SINGAPORE — Solving a standard six-sided Rubik's Cube is hard enough but imagine trying to get all the colours correctly placed on a three-dimensional object with 12 sides — known as a dodecahedron.

This is what 20-year-old Tristan Chua Yong did at the World Cube Association (WCA) world championship held on Sunday (Aug 13), on his way to winning what is believed to be the first ever title by a Singaporean in any category at the competition, held every two years. 

Started in 1982, the WCA world championships are considered to be the most prestigious competition in the “cubing” world. 

The 12-faceted puzzle Mr Chua has proved so adept at solving is marketed as a Megaminx.

Most people who are somewhat expert at solving a Megaminx tend to take several minutes to do so, but Mr Chua took an average of less than 30 seconds.

In solving the puzzle in an average time of 29.25s, he beat stiff competition from 313 other competitors worldwide, including world record holder for the puzzle, Leandro Martín López from Argentina. 

Under the competition format, each competitor has to solve the puzzle five times, with the single fastest and single slowest times taken away and the remaining three averaged out. 

Speaking to TODAY, the integrated facility management student at Temasek Polytechnic said that he had to apply for a leave of absence from his school before he could fly to Incheon, South Korea, for the competition. 

When asked about how he reacted to his victory, a modest Mr Chua would only say that he was "surprised".

“Leandro (the world record holder) is too good, so I just wanted to get a good result for me and possibly podium,” he said. “I’m surprised (I won), I thought everyone else was doing better.”

For his triumph, Mr Chua will receive one million South Korean won (S$1,014) in prize money. 

PRACTISED UP TO 10 HOURS A DAY

Mr Chua said that he first started solving Rubik’s cubes in 2013, when he was 10 years old, playing with a cube that his father owned.

He said that when he first started practising, he “wasn’t doing well” at solving the puzzles.

But his breakthrough came four years later in 2017, when he came second in a competition in the “Skewb” category, a variation of the Rubik’s Cube. 

Then, in 2018, he got a national record in the Pyraminx, a four-sided Rubik’s Cube shaped like a pyramid. 

“After that, I started to branch out to other events, and Megaminx was one of them, although I was still quite bad at it at that time,” he said. 

Asked what he meant by “quite bad at it”, he said that the world record time to solve for the Megaminx puzzle was 32 seconds in 2018, but he would need an average of 1:30s to solve it. 

“I was bad only because I just started practising then,” he admitted. 

But when the Covid-19 pandemic rolled around, he found himself with ample time to practise the Megaminx puzzle. 

While some others got bored at home during lockdowns, Mr Chua was busily practising the solving of the Megaminx puzzle, for as long as nine to 10 hours a day, he said. 

He was solving puzzles whenever he had free time, and even during online classes at the Institute of Technical Education at that time, while having one eye on his lectures.

“I got bored and didn’t really have anything better to do, so I just kept doing it.”  

He added that after solving the puzzle countless of times, solving it became an instinct rather than a process that he had to memorise or “study” for. 

Nevertheless, the thought of becoming the best in the world never crossed his mind at that time. 

“Since competitions were cancelled and wouldn’t return for a long time, I just did what I enjoyed instead of focusing on every event to get good competition results,” he said. 

BEATING THE WORLD’S BEST 

Evidence of his hard work paid off, said Mr Chua, and he felt that by 2021, he was “world standard” in solving this unique puzzle. 

He put Singapore on the world map by setting the world record for solving the Megaminx in April this year, with an average time of 28.03s. 

However, before the world championships, his record was eclipsed by Argentina’s Mr López, leading to doubts over whether he could win the top prize. 

At Sunday's championships in Incheon, the 313 competitors in his event were soon whittled down to 16, including Mr Chua, who made it to the finals.

But he had placed only fifth in the first round, leading to more doubts on whether he could compete with Mr López. 

As all the finalists were trying to solve the puzzle at the same time, Mr Chua did not know that he had won until after he had stepped off the stage and was told by his friends that he had taken top prize.

His father, Mr Bernard Chua, 57, who had travelled with him to South Korea, ran over in tears to hug him. 

“It’s the pressure (and) always worrying that he will feel disappointed,” said the operations manager at a primary school. 

On why he cried, the senior Mr Chua said: “He is literally the best in the world, how many people in Singapore can say that?” 

He added that solving these puzzles has evolved from a hobby into a serious endeavour for the family.

Mr Chua senior and his wife Lee Wei Kuen take turns to travel with their son, paying their own way, to regional and global competitions in places such as Japan, Taiwan, Indonesia and Malaysia.

He added that his son has about 250 cubes lying around at home.

“We do invest a lot, but it was all worth it,” he said. 

As for Mr Chua junior, there will be no rest from practice even after proving himself to be the world’s best. 

“I already enjoy competing, so it wasn’t like a chore or anything,” he said.