Solving a Rubik’s Cube is not difficult.

Anyone with an Internet connection can watch a beginner tutorial and learn how to solve one in half an hour.

Getting faster, however, requires practice.

“Lots and lots of practice,” says 19-year-old Theodore Chow, a third-year engineering physics student at the University of Alberta who is considered the fastest “cuber” in the province.

Chow spends about two hours a day doing solves. He carries a cube everywhere he goes. He solves as he waits for the bus and as he walks down the street. He averages between 10 and 11 seconds per solve at competitions and is part of a growing community of mostly male cubers in Alberta who are passionate about shaving seconds off their times.

On Saturday he’s expected to win both the traditional 3x3 event and the 3x3 one-handed event at Edmonton’s second official speedcubing competition.

But for Chow, who carries extra cubes to give away wherever he goes, the competition is as much about bonding over a shared hobby as it is about improving his world ranking.

Most of the 56 people registered for this year’s competition aren’t in it to win, he says. Though Edmonton-area cubers talk online and meet up occasionally at the Southgate Centre food court, the competitions are the big events that bring everyone together.

Chow first picked up cubing in junior high because it was popular at Grandview Heights School. Three years ago, during a trip to visit relatives in Hong Kong, he entered his first official competition in Guangdong. Competition was fierce; he didn’t even make the second round.

Eventually he formed a Facebook group with other cubers in Alberta and they worked toward organizing local competitions. (At the time, the closest competition for Albertans was in Vancouver.)

Through cubing he met Alex Mutch, an 18-year-old biology student at MacEwan University. Mutch has become a close friend and calls himself Chow’s “right hand man.”

World Cube Association regulations, which span 10,000 words and include a chapter on “solving with feet,” state that competitors must bring their own puzzles to competitions.

Chow will bring five to 10 cubes to the competition this weekend. His personal collection contains about 200.

Mutch, who customizes the stickers on his cubes because he is colour-blind, will likely bring more, because he competes in every event the competition offers.

Neither will compete using any from the Rubik’s brand, which is shunned by cubers.

“Nobody uses Rubik’s,” Chow says, mostly because the traditional cubes lock up when you turn them quickly. Faster cubes are available online, but due to their design, their plastic components — called cubies — sometimes pop out in the middle of competition.

“It happens,” Chow says.

The Edmonton Open runs 8:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Saturday at Malmo Community Hall, 11525 48th Ave.

mcummings@edmontonjournal.com

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