By GARLAND KENNEDY
Sentinel Staff Writer
After about five years solving Rubik’s cube puzzles with extraordinary speed, Sitka High School senior Rianna Bergman competed in the Up in the North speed cubing tournament in Anchorage on April 1. After speed-solving her way through the early rounds, the 17-year-old earned a spot in the final competition and took 12th place in the three-by-three cube contest.
Rianna Bergman holds up a few of her Rubik’s Cubes at Sitka High School this afternoon. (Sentinel Photo by James Poulson)
Though she has solved Rubik’s cubes on her own time for years, doing it in a competition was a new experience for her.
“It was really surreal, I think, because here there’s no one else on the island who does this. I’ve got a few friends who’ve gotten into it, but the environment and the competition is so different,” she said in an interview with the Sentinel. “... There’s so much more stress in a competition, too, because when I’m just solving at home, even when I timed myself, there’s no one else watching.”
The competition took place under the umbrella of the World Cube Association, a nonprofit founded in 2004 which hosts cubing competition in scores of countries. Along with the classic three-by-three Rubik’s cube, there are contests with other dimensions such as a two-by-two, seven-by-seven and pyraminx.
Bergman took 14th place in the four-by-four contest with an average solve time of 1:30.
As the tournament began – the first time Up in the North has been held since 2019 – she was a bit uneasy, but soon settled into a pattern.
“My three-by-three times, I did really well (but) in my first round, I was really nervous,” Bergman recounted. “I got like a 36-second solve, and then the rest of them were like 16 seconds and closer to my average. I ended with an 18-second average.”
That warp speed average of five solves propelled her into the next round of the competition. When averaging scores, a cuber drops their best and worst times, taking only the middle three for score.
Out of 78 people who began, 75 percent made it past the first cutoff, but only 16 progressed to the final round. By then, she was in the zone.
“At that point, my nerves had calmed down a good amount. And in my second round I did really good,” Bergman recalled. “I got a 10 second solve; I think I got two 14s - some really good times.”
She closed out the tournament with a 14.97 average solving time on her three-by-three cube. Overall, Shane Grogan of Southern California won the three-by-three competition with a 9.34 second average – the only competitor to break the ten-second threshold. He swept the first place spots in the four-by-four, six-by-six and seven-by-seven as well.
Though the event was a contest, Bergman said the atmosphere was convivial.
“You’re always wanting to uplift each other. Because even if someone’s doing better than you, you can still learn a lot from them.”
She went in with three goals: “to get a sub-20-second average, to make it into the second round and to just have some fun and meet a lot of new cubers.”
Her affinity for cubing got started in eighth grade when a student from Austria was staying in her home.
“My brother would take his old Rubik’s cube, scramble it, leave it around the house, and then the exchange student would solve it. And then one day, the exchange student left and my brother left an unsolved Rubik’s cube on the counter, and it bothered me so much that I took it to school and played with it all day, came home and watched a video and learned how to solve it. And then I just kept solving it after that.”
While many who try their hands at Rubik’s cubes lumber along at near-glacial speeds, Bergman solves with a combination of algorithmic precision, high tempo and fine manual dexterity.
She uses a method known as CFOP - short for cross, first two layers, orientation of the last layer and permutation of the last layer.
“I essentially build the Rubik’s cube up layer by layer. This method is pretty common. The top speed cubers in the world use it, even the people who are averaging five seconds are using this method usually,” she said.
The Up in the North tournament was her first ever cubing competition, and Bergman hopes to expand her repertoire to larger cubes, such as the five-by-five. She especially enjoys the learning process.
“Every solve is unique,” she said. “There’s so many different things to learn about how to solve. With how fast I am, I still know what I can improve on. I like learning more algorithms and memorizing things and figuring out how I can improve.”
Regardless of her high performance, Bergman was glad for the chance to do what she enjoys in a new setting.
“My biggest takeaway would probably be that when you’re doing something that you’re really passionate about, you don’t need to be nervous because you won’t care about whether you do good or bad. You’re just going to be happy that you’re there.”
