Xuanyi Geng at Beijing Winter 2026, with his current WR-securing 3.37 solve.

Welcome back to SD’s weekly preview of the weekend’s biggest events! After an eventful slate of competitions last weekend (where nothing controversial at all happened), this weekend’s action takes us through a couple of US comps, although we can’t forget about the elephant in the room happening in China this weekend…

Xuzhou Zenith

By now, you’ve heard about the ongoing situation between Yiheng and Xuanyi (and their respective families) due to alleged unfairness in the H2H round of last weekend’s competition in Xi’an. If you haven’t, save space for the rest of us beneath the rock you live under.

Although both are registered for Xuzhou Zenith, both have committed to boycotting all future H2H events indefinitely. This event features another H2H final in 3x3, so it remains to be seen what both competitors end up doing when that time comes.

If they drop out of 3x3, that opens the door for a slew of competitors to take the win this weekend, led by Qixian Cao. Other names to look out for: Bofan Zhang, Lingkun Jiang, and Yi Shen.

Whatever happens this weekend, you can be sure that it’ll have everyone talking.

Nebraska Championship

Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s bring our attention to this state championship in southeast Nebraska. Even if there aren’t a lot of marquee names competing at this event (except SCTV’s own Manu Singhal!), there’s still a lot to be invested in, especially when a state title is on the line.

Anton Angeletti is the favorite to win the 3x3 event, being ranked over 500 places ahead of the next highest-ranked competitor, Jayben Keene. But don’t be fooled: Keene’s PR is less than four-tenths of a second behind Angeletti’s, so an upset could very well happen.

If you’re not into speed, this event also features two top-100 FMC solvers in Alexander Wheeler and Walker Welch; the latter finds himself as a high seed in multiple events at this competition.

Collegiate Cubing Championship Playoffs

We also wanted to give a shout-out to the ongoing CCC playoffs, which you can view on their YouTube channel. For the uninformed, CCC is a college cubing league with 32 teams, and its playoff bracket features the top 14 teams (with the #1 and #2 seeds receiving first-round byes) battling it out to see who’ll come out on top.

Although there are a lot of big names to watch out for, there’s one in particular who stands out: Matty Hiroto Inaba, who has led Columbia to a respectable 5th seed in the tournament. He’ll need to keep up his league-leading averages and provide valuable advice for his teammates if Columbia wants to have a chance to win it all, however.

The favorite among the pack, however, is UC Berkeley, who remain the only team in the tournament to not lose a single set. With a lineup of Ethan Jan, Heidi Chan, and Zane Qureshi, this team seems poised to win it all, but how long can they keep their undefeated streak up?

I recently got Dylan Miller, one of the top solvers in NA, a free one time session with a sports psychology coach who usually works with soccer players. During their session, the coach dropped a truth bomb that didn’t just apply to Dylan’s solves; it applied to the entire DNA of speedcubing.

He told Dylan: “You think you’ll start practicing like an elite solver once you hit elite times. But in reality, you have to practice like the elite version of yourself now if you ever want to become him.”

That is the missing link in our community. We are waiting for the “Sport” to arrive before we start acting like “Athletes.”

The Chess Standard

Let’s be honest: At its core, Chess is just moving pieces of plastic across a board. Structurally, it isn’t that much different from a casual game of Dungeons & Dragons. So why does the world treat Chess as a high intellectual pursuit and D&D as a basement hobby?

Because Chess players took themselves seriously first.

Chess has the suits. It has the grandmaster titles. It has the post match press conferences where every move is ridiculed. Because they believed what they were doing was a prestigious sport, the world eventually agreed with them. They didn’t wait for Luxury Watches to show up and sponsor; they built a house worth sponsoring.

Why I Started Doing Press Conferences

When we launched the press conferences on the SpeedcubingTV channel, some people probably thought it was overkill. “Why are we interviewing Dylan and Asher about PSL Orgeon? We aren’t the NBA.”

But that’s exactly the point.

We don’t have a room full of 50 media members yet. But if we don’t start doing the press conferences now—if we don’t force the competitors to articulate their strategy, their nerves, and their rivalries—we will never create the infrastructure that requires 50 media members.

The media and the prestige don’t show up overnight. It is something we have to cultivate and manifest.

Taking the Extra Mile

If we want the world to take us seriously, we have to stop being embarrassed by how much we care. We have to lean into the prestige. We have to treat a 3.84-second average with the same reverence the world treats a 100m sprint record.

We aren’t a hobby anymore. We are those guys. We are that sport. We just have to start acting like it.

The World Cube Association is finally flirting with Head-to-Head (H2H) formats, and I’m absolutely stoked for it. Seeing two cubers fire off on the same scramble is a massive step up from the “blind” average of five where you’re basically just racing a database.

But if we want to turn speedcubing into a true elite broadcast sport, we have to talk about the PSL Waiting Chair.

The “Same Dartboard” Problem

Look at the Professional Darts Corporation (PDC). Technically, you could have two players on two different boards in two different rooms and just compare their scores at the end. It would be “fair.” It would be “clean.”

It would also be incredibly boring.

Darts works because of the physical interaction. One player throws, then they have to walk past their opponent to get back to the table. In that three second walk, they aren’t just competing against the board; they are competing against a human being who just put a 180 in front of them. You see the “clutch” happen in real-time.

Cubing’s Parallel Universe Problem

In a standard WCA final, or even the current H2H iterations where both solvers go at once, a cuber can successfully hide from their opponent and the pressure. You put the noise canceling headphones on, you stare at the timer, and you stay in your own zone. You are competing against the scramble, not the person.

The Premier Speedcubing League format—where one solver goes, hits the timer, walks to the waiting chair, and the next solver immediately steps up—destroys that safety net.

When you have to stand up because your opponent just dropped a sub-5, you aren’t just solving a cube. You are absorbing their pressure. You are forced to acknowledge that if they messed up, the door is open for you—and if they popped off, you have to lock in.

Golf, Scrambles, and the Human Variable

When golf started, it was about the course. But eventually, the course stays the same while the players get better. The “beat the course” narrative only goes so far. The real drama is: Can you beat the guy standing next to you on the 18th green when he just drained a 30-footer?

Cubing has reached that point. The scrambles are the “course,” and our top elites are starting to “solve the course” with consistency. The only variable left that actually creates a story is human pressure.

The Culture Shift

We need to get away from the idea that cubing should be a sterile, protected environment. Elite sports aren’t built on database solves, they are built on body language. We care when Dylan is singing “Goodbye Horses” or if he’s somber in the corner. We have to test the ability to look another human in the eye, watch them crush a solve, and then step up and do it better.

Big time solvers, make big time solves, in big time situations—we need more of that.

At the recent DFW Spring competition, the first WCA-sanctioned Head-to-Head (H2H) event in the U.S., we saw a glimpse of the future, but we also saw the antics of our past.

Ryan Pilat found himself in a third-place match. He was the faster solver; he had the match in the bag. Up 2-0 in set 2, he could have closed it out in minutes. Instead, he did something that set the community in bit of a stir: he started throwing solves. If he didn’t like the look of a scramble, he’d essentially wait for his opponent to be done to stop the attempt, forcing the match into extra sets.

Why? Because Ryan realized that more sets meant more scrambles. More scrambles meant a higher statistical probability of hitting a lucky PR. He farmed the match for a low 4-second single, got it on his WCA profile, and then finally decided to win.

Some call it disrespectful, but it’s the rational option in the the current system.

The Database vs. The Opponent

The reality of speedcubing right now is that our “Holy Grail” isn’t a trophy; it’s a row of numbers on a website.

In every other major sport, the win is the only thing that matters. A quarterback doesn’t intentionally take sacks to prolong a game just so he can try to throw a 70-yard touchdown for his stats. Why? Because the stakes of winning the game are 100x more valuable than the individual stat.

In cubing, we have the opposite problem. At a local event like DFW Spring, winning third place gives you... what? A plastic medal and a handshake? But a sub-4 single? That stays on your global profile forever. It boosts your status.

Ryan Pilat didn’t play the opponent; he played the database.

The Golf Evolution

Think about the history of golf. It started as “Man vs. Course.” Everyone wanted their personal best on a specific 18-hole stretch. But golf didn’t become a global powerhouse until it became “Man vs. Man.” The Masters isn’t about who has the best lifetime average; it’s about who can clutch up against the guy in the green jacket standing next to them.

Speedcubing is currently stuck in the “Man vs. Course” phase. We view the scrambles as the course and the WCA database as our scoreboard. Until the win carries more weight than the PR, we will continue to see “stat-padding” like we saw at DFW.

Shifting the Stakes

I don’t blame Ryan. In a system with no stakes, he made the most rational choice for his career. If the WCA YouTube channel is going to give him more screen time for farming a 4-second solve than for a 3-0 sweep, he’s going to take the 4-second solve every time.

To fix this, we need a massive mentality shift, and that only comes through structure:

We need to move toward a world where a regional championship title is worth more than a lucky 3-second single.

The Turning Point

The DFW Spring incident was a wake up call. It proved that H2H is the right direction, but it also proved that H2H without stakes is just a PR farm.

If we want the world to take us seriously as a sport, we have to stop caring about our personal bests on “one course” and start caring about who we can beat when the lights are on and the sets are tied. Ryan Pilat showed us exactly where the crack in the system is. Now, it’s up to us to build a system where the win is the only PR that matters.

Yiheng Wang at the WCA World Championship 2025.

Spring has officially sprung here in the States, and it’s time once again to look at the week’s hottest competitions springing up across the world. After an eventful last weekend, things only seem to be getting even crazier, and our previews of this weekend’s event begin with what’s sure to be the most impactful of this weekend’s slate.

Beijing Spring Open

Of course, we have to start with this absolute monster of a comp happening on Saturday. Sure, there are other events to look out for within this year’s edition of Beijing Spring Open, but don’t be fooled: this is a 3x3 showdown.

Yiheng. Xuanyi. Qixian. Yufang.

Keep your eyes on this one. If any event has a shot at breaking records and generating insane results, it’s this one. (Also check out the follow-up comp featuring many of the same competitors the next day: Yancheng Spring Open.)

DFW Cubing Spring

Arguably as well-balanced a competition as you’ll see this weekend in terms of the quality of solvers between events, this event marks the debut of head-to-head finals in North America! This event also marks the first time that all four eligible H2H events will have H2H finals.

Ryan Pilat leads the 3x3 competitors with a PR average of 5.44. Expect Pilat to show up on the podiums often in this event: he finds himself in the top-3 of five of the seven events in this comp.

Pilat will find himself in a tough matchup with Ray Bai in the 4x4 event, while Bai will face a showdown with Tyler Gee in the OH event, with just 16 places separating the two of them in the world rankings.

Brown County Big Cubes

If 3x3 isn’t your thing, may we present to you this heater happening in the sleepy town of Nashville, Indiana, USA (population 1,256). Highly competitive XnX events from 4x4 to 7x7, as well as a tight three-person race in the Megaminx event, make this a must to keep on your radar this weekend.

That Megaminx event will feature the likes of Zeke Mackay, Lucy Grace Bryson, and Luke Garrett, all top-100 in the world. Other names to keep track of in this competition are Kate Grahame (the highest-ranked 6x6 and 7x7 solver in this comp), as well as Brian Johnson, who faces off with Garrett in the 4x4 event.

I was recently listening to Evan Lepler, the “voice of Ultimate Frisbee.” He’s a guy who has carved out a niche as the go-to announcer for ESPN’s coverage of emerging sports, everything from top-level Ultimate to cornhole and axe throwing.

Lepler made an observation that stuck with me: every niche community thinks they are the most welcoming, friendly group on earth. But the reality is that “friendliness” isn’t a unique trait of the sport; it’s just a byproduct of being small. The danger is that these small communities eventually develop “unspoken rules” and weird values that they refuse to break, even when those rules start to hinder the sport’s growth.

The Honor Code vs. The Referee

In Ultimate Frisbee, the “purity” of the game is centered on the honor system. It’s self-refereed. But as the sport tried to move onto platforms like ESPN and grow its audience, a new league, the UFA, was formed with actual referees to make it spectator-friendly.

The backlash from the “purists” was intense. They revolted because they felt that having referees ruined the “spirit of the game.” From the outside, it looks crazy. Every major sport in the world uses referees. Yet, the Ultimate community clung to a value that was actively keeping them from reaching a larger stage. They were choosing their “weird quirk” over the growth of the sport.

The Volunteer Problem

It’s easy to look at the Frisbee world and laugh at the “honor system,” but we have our own versions of this in speedcubing.

One of our biggest “quirks” is our obsession with volunteering. We’ve decided as a community that everything, from judging to organizing, must be done for free. We treat it as a core value.

But look at the contrast: USA Ultimate (the equivalent of our WCA) actually advises its organizers not to hold tournaments unless they can make a profit. They don’t want their people losing money or burning out; they want them to be able to build a sustainable life around the sport.

In cubing, we choose the opposite. We insist on being 100% volunteer-based. But why? Why do we hold onto that value so tightly? By refusing to let the sport become a professionalized business where people can actually make a living, are we hindering our own growth?

Are We Really That Special?

We like to think speedcubing is a special, unique niche with values that other people wouldn’t understand. But Lepler’s point suggests we’re just like the axe throwers or the frisbee players. We aren’t uniquely “virtuous” because we don’t pay our organizers; we’re just stuck in a niche trap.

We have to ask ourselves: are these values helping us, or are they just hurdles we’ve placed in our own way? If we stepped back and looked at our community objectively, we might realize that these “quirky” rules are the only things stopping us from reaching more people and impacting more lives.

If we want to be bigger, we might have to stop being so “special.”

When people talk about the massive growth of chess over the last few years, they usually point to the internet or The Queen’s Gambit. But the real engine behind chess’s longevity is something much older: Prestige.

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Recently, I was at the Pro Pickleball Tour in Newport Beach with Dylan Miller and Manu Singhal, and a specific match caught my attention, not because of who was playing, but because of how they reacted.

Earlier in the day, the stadium was packed for the world number ones, Ben Johns and Anna Leigh Waters. But as the sun went down and the crowds thinned out, we stayed to watch a match between players ranked much lower, around 12th and 24th in the world.

The stands were nearly empty, but the energy on the court was higher than anything I’d seen all day. Every time a player scored, even on a messy or janky point, they exploded with emotion. They were yelling, fist-pumping, and showing exactly how much that point meant to them. They didn’t care that the crowd was thin; they cared that they were winning.

The Problem with “Stoic” Cubing

Watching that made me think about speedcubing. In our community, we have this habit of downplaying our achievements. When a top cuber gets a great time, maybe not a world record, but a solid result that puts them in a better position, the reaction is almost always a muted head-shake or a “it’s fine” attitude.

We’ve built a culture where showing emotion is seen as being “too competitive” or somehow disrespectful to the person you’re playing against. But if you look at the moments that actually go viral and get people excited—like Feliks’ 4.73, Max’s 3.13, or Dylan Miller’s 3.49—it’s always the ones where the reaction matches the achievement. The crowd goes nuts because the person on stage clearly cares.

Passion Isn’t a Personality Flaw

Through my production company, I’ve live-streamed countless competitions, and I see how much work goes into this sport. People put in thousands of hours to shave off fractions of a second.

Every other sport understands that passion is a good thing. Wanting to win and being visibly happy when you do doesn’t mean you’re “mean” or that you want your opponent to lose. It just means you value your own effort.

As speedcubing grows, I think the culture needs to shift. We should be able to own our wins. Just because you care doesn’t mean you’re a bad person, it just means you’re actually invested in what you’re doing.

Dongsoo Park. Image courtesy of the WCA.

The world continues to thaw out, the ice is slowly melting, and the competitions continue to heat up. Welcome to this week’s edition of The Weekend Ahead!

Each week, we’ll be looking at some of the most significant comps across the speedcubing world, as well as those that may be smaller but feature high-profile talent. Today, we start in South Korea, where the WCA plans to hold another head-to-head 3x3 final.

Seoul Spring 2026

As mentioned previously on Speedcuber’s Digest, this competition will feature another H2H 3x3 final, continuing the WCA’s experimentation with the format following its premiere in Melbourne earlier this year.

DongSoo Park leads the competitors in the 3x3 event with a PR average of 6.29, and he sits as either rank #1 or #2 in four out of the competition’s five events.

Be sure to check out Park Ji Won in the Megaminx and Square-1 events as well, as he tries to improve on his world top-20 averages for both puzzles.

Ohio State Weekend of Madness 2026

For competitions with some of the best in the world, it’s pretty hard to beat the Midwest. Although this event doesn’t feature any traditional 3x3 solving, that doesn’t make it any less of a heater.

Sujan Feist seeks to continue his reign of dominance as the #1 2x2 solver in the world, while Luke Garrett, the world’s #1 OH solver, is the clear favorite among the event’s competitors.

Expect a fiercely competitive round of Pyraminx as well. Along with Garrett, Dylan Cossin, Steven Wintringham, and Jeriyah Griffin round out the event’s top-100 solvers.

GLS Gdańsk II 2026

For our EU fans out there, this one’s sure to be a heater, mostly due to the intense matchup in the 3x3 event.

Teodor Zajder and Olaf Kuźmiński will battle it out in what’s shaping up to be another test of Zajder’s claim to the EU throne, long held by fellow Pole Tymon Kolasiński.

Likewise, both will compete in a competitive 2x2 field that also features Teodor’s older brother, Stefan, in the event.

Poly Cubed at Pomona 2026

It wouldn’t be right to leave an event that features the great Max Park off our inaugural weekend preview, and this one’s sure to be a major test.

Park will face off against Dylan Miller in a 3x3 round that could very well be a preview for this year’s North American Championship, as well as an opportunity to see just how well these U.S. stalwarts will continue to hold up in next year’s World Championship.

Keep an eye on Park’s performances in OH and 4x4 as well; he previously held both world #1 spots in each event, and would certainly like to have those titles back.

Xuanyi Geng with his former WR single of 3.05. Photo courtesy of TheCubicle.

Xuanyi Geng will compete in his first competition in the United States since last year’s World Championship, according to a registration list on the WCA’s official website.

Mid-Atlantic Speedcubing Championship 2026, scheduled to take place from August 14th to the 16th in Dover, DE, will feature the current world number one in his first contest in the country since Worlds 2025 in Seattle.

He’ll be joining a stacked field in the 3x3 event that features top U.S. solvers like Ryan Pilat, Christopher Sun, and Jerry Yao. Geng’s current PR average of 3.84 is 1.6 seconds faster than Pilat’s, who ranks second among the competitors.

The event will also feature the Khanani brothers, Fiona Bao, Michael Nielsen, and Parker Trager competing in various events.

In last year’s 3x3 finals at Worlds, Geng narrowly missed out on winning the championship, losing to Yiheng Wang in a nail-biting conclusion that saw the title come down to the final solve.

Luke Griesser is interviewed by John Eppley after winning PSL Michigan. Photo courtesy of SpeedcubingTV.

In a heated competition that almost saw the first bracket reset in the PSL’s history, Luke Griesser claimed victory at PSL Michigan, beating Dylan Miller by a score of three sets to two.

The final event of the league’s first season was held on Saturday in Port Huron, MI, and featured a slightly smaller roster compared to other events. Notably, Morgan Yeh cancelled his appearance at the event due to poor weather. Besides Miller and Griesser, the contest also featured cubing content creator Owen Stotts, better known as STUCUBE, making his PSL debut.

The grand final featured Miller and Griesser going solve for solve, culminating in a final solve that, had Miller won it, would’ve claimed the set and therefore reset the bracket, allowing him a second chance to win it all. Unfortunately, Miller’s final solve of 6.06 wasn’t enough to secure a reset, which would’ve allowed him to compete for his second PSL title.

Griesser’s victory in the final gave him his first title after competing multiple times in last season’s events. The next PSL event will be held in Oregon on March 14th.

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Seoul Spring 2026, which is set for March 22, will feature a non-traditional 3x3 final in which the top eight competitors from the previous round will go head-to-head in a bracket-style tournament to determine the winner.

A head-to-head matchup is decided by whoever first reaches the winning number of sets. Sets are broken down into a best-of-5 points format, where a point is awarded to the faster time of the two solvers.

In addition, different inspection rules are used, where both solvers must start solving at the same time from an announcer’s command.

According to sources in the WCA, this format is still undergoing “testing” at events like this, and probably won’t reach a definitive form for some time.

In addition to 3x3, the competition will also host one round each of 5x5, Clock, Megaminx, and Square-1, as well as an unofficial round of FTO.