Miscellaneous / non-useful / gimmicky / random fun ways of solving a cube.

[evogler]

In addition to the usual cubing pursuits, (I'm personally at around 20s cfop, 3:00 blind with BH, nothing special), I like to amuse myself with random ways of solving the cube. I'm curious if people have other ways they've accumulated that I haven't thought of.

Here are some of mine:

-Something like classic pochmann, but where you shoot from UR and URB at the same time. You get setups of maybe 5-7 moves. I like having to concentrate to undo them correctly.
Someone just posted another variation of this in the bld forum, where you shoot an edge and a corner, but you use whichever PLL gives you the quickest setup. They meant it more as a potential serious method, but I think it's worth mentioning here also.

-Same thing but with G-perms and shooting 2 edges and 2 corners at a time. I've never gotten all the way through a solve doing this. Even working the following out with cube explorer was kind of exhausting:
L2 D' B2 F2 D L2 B2 L2 F2 U' L2 B' D F' R F' L' U R2 F2 R2
[U' L2 F' U' L2 U2 D2 L: Gd]
[U' R2 D' L2 B U' L F2: Gd]
[B2 R' F2 L B2 U' F2: Gd]
[D' F2 D F2 R2 L' U R': Gd]
[F' B R' U' F: Gd]
[R' F2 L U2 F2 D B2 R2: Gd]
Each Gd is R U R' y' R2 u' R U' R' U R' u R2 y

-Only J-perms. No setups. Just J-perms and rotations. If I recall correctly, I can beat my girlfriend's regular time with this. I like making up J-perm commutators.

-Similarly, only RUR'U'R'FRF' and rotations. I've never actually gone all the way through with this, but I did work out a method for it. I'd love to know someones time actually solving the cube this way.

-One edge cycle and one corner cycle + conjugation. E.g. M'U2MU2 for edges and R2D'L2D]x2 for corners. Actually, that particular method is currently what I show people who want to think their way solving the cube. (Ala Badmephisto's "How to Solve a Rubik's cube for MIT graduates"). I think they're particularly easy algorithms to memorize, and to understand if you're so inclined.

-Another 1 edge and 1 corner pair I practiced a bit was sexy move for corners and [R2U2]x3 for edges. A friend told me used only those two to solve a cube his first time, based on some mathematician's book on cubing. The R2U2x3 algorithm is kind of awkward / fun to think through.

-Conjugating to U (I think I may have allowed U2 also). The setup for the last layer was pretty tricky.


Caveats:
-I'm absolutely not taking credit for anything here. I just wanted to see them all in one place.
-I realize it's way cooler to actually know / be good at multiple real methods. Kirjava's 20/20 video completely blows me away. This is just screwing around.
-I could be spending all my time getting faster at cfop / learning algs / etc. Yes, that is true.
-I guess it's all mostly just conjugating to different things. They still feel different to me though.
-Sincere apologies if this is duplicating another thread.

So anyway, am I the only one that does this kind of thing?

[theZcuber]

I do this every once in a while. One I like to do is just to place a single edge, and then treat it as if it is a bandaged cube. So say you place the YO edge, you can only turn WRGB.

[evogler]

Nice. I had to realize a few things to make that work.

[MostEd]

I do columns sometimes

[NeedReality]

I do columns sometimes

As in one of the Columns First Methods? If so, that hardly belongs in a thread about misc./non-useful/gimmicky/random ways to solve the cube - it is quite a viable method in my opinion.

[Ninja Storm]

My club somehow thought it was fun to solve/scramble the puzzle in only T-Perms. -___-

[evogler]

My club somehow thought it was fun to solve/scramble the
puzzle in only T-Perms. -___-

I think so too.

I used to really enjoy solving into the cube in cube in cube pattern.

There was a Youtube video where you scramble a 3x3x3 cube and attempt to solve it to the checker board pattern.

Speaking of solving to other states... Something I was actually trying to get fast at for a few days was solving to the cube you get if you do [u r']x3 to a solved cube. The idea is that the cube looks like a mess the whole time you're playing with it, but then you quickly [r u']x3 and bam!, it's solved. The [r u']x3 is super fast, and can be done with one hand while the other points at the cube as if casting a spell, for dramatic effect. Or you could act disappointed, and pretend to give up, but then hide your hand for a second, do the [r u']x3, and then toss the cube back to your audience with a nonchalant "here you go".

[LNZ]

There was a Youtube video where you scramble a 3x3x3 cube and attempt to solve it to the checker board pattern. I did this once in late 2009 and it took me about 4 minutes to do.

[Jaycee]

There was a Youtube video where you scramble a 3x3x3 cube and attempt to solve it to the checker board pattern. I did this once in late 2009 and it took me about 4 minutes to do.

< solving normally -> M2 E2 S2

O.o

[Godmil]

< solving normally -> M2 E2 S2

O.o

That's cheating through. Also you could solve directly into a superflip, that's probably easier.