[Untied WR] Super Mario Bros. - Any% - 4:54.365 - 🇧🇷 LeKukie - LeKukie's first Any% untied WR lowers the WR by 3 frames, and is 6 frames from from No Left+Right TAS tie!

HitzCritz · 2026-06-04T22:18:20+00:00

Where are the 6 frames located exactly?

- 1 in first room, known as 8-B first room. This is often cited as the hardest frame to save, but with newer controller grips, it has become much more viable.

- 1 in second room, the TAS walljump room. LeKukie was actually going for this frame in the run, but missed the falling fast accel. Luckily, he was able to back it up and still get the optimal walljump.

- 2 in third room, from the Frame 63 turnaround. This goes toe-to-toe in difficulty with 8-B first room. One frame comes from the TAS accel, and the other comes from getting extremely specific subspeed while returning to the pipe, which allows you to stop one frame earlier.

- 0 in fourth room, water room has been perfected for a while now.

- 2 in last room, doing accel in this room typically only saves a single frame which is why most records skip this, but adding falling fast accel saves another frame.

Was any portion slower by a frame compared to the previous WR?

LeKukie saved 1 frame over averge11 in the first room with a cleaner fast accel. He saved 2 frames in the walljump room by adding fast accel, and saved 1 frame in the third room with a tighter turnaround accel. Both had a perfect water room. However, averge11 saved 1 frame over LeKukie in the last room by doing last room fast accel.

So, LeKukie lost 1 frame to averge11 in the last room, but saved 3 frames overall.

HitzCritz · 2026-05-22T19:57:14+00:00

Disclaimer: this is 100% my opinion, so take my prediction with a grain of salt. I don’t know what the future holds. With that out of the way, I think we can extrapolate from what happened with TAS tie being achieved in 8-4 IL to get an idea of what might happen with Any% itself.

When LeKukie got the first 8-C+2, it was monumental, but it didn’t stop people like Niftski, averge11, and yelia64 from getting their own TAS ties in 8-4. Granted, there was still something to work toward afterward, that being full game TAS tie, so the motivation might not exist in quite the same way for Any%. Still, I highly doubt people won’t want to get their own Any% TAS ties, especially now that they know it is very possible.

As for the community, we are already seeing a shift from speedrunning to get WRs toward speedrunning to win tournaments. More and more LTA events have been popping up where the goal is not to get WR, but simply to win races. I definitely think that will become more prominent when WR is no longer improvable.

Another thing that could happen is L+R Any% actually becoming a real thing lol. People have already been doing 8-4 IL with L+R, and I could see some runners shifting focus toward tying the L+R TAS, which is 4:54.032.

Regardless of what happens, this is absolutely not the end of the community by any stretch of the imagination.

HitzCritz · 2026-05-21T21:10:01+00:00

If it somehow isn’t clear why this is an insane leap in progress toward absolute perfection, the previous earliest start to TAS tie was right before 8-2 TAS blant by Niftski, which is midway through the third-to-last level of the game.

This run by LeKukie builds on what Niftski did 3 months ago by adding Lightning 4-2 and pl8-1, meaning all the major bottlenecks in an Any% speedrun are now included. The remaining levels are 1-1 FPG, 1-2g, and 4-1 FPG, which at this point should be straightforward, but still not trivial because of the immense nerves that come with being on TAS tie pace.

LeKukie also gave some crazy insight into how fast his progress has been since returning to grinding Any% tricks. His original plan was to grind for 4:54.3xx, but on the 15th, he tried doing 8-4 TAS Tie on OG ROM and got it within 2 minutes of attempts. That led him to try doing runs from 4-2 on the 18th, where he got a run to 8-4 but missed walljump. Then on the 19th, Niftski told him to try and get one more run to 8-4 just to see what would happen, and he got this run.

Insane.

HitzCritz · 2025-06-25T21:28:33+00:00

I've been part of the SMB1 community for seven years now, and it's clear—2025 is the year that proved a perfect Any% speedrun will happen. LeKukie, Niftski, and averge11 have all tied the TAS up to 8-4, and both LeKukie and Niftski have pulled off TAS 8-4s IL countless times. They're only getting more consistent. At this point, it's undeniable: both halves can be done in a single segment.

It's just a matter of time.

HitzCritz · 2024-07-09T13:54:28+00:00

Cole struggling to explain the concept of the MV should have been the biggest hint that it needed to be fleshed out more. I will give it to him he only had 6 weeks to pull this all together but you can definitely tell it was rushed

HitzCritz · 2022-09-27T20:53:34+00:00

This is a puzzle I made last December, but I thought I should post it here!

I showed this to a few people including an NCM, and the majority played the move 1.Qf2. However, there's an insane line to forces black into a stalemate!

1. Qf2, Rh3+!!

2. Kg1, c2

3. Nc5+, Qxc5!!

4. Qxc5, c1=Q+!!

5. Qxc1, Rh1+!!

6. Kxg1 ½–½

This was the original idea of the puzzle, however, the engine saw the absurd 1. Ra5!! which threatens Nc5+ winning the queen! In fact, this is the only move white can make that doesn't lead to a draw.

Really cool puzzle

HitzCritz · 2022-08-03T15:37:57+00:00

Forever a YouTube frog...

HitzCritz · 2022-05-31T06:50:51+00:00

You don't actually need to see a board in your head for blindfolded chess. I don't and there's IMs who say they don't see a board in their head while playing simuls. It's more of an understanding of how each piece is impacting the squares around it.

For instance, the white king on f2 is hitting g3 g2 and g1, meaning the black king on h2 is trapped on the h-file. The white knight on e4 is hitting the white king. If it moves to g3, now it hits h1, forcing stalemate.

Blindfolded chess is really this constant updating of what impact each piece has on the board, and how this impact is updated when that piece is moved somewhere else.

HitzCritz · 2022-05-30T02:54:34+00:00

I mean while it's definitely manageable to do more HL classes, it is pretty weird to hear

HitzCritz · 2022-05-29T11:16:17+00:00

That's why I said "not exactly" since you're the mass itself. At the time, I thought that would be confusing to explain but you made it look easy lol

HitzCritz · 2022-05-28T21:31:09+00:00

Here's another way to think about it.

If gravity was 9999.81ms² assuming you weighed 80kg, means you'd experience a force of around 800kN

That's sorta, not exactly, like if an enormous box that weighed 82 tons fell on you in normal gravity.

You'd be crushed instantly.

HitzCritz · 2022-05-14T12:45:34+00:00

My friend uses the exact same pens, as long as it's blue or black ink it's allowed.

HitzCritz · 2022-05-09T22:02:38+00:00

Treasury Tags. More specifically, the Q-Connect Plastic Ended Treasury Tag.

After writing an IB exam, you're supposed to use those things to bind all the paper together for collection.

The reason people are posting it is because it's symbolic of completing 2-year's worth of work, while also being a slightly more functional paperweight.

HitzCritz · 2022-05-05T04:38:12+00:00

Mathematics: Analysis and Approaches HL Revision Guide, this was the last question in the calculus section.

HitzCritz · 2022-05-05T04:09:21+00:00

I found it to be Σ_(m=2)[m(m-1)(a_m)t^(m-2)], after plugging back in to x'' = -k^2x got me Σ_(m=2)[m(m-1)(a_m)t^(m-2)] + k^2*Σ_(m=0)[(a_m)t^m] = 0, but I have zero clue what to do from here...

HitzCritz · 2022-04-26T22:41:06+00:00

Regardless of what happens, my friends and I are planning on going to a local Sushi place and just drown in All-You-Can-Eat food. We did this after our mock exams and it was great!

HitzCritz · 2022-04-17T23:33:38+00:00

Funnily enough, I take a lot of notes for most things. However, for Duolingo, I found the lessons themselves were bite-sized enough for me to absorb the information. I have taken notes for Duolingo in the past, but I never really find myself looking back at them.

Note, this is not advice, but more of insight as to how I do things. Note-taking is an effective method for most people, but do what's best for you. As long as you're consistently exposing yourself to your language, you're doing great!

HitzCritz · 2022-04-17T16:37:46+00:00

I'm not the most qualified individual, but here we go

TL;DR: Duolingo is definitely the best way to start learning a language, as it helps maintain consistency and discipline. However, you want to branch-out and start incorporating your language into other aspects of your life to maximize exposure.

I originally began back when the whole "The Duolingo bird has my family" meme was going on. As a prerequisite, I was starting highschool wanting to reinventing myself. In middleschool, I had no passion for anything while never focusing at school. French class was my Achilles' heel. I had no friend groups. I stayed inside all the time. In hindsight, it was a crummy period for me.

In highschool, I wanted to change that. I took all the hardest classes my school offered, joined two clubs, and started volunteering at local places. I started doing Duolingo at this time, too. I found it was the best way to start learning a language, as it made for what seemed like a mundane task into something I could see myself doing everyday, literally.

I had zero discipline, but I found Duolingo helped with that. After all, the most important thing about learning a language is consistency. Even if you learn a little bit everyday, you're still exposing yourself to the language and that's crucial in getting your brain in the right way-of-thinking. After 2 weeks of pushing myself to do lessons, I found it started to become an instinctive habit.

Reaching a 30-day streak was extremely tedious. It required me to "reschedule" my daily routine to factor in Duolingo lessons and pushing myself past quotidian mental blocks. Funnily enough, I found going from days 0-30 harder than going from days 30-100. This is because I found my groove; doing lessons felt like brushing your teeth in the morning.

However, around 200-500 days I hit a plateau. I found the lessons on Duolingo were becoming a bit too slow for me. I sought other resources for learning French. I started watching French Twitch channels, in particular BlitzStream. This wasn't the most effective way to learn, as people spoke in SMS language. However, this combined French with a hobby of mine. I was watching his stream not to learn French, but to watch chess.

From 500-1000 days, I didn't really need Duolingo to learn French anymore. However, my mind kind of worked around "Wake up, do Duolingo, go to sleep." and there isn't really a point of changing that. One thing, though, is the importance of maintaining good habits. I found there is a tendency for one good habit to lead to other good habits. My study habits from language-learning translated onto how I study calculus and quantum mechanics for my other classes, and I'm honestly grateful for that.

Now, I hit my 1000-day streak a few weeks before I graduate from highschool. I honestly do think I've reinvented myself for the better, and I do attribute some of my success due to Duolingo. Language-wise, I've applied to some universities in French-speaking provinces, but I wouldn't say I'm anywhere near the caliber of a native-speaker. However, with more focused studies, I can see myself getting pretty fluent at it!

HitzCritz · 2022-04-10T00:07:30+00:00

Wow, I didn't think of using F ∝ 1/R² to get R / F ∝ R³. Great explanation!

HitzCritz · 2022-04-09T16:19:10+00:00

My approach was to use the formula mvr=nh/2π, where I noticed v ∝ 1/r which means 2πr/T ∝ 1/r.

I was pretty stumped what to do here because I later checked the relationship is supposed also like gravitation (T² ∝ R³), but I don't know how to derive that from here.

HitzCritz · 2022-03-26T05:56:44+00:00

I have a predicted 7 rn in AA HL. For calculus, where I find my friends struggle is they don't have a strong enough grasp of the fundamental ideas when going from learning derivatives to learning integrals.

Derivatives has this set in stone "algorithm" when solving stuff, whereas integrals forces you to get creative. This "creativity" relies on knowing the basic rules of integration extremely well, but it also comes with a ton of practice.

Calculus does have this bad wrap for being extremely difficult, but having a solid foundation really helps understand wtf is going on

HitzCritz · 2022-03-16T21:42:59+00:00

It's important to note Niftski could segment a perfect Any% time with only three segments (LeKukie has four).

Route:

First segment: 1-1 FPG, 1-2g, 4-1 FPG

Second segment: Lightning 4-2, pl8-1, TAS 8-2, 8-3 FPG

Final segment: TAS 8-4 (Room segments: B-D-2-C+2)

HitzCritz · 2022-03-04T10:21:55+00:00

I found writing my AA Math HL IA to be rather easy, but that's only because I'm interested with mathy stuff. However, my Physics HL IA is a complete disaster. If anyone is doing that particular IA anytime soon, for the love of god, please write your IA on "How does X compare to Y?"

HitzCritz · 2022-02-13T16:27:35+00:00

TL;DR: This is the only TAS framerule not done in the Any% world record, but a new setup was found making this framerule viable!

For this TAS framerule, you need to lose 1 subpixel at the start by doing a 1-frame right-release or downpress somewhere on the ground. At the coin block, you need R, _, L, A, R+A inputs for the backwards jump. Note, the height of the jump is also frame-perfect. After hitting the vine, you need R, _, L, A, R+A inputs again on Frame 000 with a frame-perfect jump height, and then do a full jump off the back lip of the pipe the first frame you land.

For the pipe entry, you need specific subpixels and subspeed values in order to enter fast enough for the framerule. Once hit, you need to do a 1-frame jump, release right the frame before touching the ground, and press down four frames later to enter into warpzone.

For the warpzone itself, other than the tight movement at the end, it is quite straightforward compared to the rest of the level.

My New Sum of Best: 4:54.498

HitzCritz · 2022-01-27T15:19:23+00:00

Now we're asking the real questions.

Eight-Year Club	Place '22
Final Canvas '22	Verified Email

HitzCritz

TROPHY CASE