Will the Fridrich method ever be beaten?

[*LukeMayn*]

This is talking about speed AND popularity.
Well, as far as I can tell, cubing has really been pushed to the limit and everyone ( a lot) of cubers are using fridrich or a simplified version. I've been thinkning about the fridrich system for a while now and it really is a ***near*** perfect method. I mean it has amazing TPS, easy look ahead, uses inspection time wisely, and uses an acceptable amount of algs.
What could be better? There's roux, petrus, ZB and all the rest but they have downs.... but so does fridrich. it has an about 56 move count on average!

Now lets cut to the chase, will there ever be a better method? If so what will it do? How will it work?
I need opinions!

P.S: I know that other methods can get really fast but no-one is pushing them like we are with fridrich.....

 

[ThePizzaGuy92]

idk about popularity, but MGLS and ZB have amazing potential in my opinion

 

[*LukeMayn*]

IMO they have just as much as fridrich which has already been pushed to it's limits...

 

[yurivish]

The real question is whether with time, it's possible to have enough lookahead at that speed.

The strength of Fridrich is that when you're at the level of today's pros, it's as much about turning speed as it is lookahead. I will really be interested in seeing whether someone can "think" far enough ahead to be able to reach even close to the turn speed that Fridrich people can muster with another method.

There are several - Gilles Roux, that guy who averages sub-14 with petrus, and probably quite a few others - but they're still a few seconds away from the cutting edge.

I think that if there are enough people working with dedication, over the next few years there will probably be a world record, or close to one, set in competition by someone who uses Petrus or Roux. ZZ would be nice, since I'm curious to see how far that can be pushed, but unless you're using ZZLL then the move count is around the same as Fridrich's, with the only added benefit being that there are no cube rotations.

 

[badmephisto]

its hard to say... fridrich method is very well established and it has most resources, and it works. Not many people out there would be seriously willing to learn something that is potentially not powerful enough.

But i do refuse to believe that Fridrich is the best that we can do

 

[Swordsman Kirby]

that guy who averages sub-14 with petrus,

Nicely done.

I believe that Petrus will eventually surpass Fridrich in speed. Just you wait. With ZBLL you can average sub-40 moves...

 

[qqwref]

I think Fridrich is the best method we know about for 3x3 (just like I think reduction is the best method we know about for the existing bigcubes). The reason is that it is (1) fast despite having (2) few things to look at at each step and (3) few algorithms.

As for fast, we already know it is fast, but the question is: are other methods (i.e. not just a Fridrich variation) fast? I think at the moment I would have to say... no. Sub-15 second averages are very common for Fridrich users, and it's possible to go much lower than that without even being considered fast. But for Petrus, Roux, etc. getting under 15 seconds is viewed as incredible and world-class. I'm sure some of this is because there are so many fewer people using those methods, but I really think that . And for all you complaining about there not being enough support structures for other methods... how do you give algorithms/advice for intuitive steps? You can't, if you insist on it being intuitive!

The second bit might need a bit more explaining... in F2L, you only need to find two pieces. In OLL you only need to look at where the yellow stickers are, and in PLL you can always recognize the case by just looking at the front and right sides. So each of these steps are pretty easy to look ahead for. I don't think intuitive steps are bad, but if you have to find more than two pieces, and you need to see everything before you can figure out a fast solution, it really hinders your lookahead. Besides, the intuitive steps on Fridrich are almost entirely 2-gen or 3-gen, so there are very few cube rotations, which makes it easier to find pieces and more comfortable to do very fast turns. I would really like to see a fast Petrus or Roux solve with no pauses, but I'm not sure it can be done. On the other hand I wouldn't call myself fast but I do a pretty good job of being very smooth at 3x3, because I find almost everything before I do it. Leyan Lo once told me - no matter how fast you turn, if you don't look ahead properly, you are wasting 0.5 second after every step. If you have 7 steps, that's 3 seconds! So you HAVE to be able to look ahead.

So... I'd really like to see someone be as fast as Nakajima or Harris Chan (or Erik) with Petrus / Roux / Waterman / Heise / Corners First / Human Thistlethwaite. But I really don't think it's going to happen, and I also don't think there are very many methods left to be discovered that aren't obvious Fridrich clones.

 

[ImNOTnoob]

One thing for sure: no one will ever sub-15 with a beginner method. Assuming it has a 150 move count, it requires a 15 tps average.

 

[Hadley4000]

I hate to say no, because that is a very strong word for something like this. I would be very surprised if a method came out and became faster and more popular than Fridrich, and even more surprised if one of the current alternative methods surpasses it. But like I said, this is something that no one will be able to know.

 

[Lucas Garron]

One thing for sure: no one will ever sub-15 with a beginner method. Assuming it has a 150 move count, it requires a 15 tps average.

Why does a beginner method have to take 150 moves? Isn't that a silly assumption based on the method we're discussing about beating?
Anyhow, Petrus can be sub-15, and it can easily be a beginner's method.

 

[Swordsman Kirby]

One thing for sure: no one will ever sub-15 with a beginner method. Assuming it has a 150 move count, it requires a 15 tps average.

Doesn't that make 10sec?

 

[DonQuixote]

Gilles Roux, that guy who averages sub-14 with petrus

I heard 'bout a guy named Lars Petrus who isn't too bad with Roux...

If people like Erik or Yu would have chosen Roux or Petrus the Fridrich method would already have been beaten. As far as I can tell no "Blockbuilder" is currently putting as much time into his/her cube as those guys.

Kind Regards
Martin

 

[mazei]

Well I think other methods do have potential at being equal with Fridrich. The thing is just see it this way. More people use Fridrich so that would mean more people get sub-15 averages with it compared to other methods because of simple logic where when you have a larger amount of people, the probability of someone getting sub-15 is higher. So basically, I think if every suddenly switched over to Petrus or Roux or any other method then I think it would have the same effect.

In any case, I don't think the Fridrich method is the perfect method because it still has a couple of cons to it.

 

[wongxiao]

I think part of the attractiveness of Fredrich is its similarity to many popular beginner methods. The main things you have to change are going to be 2nd layer edge insertions (learning to build pairs) and maybe the last layer order (the beginner method I chose didn't do OLL than PLL...).

But the familiarity of layer-by-layer methodology, IMHO, gives Fredrich a very sharp advantage over block based systems to beginners who are in the 2-1 minute range looking to get faster...

So yeah, I wouldn't be at all surprised if someone comes out with some record breaking times using another method; I think it has more to do with popularity than raw efficiency. And of course there are the lookahead issues which have been pointed out.

 

[qqwref]

If people like Erik or Yu would have chosen Roux or Petrus the Fridrich method would already have been beaten. As far as I can tell no "Blockbuilder" is currently putting as much time into his/her cube as those guys.

I'm not sure how much time Erik's put into his 3x3 (I'm guessing not as much as some other fast people since he doesn't concentrate on that event only), but I do know that Johannes Laire spent something like three years using Petrus, and I'd bet that Gilles Roux and Lars Petrus put similar amounts of time into their methods.

 

[Dene]

In OLL you only need to look at where the yellow stickers are

....................................dot..............................dot-dot............................dot..................................dot.....................dot-dot-dot........................dot-dot....................and-more-dots.................... oh?

 

[DonQuixote]

I'm not sure how much time Erik's put into his 3x3 (I'm guessing not as much as some other fast people since he doesn't concentrate on that event only), but I do know that Johannes Laire spent something like three years using Petrus, and I'd bet that Gilles Roux and Lars Petrus put similar amounts of time into their methods.

You do realize that developing and mastering a method are two different things?
Additionally, measuring cubing-time in years, month or days is just plain stupid, you can cube for two years with 0.5 hour a day and still be behind a kid practicing 5 hours for 3 months in terms of progress.

Kind Regards
Martin

 

[qqwref]

Lars and Gilles didn't just develop their method, they also use(d) it for speedsolving and are/were very fast for their time. So I think they really did put a lot of hours into speedsolving. As for Johannes, you can ask him yourself if you want to, but from what I remember he really did spend a lot of time solving, and even though he wouldn't call himself a master of the method I would say he is one.

 

[Escher]

im sad that nobody has mentioned ZZ yet.
once i have EOLine set up (i.e im not very good at it so ill start timing a solve with it done) i can average about 12-14s. add 3s for EOLine execution and i can average of 12 a whole 2-5s better. its ridiculous. for example, if i get the left 2x2x3 block done, the rest is two-gen up until PLL.
i think that if anyone/any method is going to beat fridrich, it would be ZZ.
it beats it on move count, can beat it on tps, beats it on lookahead, beats it on move ergonomy (no cube rotations), and is generally just really nice with a simple Z rotation you can have two gen f2l too.
its only real weakness is EOLine lookahead and execution - it takes a long time to get used to it, and the <=8 moves to do it are not always very nice.
hah, it even beats the cross on average number of moves to completion

 

[Inusagi]

Interesting thread. I've been thinking on this a while now, and I have to say :if it's a method that can beat Friedrich, then it has to be very deliberated.