Rubik's Cube competition set for Saturday at Brookhaven Town Hall

It seemed like a simple rite of passage a few years ago when Brookhaven Town Councilman Neil Manzella introduced his son, Neil III, to the Rubik's Cube — the box-shaped, Technicolor puzzle that has been baffling players for more than five decades.

To his dad's surprise, the younger Manzella, now 12, excelled at the game — solving the cube in as little as 31 seconds, his father said.

But that's nothing compared to the more advanced players they've seen as they made the rounds at New York-area cube conventions, the councilman said earlier this month in a phone interview.

“I don’t know how they do it,” Manzella said. “I thought [Neil III] did it fast, but we went to a competition and ... some of these people are solving it in eight seconds. It’s wild.”

That's why, Manzella said, he eagerly helped arrange for a Rubik's Cube competition Saturday at Brookhaven Town Hall in Farmingville, where dozens of top players are expected to compete in a wide range of cube contests — sometimes while blindfolded or playing with one hand.

Organized by the World Cube Association, a Los Angeles nonprofit, the event will run from 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m., and will be open to the public, Manzella said, adding that space is limited. Brookhaven did not charge a fee for the association to use Town Hall, he said.

Admission is free; competitors pay $30.

The Rubik's Cube — invented in 1974 by Hungarian architecture Professor Erno Rubik — is a mechanical puzzle that challenges players to twist rows of squares until they align identical colors on each of the cube's six sides.

Over time, the original 3-by-3 format — nine squares on each side — has expanded to more than a dozen variations, including 2-by-2, 5-by-5 and 7-by-7 cubes, according to the World Cube Association website.

Some cubes are shaped like a pyramid or pentagon, and players compete in some games while playing one-handed or blindfolded.

About 80 players are expected at the Brookhaven competition, said Evan Liu, 32, of New Rochelle, a top international player and World Cube Association regional delegate who is helping to organize the event. He said he may expand the players pool to 100.

Liu said he has been playing seriously since high school, when he became obsessed with what he called “the repetitive nature" of the game.

He said his personal best time is 4.87 seconds to solve a standard 3-by-3 cube.

“You just want to keep going and eventually you see yourself rising to the top,” Liu said.

He has won hundreds of gold medals at official competitions but described his own skills as “decent," adding, "A lot of people are better.”

What's his secret?

“Just a matter of practice," Liu said. "It doesn’t take a math genius or anything like that to solve one at all or [solve it] quickly, for that matter.”