Title WDC Case 2024-029 Kalindu Sachintha Wijesundara ✅

WCA Disciplinary Committee Investigation Report Case: Investigation on Kalindu Sachintha Wijesundara (2022WIJE02) Issue Date: 2024-06-16 Report by Carter Kucala and Sebastiano Tronto 1
Contents Contents....................................................................................................................................... 2 Chapter 1: Introduction...............................................................................................................3 Chapter 2: FMC techniques and software.................................................................................4 Domino Reduction................................................................................................................... 4 Other techniques..................................................................................................................... 4 Software tools.......................................................................................................................... 4 Chapter 3: Kalindu’s Solutions, working sheets and video.................................................... 5 Chapter 4: Evidence from Mallard’s logs.................................................................................. 7 Chapter 5: Preliminary ban.........................................................................................................8 Chapter 6: Scramble generation dates......................................................................................9 Chapter 7: Conclusions............................................................................................................ 10 Appendix A: Kalindu’s solutions..............................................................................................11 Round 1, Attempt 1 (22 moves)............................................................................................. 11 Round 1, Attempt 2 (20 moves)............................................................................................. 11 Round 1, Attempt 3 (19 moves)............................................................................................. 11 Round 2, Attempt 1 (21 moves).............................................................................................12 Round 2, Attempt 2 (20 moves).............................................................................................12 Round 2, Attempt 3 (18 moves).............................................................................................12 Appendix B: Kalindu’s working sheets................................................................................... 13 Round 1, Attempt 1 (22 moves).............................................................................................14 Round 1, Attempt 2 (20 moves).............................................................................................15 Round 1, Attempt 3 (19 moves).............................................................................................16 Round 2, Attempt 1 (21 moves).............................................................................................17 Round 2, Attempt 2 (20 moves).............................................................................................18 Round 2, Attempt 3 (18 moves).............................................................................................19 2
Chapter 1: Introduction On May 25, 2024 the WCA Disciplinary Committee (WDC) was contacted regarding some suspicious results obtained at Sri Lankan Nationals FMC 2024 by Kalindu Sachintha Wijesundara, who was a listed delegate for the competition. Namely, Kalindu obtained a result in the 3x3x3 Fewest Moves event of 20.33 moves on average in the first round, which would place him second in the world ranking, and a new World Record average of 19.67 moves in the final round. This marked an astonishing improvement on Kalindu’s previous official average of 33.33 moves obtained less than 3 months prior. Despite Kalindu being known to have practiced this event lately, many community members were suspicious of the legitimacy of these results. Some were worried that Kalindu, being a delegate at the time, had access to the scrambles before the competition, and therefore could have prepared and memorized his solutions beforehand and simply transcribed them during the competition. Accusations against a WCA delegate are not taken lightly. Delegates are entrusted with upholding the integrity of the competition, a key role for the WCA. When this trust is questioned, the foundations of our organization are at risk. After some preliminary discussion, the WDC initiated an investigation. The following people were heavily involved in this investigation: Carter Kucala WDC Senior Member, case leader, FMC expert Sebastiano Tronto WDC Senior Member, case leader, FMC expert Other WDC Members WDC Members Jonas Balsfulland Creator of Mallard WCA Board Asia West & South Senior Delegate, WDC Consult Kalindu Sachintha Wijesundara Accused Competitor, WCA Junior Delegate Note: FMC is short for “Fewest Moves Challenge”. 3
Chapter 2: FMC techniques and software Domino Reduction As of now, every top-level Fewest Moves solver uses a method called Domino Reduction, or DR for short. An overview on the method can be found in this tutorial. So summarize, this method is divided into 4 steps: ● Edge Orientation (EO): All 12 edges are oriented with respect to one of the 3 axes (F/B, R/L or U/D). This step is usually done in 5 moves or less. Top-level solvers tend to write down a large number of EOs (between 30 and 60) to maximize their chance of finding a good continuation. ● Domino Reduction (DR): All 8 corners are oriented and the E-layer edges are placed in the E layer. When searching for DRs, the EOs found in the first step are evaluated one by one, and sometimes discarded without continuation. Top solvers aim at writing down multiple promising DRs whose length is 11 moves or less, including the EO moves. ● Half-Turn Reduction (HTR): This step reduces the cube to be solvable with only 180° turns. Experienced Fewest Moves solvers will try to write down many possible HTRs from each promising DR, in hope of finding a short solution. ● Finish: The cube is solved, usually using only 180° turns. Most solvers will try to solve the top and bottom layers first, and then fix the middle layer edges by modifying their solution. Other techniques There are a variety of techniques that can be used in combination with the DR method described above. Some of them are block-building, insertions and NISS. We will use this terminology freely in this report, and we will also use the common NISS notation (moves in parentheses are done on the inverse scramble). For the sake of brevity, we will not describe these techniques here. You can find an overview of all these techniques in this tutorial. While beneficial to understanding the full context of suspicions behind Kalindu’s solutions, they are not fully necessary to understand this report. Software tools There are multiple tools that can be used to analyze or even generate solutions using DR: ● Mallard (online) generates plausible FMC solutions with explanations. ● Nissy (offline) can find optimal solutions for any of the commonly used steps. ● Cube Explorer (offline) can find optimal solutions. These tools are well-known and used by the Fewest Moves community to analyze solutions. 4