By: Tom Parks

Published August, 1982 – Rubik’s Cube Newsletter by Ideal Toy Corp

Masters of the Cube from 19 countries contended for the title in the first ever Rubik’s Cube World Championships on June 5, 1982, in Budapest, Hungary. Each was a national champion selected to represent his country based on a winning time in his country’s National Rubik’s Cube Championships.

The setting was the magnificent Vigado Concert Hall on the banks of the River Danube in Budapest, which is one of the most beautiful buildings in Hungary, home of Erno Rubik, inventor of the incredible Cube puzzle that bears his name.

A crowd of over 600 spectators, including ambassadors and diplomats, filled the antique hall, along with batteries of television cameras and lights. NBC Sports taped the event and it will be broadcast on U.S. television in the near future.

The panel of distinguished judges presided at the event, among them Erno Rubik and Dr. David Singmaster of England.

Contestants were flown into Budapest on Thursday for the main event on Saturday.

The American Embassy had a welcoming reception for all contestants and their parties.

On Friday, Hungarian officials took the contestants on a tour of beautiful Budapest. Many Cubists remarked on the high level of hospitality and courtesy shown by the Hungarians.

On that same day, a practice session was held in the Vigado. The official World Championship rules were reviewed and discussed. (See the complete rules reprinted elsewhere in this issue.)

Speed records from the 19 National Championships that led to this international event were as low as 19 seconds. So before the competition began, there were several contestants generally regarded as favorites, Minh Thai not among them.

They were Canada’s Duc Trinh, 14 years old and a student, whose winning National Championship time was 26.00 seconds; France’s Jerome Jean-Charles, a 26-year old journalist, 25.60 seconds; Sweden’s Lars Petrus, a 21-year old student, 24.00 seconds; and West Germany’s Ronald Brinkmann, 17 and a student. Brinkmann’s 19-second time tied with Finland’s Jari Sandqvist, a 21-year old advertising representative, with the best national speed record of all contestants.

But the true test of the World’s Fastest Cubists is an international event, a head-to-head competition with intense pressure under the watchful supervision of an international body of judges.

And though America’s Minh Thai, a 16-year old high school student whose

26.06-second time won our National Championships, was not considered a favorite, he proved to be the best when the heat was on.

The competition began on Saturday. A drawing was held before the first of the three rounds of competition to determine the contestants’ order of performance.

Thereafter, the contestants’ times in the previous round would determine the order of competition in the following round, the Cubist with the best time performing last.

Each round was preceded by a 15-second study time, half that allowed in U.S.

Cube-A-Thons, though this proved no handicap to Minh Thai.

Olympic-standard digital timers were used to record times. Throughout the entire event, a high level or organization and professionalism prevailed.

At the end of Round One, Holland’s Guus Razoux Schultz, 17, led with a 24.32-second time, followed by Hungary’s Zoltan Labas, 26, at 24.49 seconds, and Americas Minh Thai at 27.16 seconds.

In Round Two, Minh put on an amazing performance and was clocked at his winning 22.95-second time, followed in the final standings by Holland’s Schultz at 24.32 and Hungary’s Labas at 24.49.

Minh was utterly calm and collected throughout, even dozing briefly during the long break between Rounds Two and Three.

In the final round, no contestant posed a serious threat to Minh’s leading time, and he became the first World Champion and earned the title of “World’s Fastest Cubist.”

THE EDITOR’S CUBIE

EXCITING!

Exciting is hardly the word for it! So much is happening in the brand-new world of Rubik’s Cube that we are having trouble containing all the Cube news in this eight-page quarterly.

The biggest story of all is, of course, the World Championships. You’ll find out all about it elsewhere in this issue. Congratulations, Minh Thai, for bringing the world title home to America!

We are very happy that the long-awaited Rubik’s Revenge has arrived on the market and is even better than anticipated. My local Cube Club had one of its most interesting meetings after the members had spent a week with the 4 × 4 Cube.

I was very happy to solve it at all and was proud of my personal record time of slightly under eight minutes. I was amazed when several club members demonstrated that they could consistently solve Revenge in less than three minutes. I hesitate even to guess at the potential record time for this puzzle.

The competition format for Rubik’s Revenge is currently in the planning stage. This gives you plenty of time to become familiar with the puzzle and to prepare for competition.

Our Second Annual Rubik’s Cube-A-Thon format is almost ready. We will again be looking for the World’s Fastest Cubist and we will be holding qualifying contests in many more cities than we did last year. Watch for full details in our Fall issue.

Rubik’s Cube Clinics are now in progress. Watch for them in your area. This is your opportunity to meet the Cube Champs and to see the entire line of Rubik’s Puzzles in action. You will also be able to find out about future Cube-A-Thons in your area.

In addition to the contests sponsored by Ideal, many organizations, including shopping malls, charities, park and recreation departments and radio stations are hosting Rubik’s Cube Contests.

We would like to keep our readers informed about these contests. If your organization is sponsoring a Rubik’s Cube Competition, please send us information on the contest in advance, as well as the results (including photos). We will try to report on as many of these as possible in upcoming issues.

As more and more organizations sponsor Rubik’s Cube competitions, we may be able to set up a “Cubist’s Tour” in the near future. This would be similar to the present tournaments at the top levels of professional golf, tennis and bowling. You might think this sounds far-fetched, but look how far Cubing has progressed from its inception to its first World Champion-ships, in far less than a decade.

Just think, we owe all of this to a professor of architecture who devised a novel way to aid his students in understanding three-dimensional objects. Thank you so much, Dr. Rubik!