Stuck with the cross.

I've been cubing for a few months now, and my times for my cross has not improved much. it usually takes me about 5-10 seconds to solve it, and there hasn't been much improvement. I was wondering if there is anything I can do to improve the times for it. Should I be looking for the entire cross when I'm inspecting and memorize the movements I need to do? Or is it just the first few moves and looking ahead when I do the cross?

My cross takes me forever, you should try minimise the move count and see how you can place more than one piece at a time.

mine used to be very, very slow...

try solving it with your eyes closed. seriously. just memo the moves, or the position of the cross edges, and try and get them in place as quickly as possible! do this over, and over, and over again. practice getting one difficult cross, and doing it in many ways as possible, counting the moves for each solution. you'll begin to see little tricks you can do, like tom said, solving more than one at once. solving relatively to each other is important.
- one fun thing i do when making crosses relatively to each other, is to try and make (or preserve) a corner piece when it is joined to the correct cross edge, and then before moving the cross into position on the D face, making a keyhole x-cross (or double or triple (!) x-cross) by putting the edge in the correct position.

hope this helps somewhat, even though i explained very badly...

Excuse me!Can you tell me how to learn x-cross?I've search by google but i found nothing...

you figure it out :/
Seriously, it's not very hard....
Like here's one technique:
build the cross + 1 corner on D (but like a D2 or something from finished)
Put in the edge
ADF

Try to practice planning the cross using all the time available and try to understand what will happen when you apply a move. Then begin to set some time limits like 1 minute and decrease that limit as you get better. The same advice works for F2L too.

try my tut on it at
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=hY_FbpdNRCQ&feature=channel_page

it looks like in general people like it

badmephisto said:

try my tut on it at
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=hY_FbpdNRCQ&feature=channel_page

it looks like in general people like it

Click to expand...

That much is true. I'm a part of the general public, and I recommend it.

The only improvement I could possibly think of is posting the scrambles you do so viewers/cubers can follow you as the cross it being done.

What I do is memorize where they are during my inspection and use a single algorithm thought up in my head to permute them ...

IamWEB said:

badmephisto said:

try my tut on it at
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=hY_FbpdNRCQ&feature=channel_page

it looks like in general people like it

Click to expand...

That much is true. I'm a part of the general public, and I recommend it.

The only improvement I could possibly think of is posting the scrambles you do so viewers/cubers can follow you as the cross it being done.

Click to expand...

i guess thats a good idea. I just wanted to scramble on spot so that people don't suspect me of setting up convenient and easy to explain cases or something. But thats dumb. I probably should have done that. meh

i heard that every cross can be solved under 8 moves, so I look for that when i inspect to do the cross.

That's true, although Badmephisto said (and Vandenburgh has proven it) that most crosses (90%, in fact) can be solved in 6 moves or less.

So yes, this requires depth.

ThePizzaGuy92 said:

i heard that every cross can be solved under 8 moves, so I look for that when i inspect to do the cross.

Click to expand...

Every cross can be solved in under 9 moves. Not all crosses can be solved in under 8.

Chris

haha ok umm i cant spell but look at heise's site it helped my cuzin who could do intuitive f2l but cant correct the cross on his own...... (very od child.) ok um it goes something like this. place all 4 edges on the correct side ajust so tha the maximum # of edges is correct and then then jiggle the peices with R and U or whatever you prefer (eg. scramble) white oppisit yellow color scheme. blue on top whit in front red on the rite. B2 R2 F B U R L' U F B D2 R' L2 F2 U' L D' F U' L (not this is not optimal but decently quick as it allows you to come up with a solution while applying your preinspected ideas for a cross)
L R F' (here it can be decent for move count or can be easy to process) first move count: U B' U' B' U') or (processing simplicity: B' U B' U2 Note that UF an UL peices need to be switched fix is L U L' U')

(wow that was long) any questions?

badmephisto said:

IamWEB said:

badmephisto said:

try my tut on it at
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=hY_FbpdNRCQ&feature=channel_page

it looks like in general people like it

Click to expand...

That much is true. I'm a part of the general public, and I recommend it.

The only improvement I could possibly think of is posting the scrambles you do so viewers/cubers can follow you as the cross it being done.

Click to expand...

i guess thats a good idea. I just wanted to scramble on spot so that people don't suspect me of setting up convenient and easy to explain cases or something. But thats dumb. I probably should have done that. meh

Click to expand...

Maybe you could another thought process video or something similar for the if you have the time; this would complete your thought process vids on different steps, as there isn't one needed for OLL and PLL, and you have other videos for the LL anyway.

Well that's my 2 cents

badmephisto, I saw your video before, and it definitely helped me out a lot. I'm just finding myself stuck thinking sometimes on how to solve the cross, especially because a lot of times, i just forget which color goes on what side, such as the red should be on the right of blue and such (if yellow is on top). Does anybody have any suggestions on how to remember this? Are color schemes really important? Is there one that recommended over another? or is it all the same, and i have to just get used to it more? I'm using the one that comes with the usual storebought cube nowadays.

Also, a lot of tutorials say that the cross should be solved on the bottom. Does this mean I should be trying to figure out the cross with the white side on the bottom? or does that simply mean once i get the cross it moves to the bottom?

badmephisto said:

try my tut on it at
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=hY_FbpdNRCQ&feature=channel_page

Click to expand...

Btw, are you promoting Petrus or is the solutions link accidentally wrong?

I try to pratice,and I think thats like F2L and i guess i must build block 2x2(like lars method)But i couldn't did it so few moves.My method takes me many moves and time to look ahead to solve it.Anybody have a document about x-cross?Please shared to me...Hmm

xtenglong said:

badmephisto, I saw your video before, and it definitely helped me out a lot. I'm just finding myself stuck thinking sometimes on how to solve the cross, especially because a lot of times, i just forget which color goes on what side, such as the red should be on the right of blue and such (if yellow is on top). Does anybody have any suggestions on how to remember this? Are color schemes really important? Is there one that recommended over another? or is it all the same, and i have to just get used to it more? I'm using the one that comes with the usual storebought cube nowadays.

Also, a lot of tutorials say that the cross should be solved on the bottom. Does this mean I should be trying to figure out the cross with the white side on the bottom? or does that simply mean once i get the cross it moves to the bottom?

Click to expand...

One way to remember is the left-to right it's orange-blue, o-b, opposite of alphabetical order (ob is also the steam meaning against.)
Left-to-right, it's Red-Green, r-g, again opposite alphabetical order.
The cycle is o-b-r-g, but use whatever four letter suit you best for memory. b-r-g-o, r-g-o-b, g-o-b-r (gobber?).

Yes, this was kind on the spot thinking, it might not be too effectice. Try it out and tell me if it helps.

I bought a DIY and only stickered the centers and a cross. Practicing with that for about two weeks took me from a 12 second cross to sub-5.

To reiterate what others above have said, but I have used and worked for me:

* Work for the 8 move solution, but...
* learn some finger tricks like in badmephisto's vid, especially fixing a bad edge in D with R'uR'u' and swapping two adjacent edges in D with RD'R'DR and their mirrors.
* Inspect, then solve the cross with your eyes closed. It seem impossible at first, but when you can do that, your times will take a dramtic drop.
* know your color scheme. You can memorize it if you're single or opposite color cross, but I'm color neutral, so after I inspect and choose my cross color I know the scheme by looking at the two sides facing me. If you know what color is opposite what, you can always see your cross colors from two sides. Practice that.
* (this goes with the above tip) learn to solve your cross without lining up with the centers, the easiest case being 180 degrees off, so you finish your cross with a D2
* SOLVE THE CROSS ON THE BOTTOM!!!

Of course, nothing can replace practice and patience. The more you practice the easier it gets.

Edit: Last week I was playing around with cross solving and came up with this one: I often solve the cross D2 out of phase, but if I end up with one bad edge (flipped under it's opposite corner at DR) you can fix it and solve the cross with Ru'Ru. I give props to badmephisto's R'uR'u' trick for that.