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One-Answer Clock Question Thread

Note

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the champions of the clock use which method??

I dunoo, I believe it's just one method most people use (Stefan Pochmann's) nowadays... Lucky cases and quick turning would probably be how people get so fast..

I use a LingAo clock and when I try pushing down the buttons, they sometimes get stuck until I slightly turn the wheels. Is this just inaccurate turning or is it the clock's fault?
 

Berkmann18

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I dunoo, I believe it's just one method most people use (Stefan Pochmann's) nowadays... Lucky cases and quick turning would probably be how people get so fast..

I use a LingAo clock and when I try pushing down the buttons, they sometimes get stuck until I slightly turn the wheels. Is this just inaccurate turning or is it the clock's fault?

It's the clock, I myself have this issue
 

TDM

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I'm new to Clock - is it worth learning how to:
a) solve without rotating, or
b) do two moves at once?

The first one isn't hard and the second one looks like it could be possible with a little bit of practice, but I don't know if either is something that many people actually do.

E: and are there any resources on good fingertricks? I've found is Kit Clement's how to get faster video, but I'd like to know if there is anything else!
 

biscuit

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I'm new to Clock - is it worth learning how to:
a) solve without rotating, or
b) do two moves at once?

The first one isn't hard and the second one looks like it could be possible with a little bit of practice, but I don't know if either is something that many people actually do.

E: and are there any resources on good fingertricks? I've found is Kit Clement's how to get faster video, but I'd like to know if there is anything else!

Do you mean flipping it? If so, no. Learning to do all different kinds of flips is important though. (I think Kit goes over it in his video)

How do you plan on doing two moves at once? That doesn't make any sense when it comes to clock.

As far as I can tell, what he does is what pretty much everyone does. Come up with a way that makes it easier for you if you can.
 

TDM

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Do you mean flipping it? If so, no. Learning to do all different kinds of flips is important though. (I think Kit goes over it in his video)

How do you plan on doing two moves at once? That doesn't make any sense when it comes to clock.

As far as I can tell, what he does is what pretty much everyone does. Come up with a way that makes it easier for you if you can.
I see. Any reason why? Not saying I don't believe you, I just know nothing about this! From what I can see, it adds time, means you can't do two moves at once (see below) and, if you do non-y2 flips, makes looking ahead much harder.

If the top two pins are up, then doing a U move and a D move have different effects. The U move could solve one of the "edges" on the front while not affecting the back side, and the D move can solve one of them on the back while not affecting the front. If you can do them simultaneously, surely you can save a few seconds that way?
 

biscuit

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I see. Any reason why? Not saying I don't believe you, I just know nothing about this! From what I can see, it adds time, means you can't do two moves at once (see below) and, if you do non-y2 flips, makes looking ahead much harder.

If the top two pins are up, then doing a U move and a D move have different effects. The U move could solve one of the "edges" on the front while not affecting the back side, and the D move can solve one of them on the back while not affecting the front. If you can do them simultaneously, surely you can save a few seconds that way?
it makes look ahead difficult, and mistakes would be easier (which is really prevelant anyway)

Plus no one fast does it.
 

TDM

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it makes look ahead difficult, and mistakes would be easier (which is really prevelant anyway)

Plus no one fast does it.
I agree with the mistakes part definitely, but I still have a 90% success rate after less than two days of clock - so once my turning improves I'm sure that's going to get better. But I don't find it affects lookahead too much: you only need to remember five numbers/letters with audio, which is pretty easy.
 

TDM

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How are you doing noflip? I made a thread a while back and didn't convince anyone I don't think, then tried it in comp. If a good clock gets released I might practice it again.
I've not yet looked at a tutorial so my method (and notation) may be different from yours. My method is edges first, rotating the centre to match with each edge in turn. Here's how it goes:

U pins up: match F centre with FD edge by turning U, and match B centre with BU by turning D
R pins up: match F centre with FL edge by turning R, and match B centre with BR by turning L
D pins up: match F centre with FU edge by turning D, and match B centre with BD by turning U
L pins up: match F centre with FR edge by turning L, and match B centre with BL by turning R
All pins down: correctly orient all B edges
Then solve corners without needing to look at the back face at all!

To memo, I look at what turns I need to do to the back edges to match them with the centre. So if I need to do 5+ to solve BU, 4- to solve BR, 1- to solve BD, and 3+ to solve BL, and then 3- to orient everything (I trace where the centre piece goes), I'd memo: 5DA3C. I solve one F and one B edge at the same time since I already have the pins where I need them.

UR5- DR3+ DL0+ UL2+ U6+ R4- D4+ L1+ ALL4- y2 U3- R2- D4- L5+ ALL5+ DL UL

I would choose the side that's facing you to be the back (I choose the easier one), so I'd memo:
D (U clock needs to be turned 4- to match the centre)
B (L clock needs to be turned 2- to match the centre)
C (D clock needs to be turned 3- to match the centre)
5 (R clock needs to be turned 5+ to match the centre)
For the centre piece, you need to reflect everything. So follow the hand as if it were to do 4+, 2+, 3+, 5-. You'll find it points to 5, so you would need to do a 5- to solve it. But, we need to reflect this too, so we'd think of this as a 5+. So I'd memo this as 5.

So the memo is DBC55.

To solve,
y2
U pins up: turn a U wheel 3-, turn a D wheel 4- (because we memo'd D)
R pins up: turn an R wheel 6+, turn an L wheel 2- (because we memo'd B)
D pins up: turn a D wheel 5+, turn a U wheel 3- (because we memo'd C)
L pins up: turn an L wheel 3-, turn an R wheel 5+ (because we memo'd 5)
All pins down: turn any wheel 5+ (because we memo'd 5)
Then corners are 4 moves after that and don't require you to flip the clock, since the corners are the same on the front and back.
 
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I've not yet looked at a tutorial so my method (and notation) may be different from yours. My method is edges first, rotating the centre to match with each edge in turn. Here's how it goes:
Makes sense, but I'm pretty sure fast clock solvers would say the pin order is bad. Disclaimer: I don't even have sub-15 average, I barely practiced for a comp once, and I've not touched clock in months.

To make it more like the usual clock pin order, the calculations become a little more complicated, though still easy to do within inspection. I've not seen any good objective reason this is bad (risk of screwing up is an obstacle, but one which can be overcome with enough practice), but I've not seen a lot of interest in it.

[Thread where I tried to get some interest, but I don't know of anyone doing it in comp or even posting an average using it.]

Probably silly variation I did in comp (because I needed to make clock less boring to make myself practise):
Code:
 U
LMR
 D

A=R-(M-L)

M1=U-L
M2=A
M3=D-R
M4=M-D
M5=M-U

pins = UL,UR,DL,DR

dudu   D>L   m1
dudd   M>B   \
duud   U>UL  m2
ddud   B>U   /
udud   B>R   m3
uduu   B>UR  m4
uudu   B>DL  m5
uuud   B>DR 
uuuu   B>12
 
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TDM

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Makes sense, but I'm pretty sure fast clock solvers would say the pin order is bad. Disclaimer: I don't even have sub-15 average, I barely practiced for a comp once, and I've not touched clock in months.

To make it more like the usual clock pin order, the calculations become a little more complicated, though still easy to do within inspection. I've not seen any good objective reason this is bad (risk of screwing up is an obstacle, but one which can be overcome with enough practice), but I've not seen a lot of interest in it.

[Thread where I tried to get some interest, but I don't know of anyone doing it in comp or even posting an average using it.]

Probably silly variation I did in comp (because I needed to make clock less boring to make myself practise):
Code:
U
LMR
D

A=R-(M-L)

M1=U-L
M2=A
M3=D-R
M4=M-D
M5=M-U

pins = UL,UR,DL,DR

dudu   D>L   m1
dudd   M>B   \
duud   U>UL  m2
ddud   B>U   /
udud   B>R   m3
uduu   B>UR  m4
uudu   B>DL  m5
uuud   B>DR
uuuu   B>12

You're right, that pin order is probably better. I didn't think about mine at all, I'm still solving the same way as when I started. I'll give this a go!
 

ryanj92

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I've not yet looked at a tutorial so my method (and notation) may be different from yours. My method is edges first, rotating the centre to match with each edge in turn. Here's how it goes:

U pins up: match F centre with FD edge by turning U, and match B centre with BU by turning D
R pins up: match F centre with FL edge by turning R, and match B centre with BR by turning L
D pins up: match F centre with FU edge by turning D, and match B centre with BD by turning U
L pins up: match F centre with FR edge by turning L, and match B centre with BL by turning R
All pins down: correctly orient all B edges
Then solve corners without needing to look at the back face at all!

To memo, I look at what turns I need to do to the back edges to match them with the centre. So if I need to do 5+ to solve BU, 4- to solve BR, 1- to solve BD, and 3+ to solve BL, and then 3- to orient everything (I trace where the centre piece goes), I'd memo: 5DA3C. I solve one F and one B edge at the same time since I already have the pins where I need them.

UR5- DR3+ DL0+ UL2+ U6+ R4- D4+ L1+ ALL4- y2 U3- R2- D4- L5+ ALL5+ DL UL

I would choose the side that's facing you to be the back (I choose the easier one), so I'd memo:
D (U clock needs to be turned 4- to match the centre)
B (L clock needs to be turned 2- to match the centre)
C (D clock needs to be turned 3- to match the centre)
5 (R clock needs to be turned 5+ to match the centre)
For the centre piece, you need to reflect everything. So follow the hand as if it were to do 4+, 2+, 3+, 5-. You'll find it points to 5, so you would need to do a 5- to solve it. But, we need to reflect this too, so we'd think of this as a 5+. So I'd memo this as 5.

So the memo is DBC55.

To solve,
y2
U pins up: turn a U wheel 3-, turn a D wheel 4- (because we memo'd D)
R pins up: turn an R wheel 6+, turn an L wheel 2- (because we memo'd B)
D pins up: turn a D wheel 5+, turn a U wheel 3- (because we memo'd C)
L pins up: turn an L wheel 3-, turn an R wheel 5+ (because we memo'd 5)
All pins down: turn any wheel 5+ (because we memo'd 5)
Then corners are 4 moves after that and don't require you to flip the clock, since the corners are the same on the front and back.

Can you do this comfortably in 15 seconds? I tried Matt's noflip method for a while and what was holding me back the most is that my general BLD skill is pretty low...

Also, to answer an earlier question on fingertrick resources, I have a limited amount of things on my website :)
 
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Can you do this comfortably in 15 seconds? I tried Matt's noflip method for a while and what was holding me back the most is that my general BLD skill is pretty low...
I still don't think it takes a whole lot of BLD skill to do, 5 numbers is small enough to not need fancy memo techniques. Audio loop works, just say the numbers to yourself and you should remember them, just like when someone is telling you their phone number and you can remember a few digits at a time without really thinking about it.
 
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