire morning.

 - to get to berkeley you have to switch trains on BART, and i needed to switch extra early because I NEEDED to throw up,so I got off and threw up in the bathroom, felt much better. But there was a second wave after my sister and I got back on the train and I walked to pauley ballroom. Same feeling, and i threw up, it was pretty painful and just traumatizing like always. I hate this allergy bro. EVERY GODD*MN TIME IT TRAUMATIZESME SO MUCH. Like, whenever I just think about that fruit bar, I just get so icky and i just feel so unpleasant. I can't describe it more than that. Everytime I think about that time i ate some indian cookie that defeinitely had treenuts in it, i get that same icky feeling. It just takes time to heal. MAN I AHTE THAT AHHHHHHHHH

- So yeah when I finally stepped in the venue like 2 hours late LMAO, I was just happy I was feeling good and I had all that out of my system. Iliterally was nothing but grateful that I was here lmao, I wasn't stressed that I had SKEWB FINALS in like a couple of hours at all.

 - Choked skewb finals, choked 3x3 with some mid averages. Idrc tho, i never had a chance. I will say that I WAS REALLY STRESSED during skewb finalslMAO, I was super stressed. Holy cow. I could've defintely executed many cases better, but that would've have elevated my average to podium rank, so it doesnt matter ig.

 - there was a max park cake to celebrate him breaking 3x3 WR which was fire

 - Other than that I just had a great time staffing and vibing. Talking with graham while we were on the same stage was pretty lit, and so was with seoungkim and tareef or i forgot their names lmao. These two days were just so long and we were with each other for so long, it felt like a full-time job or summer camp.

 - oh yea and max broke the 5x5 wr which was pretty hype cuz the crowd was mad screaming LMAO. So was 3x3 finals head to head.

 - Otehrthan that i dont remember much else other it than being the biggest, most memorable comp ive been to. Aside from that first SAC 2022 comp where I won skewb, probably.

Here were my results, its a pile of mid:

I did get rank 5 in round 2 skewb tho, ig that makes me a little happy. 

Some final closing thoughts that I didn't mention before: I love Tommy Cherry, he's such a wholesome guy and genuine guy through my limited times talking to him. Still crazy that I met so many world-class cubers, that's just the big comp experience. SO so many people flew out to go here, and I just took bart every morning and night. I'm very lucky for that, truly. I'm curious to see where Western Champs goes to be hosted next year.

Lyric(s) of the Post:

Miracle - Madeon