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How to be sub 20

Smiles

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Can F2L be improved simply by practice or is there something that has to be learned first, then practiced?

after the basics of knowing what to do in each situation, you can learn some extra ways to pair up or insert different CE pairs, but nothing special is necessary. practice gets you the necessary finger smoothness and look ahead ability and confidence to decrease your times. learning new things for f2l just comes with random info u find as well as example solves from good cubers.
 

mafergut

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I have no idea, I realized by looking at the timer at 14s when inserting my last f2l pair and that was a 24 second solve.
I guess I'll have to do an ao5/12 on camera to determin my splits.

Okay. It took a while but I'm back with the promised splits. And the results are a bit surprising for me.

I have done several solves splitting the Cross+F2L and LL. I have taken like 20 results that were around 21-23 seconds and the average is (approx.):
- 14.5 Cross+F2L
- 7.5 Last Layer
So, if your typical 24 second solve is 14+10 I'd say either your LL is slow compared to your F2L or the effect is caused by 2-look OLL. But I think 1-look OLL does not give you a gain of 2,5 seconds so maybe it is something in between or, perhaps, my F2L is bad compared to my LL.

My best LL was 5.5 (not taking into account OLL / PLL skips, of course) and my best cross+F2L was 12.

For a 18 sec solve, just to give some comparison, my splits are more like 12+6. But it is difficult for me to get 18sec solves, the more so when doing split timing :) so I just got one in the whole session.

Hope this helps and hope somebody that knows better than me can help us both!!!!
 
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Megaminx 078

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So getting a cross and F2L in 12 seconds is key?
I have been getting some 17 seconds sprinkled in my 20 second average but it doesn't happen as much as I would like.
Also, what do you do when you just can't find an F2L pair when you've finished a pair?
Thanks
 

TDM

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So getting a cross and F2L in 12 seconds is key?
I have been getting some 17 seconds sprinkled in my 20 second average but it doesn't happen as much as I would like.
Also, what do you do when you just can't find an F2L pair when you've finished a pair?
Thanks
Not key, but <13 seconds for F2L is ideal. If your LL is very fast then your F2L doesn't need to be as fast, but for most people, F2L is about 2/3 of their solve.

If I can't find a pair, then I know I'm turning too fast, and will slow down my turning. Usually I start turning quickly again when I see the next pair, and then slow down at the start of the next pair (until I see the pair after etc).
 

Blabber333

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So getting a cross and F2L in 12 seconds is key?
I have been getting some 17 seconds sprinkled in my 20 second average but it doesn't happen as much as I would like.
Also, what do you do when you just can't find an F2L pair when you've finished a pair?
Thanks

You see, that shouldn't happen if ur looking ahead
 
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Hey Guys! Its been a month since I was posted. I just wanna say that Thanks to this post Im finally sub20, Moreover im sub 17 now. My PB is 12.30 which is fullstep.

I think that there is one thing most people miss out, that TPS is also important. I just increased my TPS and then practiced to adjust my look ahead to my increased TPS. The result was sub20 solves most of the time, like 8/10 solves. Next is just practice. It took me more than a month to get sub 20.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ceqQEhh24M - My 14.06s Solve
 

Isaac Lai

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Hey Guys! Its been a month since I was posted. I just wanna say that Thanks to this post Im finally sub20, Moreover im sub 17 now. My PB is 12.30 which is fullstep.

I think that there is one thing most people miss out, that TPS is also important. I just increased my TPS and then practiced to adjust my look ahead to my increased TPS. The result was sub20 solves most of the time, like 8/10 solves. Next is just practice. It took me more than a month to get sub 20.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ceqQEhh24M - My 14.06s Solve

Nah tps hardly matters until around sub-10 IMO
 

mafergut

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Nah tps hardly matters until around sub-10 IMO

If I'm capable of doing 13.xx non-lucky full-step singles once in a while I would tend to agree with you as my TPS sucks rotten eggs. Also, that's my only hope, to improve lookahead and LL recog so that I can get at least sub-15 without any significant improvement of my TPS, which I don't think are gonna improve any time soon.
 

Isaac Lai

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So assuming you're talking about CFOP with average of about 60 moves/solve and perfect look ahead, what you're saying is tps hardly matters until you're >6 tps. I'll work on improving my tps until it matters then.

CFOP doesn't take 60 moves...? More like ~50

Ok now that I think about it tps does kinda matter on last layer though.:p
 

TDM

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CFOP doesn't take 60 moves...? More like ~50
You sure? On reddit they do daily scrambles where you post solutions. I always try to make mine efficient, using blockbuilding and multislotting, and I'm averaging 53. I sometimes count moves in untimed solves, only trying the (hand)scramble once and they're often high 50s to mid 60s.
 

Isaac Lai

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You sure? On reddit they do daily scrambles where you post solutions. I always try to make mine efficient, using blockbuilding and multislotting, and I'm averaging 53. I sometimes count moves in untimed solves, only trying the (hand)scramble once and they're often high 50s to mid 60s.

I'm not that sure but I usually average around 50-60 but I don't use full OLL. I am pretty sure people who know full OLL can get well around that (50)
 

TDM

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I'm not that sure but I usually average around 50-60 but I don't use full OLL. I am pretty sure people who know full OLL can get well around that (50)
Just did an Ao12 where I looked up the OLL if I didn't know it.

1:01.00, 1:02.00, 52.00, 1:07.00, 56.00, 1:02.00, 52.00, 1:02.00, 1:03.00, 59.00, 56.00, 1:03.00 = 59.60

That's very nearly 60... even taking away two or three moves for colour neutrality that's still far from 50 moves. You'll need a lot of other techniques (quite a few ZBLLs, some LS stuff) to get down to 50 moves.
 

Renslay

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Just did an Ao12 where I looked up the OLL if I didn't know it.

1:01.00, 1:02.00, 52.00, 1:07.00, 56.00, 1:02.00, 52.00, 1:02.00, 1:03.00, 59.00, 56.00, 1:03.00 = 59.60

That's very nearly 60... even taking away two or three moves for colour neutrality that's still far from 50 moves. You'll need a lot of other techniques (quite a few ZBLLs, some LS stuff) to get down to 50 moves.

What? Those numbers are times or... movecounts? :confused:
 
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