Asians v French at Rubik's Cube Games

By Harry de Quetteville in Budapest

Three decades after it emerged from behind the Iron Curtain to become one of the planet’s favourite toys, devotees of the Rubik’s Cube have gathered in the town of its birth to find the fastest fingers in the world.
Rubiks Cube convention in Budapest

In a display of mental and manual dexterity to shame the most hardened modern video gamer, the old-school charms of the Rubik’s Cube are back on parade in Budapest.

It was here in 1974 that Erno Rubik first invented the colourful cube, whose simple premise –­ to match the colours on each face – belied its fiendish complexity.

Such was the popularity of the game that a world championships was held in 1982 to find the fastest solver of the puzzle.

Now, to mark the 25th anniversary of the inaugural Rubik’s Cube Games, hundreds of the world’s best players are convening to slug it out once more.

In the lobby of a hotel on the fringes of Budapest, a blur of fingers and the rhythmic clicks and whirs of well-oiled cubes mark out the seriousness of the competition.

Stefan Pochmann, 30, from Germany, uses a scalpel to pare down the connectors on his cube “so it doesn’t lock up.”

“On a competition cube you use silicon spray to lubricate the joints,” added Tommy Gustavsson, 42, from Sweden.

Women and girls are few and far between in such company.

One is Annica Molin, 23, also from Sweden, who declares that the cube’s geek factor is part of its appeal.

“Not everybody can solve it so this is like a club, a nerdy club, and mostly a boys’ club.”

As in most clubs, however, competition is fierce at the top level.

At the 1982 championships, the winning time was 22 seconds.

Though at least 50 moves are required to solve the average cube, that time is today considered almost glacially slow.

In one corner of the hotel, practising together are a group of Asian boys ­– mostly from Japan and all under 18 – who are the top athletes in their chosen sport.

The best of them can now solve the cube in the same time it takes the Olympic Champion to run 100 metres ­under 10 seconds.

They will provide some of the stiffest competition over the three days of the World Championships, which end on Sunday with a prize ceremony to feature Mr Rubik himself.

The other favourites are three French boys, including 19 year old master Thibault Jacquinot, who currently holds the world speed record at 9.86 seconds.

“It’s the Asians against the French,” said Harris Chan, the Canadian champion who was sponsored to fly to Hungary and compete in Budapest.

Despite the competition from other forms of entertainment such as video games, sales of the Rubik’s cube remain staggering.

Ten million will be sold this year, according to Chrisi Trussel, from Rubik’s.

“Mums and Dads are looking for something a little cerebral,” she said.

“It’s something they’re keen to promote.”

The championships, which started today, will see players compete to solve outsized Rubik’s cubes, solve the cube one-handed, or blind-folded ­ after memorizing the positions of the coloured squares.

The record holder for blind-folded play solved eight cubes from memory.

But the blue riband event remain the sprint to finish the original, classic cube.

For Mr Rubik, a notably shy 64 year-old architect however, other interests are now more important.

“He likes doing up buildings,” said Ms Trussel. “But what he really loves these days is cacti. He’s got a huge greenhouse full of them.”