[Member Intro] Just to say hi!

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bebop

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Nov 20, 2014
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Hi everyone, I have found myself getting into speed cubing lately - I used to have a bit of interest in cubing back in the late 80s, when I was in my teens - I'm 30-something years older now, so a bit of a break! But a week ago, kind of at random, I thought I'd search for "Rubik's cube speed" on Youtube, and was amazed, and very impressed, by what I saw, and inspired to take things up again. I say "again", but really I feel a lot like a total beginner. Using what I guess is a pretty simple beginners kind of method, with not many algorithms, I seem to be something like a 1.20 ish average (only rarely do I go over 1.30). I did do a 45 seconds the other day, but was pretty lucky on that one. So I've set myself an initial goal of being always able to solve in under a minute. I'm currently working on F2L intuitive, and it does seem to be gradually getting faster, although it does sometimes take me a while just to find both pieces of a corner-edge pair. Must start working on my last layer stuff too, at the moment how I do that is extremely inefficient. Anyway, it's great that there is so much help and advice online now, and I guess I just need to keep practicing.

I had a hunch my old Rubiks brand cube is not very good, and have just got a new white Shengshou Aurora, which does seem pretty outrageous by comparison. I also bought some full bright Z stickers, but ended up not changing all the colours - I have left the red and yellow original. My idea is to get the best contrast between colours I can, as I sometimes struggle with this. In particular, I've swapped the white stickers for black, as before I was often mistaking yellow for white, especially with electric lighting - don't know if anyone else does this too? Actually I find all the different speed cube models pretty fascinating, and although I know I don't need any more at my standard, I think I may expand my collection a bit, just because I like them. Planning to stick to 3x3x3 for now though.

Other interests - Lots of types of music, and I play jazz guitar in some local bands, and I do archery also (compound bow for the last 17 years, before that recurve bow for 7 years). I'm kind of into science and astronomy also, but not in any big way.

Pleased to meet you all anyhow. :)
 
Welcome! Yeah, I was first playing with the Rubik's Cube in the 80s too. But I'm still maybe a decade younger than you. I like archery too but don't have my own equipment. Hope you have fun cubing again and after you get sub-1:00 you won't be able to stop there!
 
Thanks for the welcome guys! At the moment I really suck big time at F2L - most of the time I can't even get under a minute for the first 2 layers. So it could take me a while to get there, but I figure give it a month or 2 of practice and things may be changing. :)
 
bebop said:
Thanks for the welcome guys! At the moment I really suck big time at F2L - most of the time I can't even get under a minute for the first 2 layers. So it could take me a while to get there, but I figure give it a month or 2 of practice and things may be changing. :)
Click to expand...

Try out some other methods other than CFOP, according to many, the main reason they switch to other methods elike Roux <3 or ZZ or Petrus is because CFOP is so algorithm beefy and gets boring after a while.
 
bebop said:
I'm currently working on F2L intuitive, and it does seem to be gradually getting faster, although it does sometimes take me a while just to find both pieces of a corner-edge pai
Click to expand...

You should try some of the other big four methods, mainly ZZ and Roux, just so you don't regret not using one of them from the start. They both have equal potential to CFOP (cross, f2l, oll pll). ZZ is similar to CFOP but it reduces the cube to only turning R, U, and L moves plus no rotations after doing the EOLine (pretty much equivalent to cross). On the other hand, Roux solves are generally a lot more intuitive than CFOP ones. Using the Roux method, the solver will build 2 1x2x3 blocks on the left and right side of the cube (so that the last layer is free), solve the 4 remaining corners, then solve the remaining edges with only M and U moves. Check out 5BLD on youtube to see some really fast Roux solves.

CFOP requires 78 algorithms,
Roux requires 42,
ZZ requires 27 (correct me if I'm wrong).
 
bebop said:
Thanks for the welcome guys! At the moment I really suck big time at F2L - most of the time I can't even get under a minute for the first 2 layers. So it could take me a while to get there, but I figure give it a month or 2 of practice and things may be changing. :)
Click to expand...

It takes some practice but you'll get there. When I first started learning CFOP, it also took me forever to find the pairs. Now, I'm much faster. :D

maps600 said:
CFOP requires 78 algorithms,
Roux requires 42,
ZZ requires 27 (correct me if I'm wrong).
Click to expand...

I have a problem with the use of the word "require" which implies that you need to know them all before you can solve the cube because that certainly is not the case. For example, OLL is 57 algs but that can be reduced to 7 or 8 for 2-look. And if you don't even want to learn all that it can be reduced even further. I think those numbers are just the normal standard, but you can still solve the cube using these methods with far fewer algorithms. By all means, try out different methods if you want though. They're interesting.
 
maps600 said:
You should try some of the other big four methods, mainly ZZ and Roux, just so you don't regret not using one of them from the start. They both have equal potential to CFOP (cross, f2l, oll pll). ZZ is similar to CFOP but it reduces the cube to only turning R, U, and L moves plus no rotations after doing the EOLine (pretty much equivalent to cross). On the other hand, Roux solves are generally a lot more intuitive than CFOP ones. Using the Roux method, the solver will build 2 1x2x3 blocks on the left and right side of the cube (so that the last layer is free), solve the 4 remaining corners, then solve the remaining edges with only M and U moves. Check out 5BLD on youtube to see some really fast Roux solves.

CFOP requires 78 algorithms,
Roux requires 42,
ZZ requires 27 (correct me if I'm wrong).
Click to expand...

Cheers for that @maps600 - what is this Roux and ZZ of which you speak? :D Will have to investigate that! :)
 
sneaklyfox said:
It takes some practice but you'll get there. When I first started learning CFOP, it also took me forever to find the pairs. Now, I'm much faster. :D



I have a problem with the use of the word "require" which implies that you need to know them all before you can solve the cube because that certainly is not the case. For example, OLL is 57 algs but that can be reduced to 7 or 8 for 2-look. And if you don't even want to learn all that it can be reduced even further. I think those numbers are just the normal standard, but you can still solve the cube using these methods with far fewer algorithms. By all means, try out different methods if you want though. They're interesting.
Click to expand...

Thanks for that encouragement @sneaklyfox - it's actually much appreciated at the moment, I still seem to be mostly over a minute to get the first 2 layers done. I'm so bad! - I can almost hear the gears in my brain creaking as I work out what to do next... :D Will keep practicing a bit each day though.

I guess I really should stick to one method as my main thing to practice, but as you say, interesting to look at others also. :)
 
theROUXbiksCube said:
Try out some other methods other than CFOP, according to many, the main reason they switch to other methods elike Roux <3 or ZZ or Petrus is because CFOP is so algorithm beefy and gets boring after a while.
Click to expand...

Cheers - I am going to look at the other methods. I'm trying to get going with intuitive F2L at the moment though, so not really thinking much in algorithm terms. I think I have a reasonable grasp of various ways to connect the corner-edge pairs and slot them in - it's just that it takes me an age to find them, and then figure out what case I'm looking at, a what moves to make. :)
 
Sorry @maps600 and @sneaklyfox - I did reply to your last posts, but got a message saying my posts would have to wait for admin approval before appearing, which doesn't seem to have happened yet. Anyhow, appreciate the encouragement sneaklyfox, because at the moment I do seem to be hopelessly bad at F2L :D will keep practicing though. And at least find out a bit about Roux and ZZ, and possibly some other methods also, although I do think I should probably try to stay focused more on one thing for now. :)
 
Thank you for the welcome everyone, and the encouragement is much appreciated. Not sure what all the terminology means to be honest, but I will have fun finding out. I have posted some other replies yesterday, but for some reason they are waiting for mod approval, and have yet to appear - perhaps they will all suddenly show up at the same time. Don't want to appear like I'm being rude and not answering anyhow. Will see if this one goes up or not now...
 
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