erduenoeg

Not Ian but I can answer that without going into too much detail.

Most of Steven illusions take advantage of the fact that the audience doesn't understand how Rubik's cubes work.

The majority of his tricks use a setup position of the cube and "fake moves" that for the common person look like he's scrambling the cube a lot, where in fact he is returning to the same setup position, which can be solved in a few simple moves with one hand rapidly.

So to answer your question number 2 and 3:

Steven has a lot of experience with "conventional" speedsolving and often goes to competitions doing really good. In order to create his illusions he must have a very good understanding on how algorithms work and how they alter the cube.

As I said previously, to achieve this solve you need a setup position that is always the same so you can apply the same couple of algorithms rapidly. This cannot happen in competition since you don't know what scrambled cube you are going to solve until you start solving it and your timer starts counting.

Hope that could answer some of your questions. And if you want to learn in detail how he does it, you can buy his lessons and a speedcube through here.

What's your favorite non-WCA puzzle?

Do you think the popularity of speedsolving is increasing?, if so, what could be the cause?

What do you think is next for speedsolving as a competitive event as World Records get amazingly low?

Thank you so much for your answers!