• Welcome to the Speedsolving.com, home of the web's largest puzzle community!
    You are currently viewing our forum as a guest which gives you limited access to join discussions and access our other features.

    Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free so please, join our community of 40,000+ people from around the world today!

    If you are already a member, simply login to hide this message and begin participating in the community!

How to Look Ahead in the Fridrich/ CFOP Method

jskyler91

Member
Joined
Mar 23, 2011
Messages
676
Location
Berkeley CA
YouTube
Visit Channel
This is much more difficult for me then it should be. I even have trouble not looking at the pair I am making let alone being able find all the cross pieces and the pair pieces.

For now I guess I will just try cross with corner prediction and not looking at the pair.


You just have to practice it dude, to start off you can literally close your eyes when you find your pair that way you get used to slotting without looking.
 

emolover

Member
Joined
Aug 15, 2010
Messages
3,096
Location
Carmel, IN
WCA
2009MAHO01
YouTube
Visit Channel
You just have to practice it dude, to start off you can literally close your eyes when you find your pair that way you get used to slotting without looking.

It's not at all that I cant do a pair without looking. Its that I have to double check it, if I dont I get nervous and it ****s with my speed and look-ahead.
 
Joined
Jun 17, 2011
Messages
148
Location
Dublin, Ireland
WCA
2012HAMM01
YouTube
Visit Channel
Towards the end of the OLL section, you were talking about using sledgehammer to skip dot cases. I use something similar, but instead orientate all the edges. If instead of using sledgehammer to orientate 2 edges, you can use y l' U' l U2 M' U' M. While performing the M' U' M part, you can see what corner case you will get and begin solving it immediately.

Eg. Setup: f (U R U' R') f' F (U R U' R') F' R U R' U'

Performing: y l' U' l U2 (here you can see/predict the sune) M' U' M
 

jskyler91

Member
Joined
Mar 23, 2011
Messages
676
Location
Berkeley CA
YouTube
Visit Channel
Towards the end of the OLL section, you were talking about using sledgehammer to skip dot cases. I use something similar, but instead orientate all the edges. If instead of using sledgehammer to orientate 2 edges, you can use y l' U' l U2 M' U' M. While performing the M' U' M part, you can see what corner case you will get and begin solving it immediately.

Eg. Setup: f (U R U' R') f' F (U R U' R') F' R U R' U'

Performing: y l' U' l U2 (here you can see/predict the sune) M' U' M

This seems a little too long and unnecessary when I know full OLL. Also, many of my best OLL's are with adjacent edges up. Good for those who don''t know the dots though!!
 

Schmidt

Member
Joined
Feb 4, 2011
Messages
1,288
Location
8620 Danmark
WCA
2012SCHM07
I got dot a lot, so I learned those first* and then kept going till I had learned full OLL.

*The last 2 I learned was the dot with 2 bars on both sides (R U2 R') (R' F R F') U2' (R' F R F')
and the line with 2 bars on the sides, it took me a long time to find a good alg. for that one.
 

Sa967St

Not A Moderator
Joined
Mar 11, 2008
Messages
3,795
Location
Waterloo, ON, Canada
WCA
2007STRO01
YouTube
Visit Channel
I finally got around to watching these. Good job, you explained things really well. :)

Most of the F2L lookahead "tutorials" I've seen explain it like a fixed system. They say that you find a pair, keep an eye out for the next pair, and track the next pair while you're executing the previous one. I like how you emphasized being able to find the next pairs anytime. That kind of flexibility is important during solves. It's also good to be aware of more than one pair at once, which you covered. One thing you missed (I think, sorry if you did and I just missed it) is being prepared to change your mind on which pair to insert next. Supposed you were tracking a pair, but turned into an ugly case, and there happens to be a much easier pair somewhere. IMO F2L look-ahead is perfected when one is be prepared for inserting any pair at any given time. Other than that I think you explained all the important things. I really liked the "don't think about a pair after you've found it" idea, it's definitely a key to being good at F2L.

For the LS->OLL and OLL->PLL transitions I think you covered most of the important techniques. It's a lot of stuff to go over in just 20 mins. I would have recommended more examples of the OLLs with blocks/bars/headlight you can watch, but then that video would be much longer. :p

Also, lol@ "Van Vars Landenbergh".
 

jskyler91

Member
Joined
Mar 23, 2011
Messages
676
Location
Berkeley CA
YouTube
Visit Channel
I finally got around to watching these. Good job, you explained things really well. :)

Most of the F2L lookahead "tutorials" I've seen explain it like a fixed system. They say that you find a pair, keep an eye out for the next pair, and track the next pair while you're executing the previous one. I like how you emphasized being able to find the next pairs anytime. That kind of flexibility is important during solves. It's also good to be aware of more than one pair at once, which you covered. One thing you missed (I think, sorry if you did and I just missed it) is being prepared to change your mind on which pair to insert next. Supposed you were tracking a pair, but turned into an ugly case, and there happens to be a much easier pair somewhere. IMO F2L look-ahead is perfected when one is be prepared for inserting any pair at any given time. Other than that I think you explained all the important things. I really liked the "don't think about a pair after you've found it" idea, it's definitely a key to being good at F2L.

For the LS->OLL and OLL->PLL transitions I think you covered most of the important techniques. It's a lot of stuff to go over in just 20 mins. I would have recommended more examples of the OLLs with blocks/bars/headlight you can watch, but then that video would be much longer. :p

Also, lol@ "Van Vars Landenbergh".

Thank you for your kind words, I tried to keep these vids short per requests; but I am sort of regretting that now as I remember soo many things that I didn't cover. For instance, I really should have gone over PLL prediction using 2 side PLL recognition and of course what you mentioned about floating pairs/ changing your mind during F2L is important as well. I think I might do some example solves soon which will help clear these things up a bit.

On a side note I generally don't stop my current F2L pair if I see an easier one because I find that it is often obtrusive and requires far too many regrips, instead I try to influence my next pair with different inserts or at the very least track it. The only time i really do stop my current pair and do something different is if I have a F2L pair already formed on top and there is not an easy way to preserve it using different inserts. This seems to be what the really fast cubers do at least, from my observations of course.
 
Last edited:

Speedmaster

Member
Joined
Sep 27, 2011
Messages
161
Hey
i've just watched all your videos and their are great :) but i couldn't understand your video for pll recognition..., isn't there another way to have good pll recognition? I am sub 14 now but my last layer makes 6s of that, most of the time is pll recognition, sometimes 2s and thatvis very bad, because i think i have a real good f2l..., could you make some more videos for pll recognition? Maybe the 2 side recognition?
Sry for mistakes in this text, but i don`t speak English very well
 

jskyler91

Member
Joined
Mar 23, 2011
Messages
676
Location
Berkeley CA
YouTube
Visit Channel
Hey
i've just watched all your videos and their are great :) but i couldn't understand your video for pll recognition..., isn't there another way to have good pll recognition? I am sub 14 now but my last layer makes 6s of that, most of the time is pll recognition, sometimes 2s and thatvis very bad, because i think i have a real good f2l..., could you make some more videos for pll recognition? Maybe the 2 side recognition?
Sry for mistakes in this text, but i don`t speak English very well

Sure, I plan on making a few vids this spring break and I will make this one of them.
 
Top