Are hand scrambles reliable?

[Cheese11]

Hey everyone.

I'm making this thread to discuss whether a hand scramble is just as reliable as a computer generated scramble.

I've done test's where I've done an average of 50 with computer scrambles and then an average of 50 with hand scrambles, and the average times of the computer generated ones were faster than the hand scrambles. I would also like to say that when I'm hand scrambling I'm not actually thinking about the moves I'm doing, and 3 times I ended up with the exact same scramble. Would this be related to muscle memory and the way our fingers move?

EDIT: Maybe the title isn't what it should be.. could a moderator change it to "Are Hand Scrambles Reliable?"

Thanks,
Eric Kulchycki

[bluecloe45]

Hey everyone.

I'm making this thread to discuss whether a hand scramble is just as reliable as a computer generated scramble.

I've done test's where I've done an average of 50 with computer scrambles and then an average of 50 with hand scrambles, and the average times of the computer generated ones were faster than the hand scrambles. I would also like to say that when I'm hand scrambling I'm not actually thinking about the moves I'm doing, and 3 times I ended up with the exact same scramble. Would this be related to muscle memory and the way our fingers move?

EDIT: Maybe the title isn't what it should be.. could a moderator change it to "Are Hand Scrambles Reliable?"

Thanks,
Eric Kulchycki

Yes, I do believe this is related to muscle memory, I have a cubing friend that sometimes scrambles the same way every time without paying attention.

[KukuhTrisna]

Its musle memory? yes !, try to do B2 or D2 or move that you hardly to do it like M2 or S2 (or sometimes Rw)
Sorry for bad english

[Dene]

Whenever I hand scramble I make sure to throw in the odd weird move to make sure I'm not just repeating the same scramble over and over.

I think in general, at least as far as bigcubes are concerned, whenever I scramble by hand I try to separate matching colours (for centres), therefore I avoid the occasional nice computer generated scramble that pops up from time to time. So I guess overall hand scrambles would be "more mixed up", but I doubt there would be a noticeable difference in times.

[Hunter]

Do you have the final times for your two averages of 50?

[sneaklyfox]

I think it's different from person to person. I know muscle memory affects me somewhat because without thinking I tend to start scrambling with the same moves but I'm consciously throwing in weird moves and turning the cube in unusual ways than what feels normal to me. The scramble is usually longer than the computer generated one too (longer in length but not necessarily in time because it's faster.) I would think my hand scrambles are fairly reliable.

[Yuxuibbs]

I used to get the same scrambles when I hand scrambled but now I throw in random cube rotations in the middle of scrambling and I never got the same scramble so far. I also make sure I try to separate the colors that are the same.

[Ranzha V. Emodrach]

I tested this with averages of 100 a couple years ago. There wasn't a huge difference, but then again, that was a couple years ago.
These days, if I hand scramble, I throw the cube in the air and catch it so that I have a "random" orientation. Seems fair imo.

[Ickenicke]

It's not reliable. At least not for me.

[applemobile]

I got faster once I started using computer scrambles. When hand scrambling, if it looked to easy I would re scramble it so I wasnt cheating my myself. With computer scrambles you get what you are given and end up with some nice easy ones.