A trophy and some new games are not the only spoils of Andrew Kang's victory at the national championship for Rubik's Cube.

There's a little dose of pop celebrity, and it doesn't hurt with the girls, either.

Bob Andres/bandres@ajc.com (ENLARGE)

Andrew Kang, shown after his runner-up world finish in 2007, won the national Rubik's Cube championship Sunday.

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"Somewhat," said Kang, an Alpharetta 18-year-old, assessing how the win improves his social prospects. "Once you get to know the girl, it's a little sprinkle on top. That's it. Just a sprinkle."

Kang claimed the title of the country's fastest Rubik's Cube solver Sunday in Atlanta. At the event in Underground Atlanta, Kang won by solving the old school, six-sided puzzle five times in an average of just 12.97 seconds. That was actually an off day for Kang, who set a North American record in the semifinal round with a five-attempt average of 11.89 seconds.

Winning was a relief for Kang, who graduated from Chattahoochee High School in the spring. He was a marked man at the competition after finishing second at the world championship last October in Budapest, Hungary. Dozens of competitors came to Atlanta from across the country and even Europe to participate.

"It's just nice to show that I'm still up there and can still cube," said Kang, who typically practices about an hour a day but ramped up to five or six hours last week.

Kang accommodated some autograph requests from children and even people his own age.

"It's kind of awkward," he said. "I don't know. It's just solving a puzzle."

He celebrated the triumph with sushi at his father Seok's new restaurant, Sushi Rosen in Suwanee. Kang favors the Johns Creek roll, which has cream cheese, shrimp, crab and avocado.

Kang picked up the puzzle, which gained worldwide popularity in the early '80s, about three years ago. He learned to solve the cube, which has more than 43 quintillion (43 followed by 18 zeros) possible configurations, by memorizing a set of algorithms posted on the Web and modifying them.

Kang said he recognizes patterns of colors and twists the cube into other patterns until he solves it.

His modest fame is such that, over time, more than 180 people he has never met have requested to be his friend on his Facebook account.

But Rubik's Cube glory only goes so far. For now, it's back to waiting tables at his father's restaurant. He plans to attend Georgia Perimeter College and transfer to Georgia Tech.

"I'm still just a normal person," he said. "I just have that title."