Older cubers discussions

Back in noobville, I appreciate everyone's suggestions regarding the Roux method. Fooling around with it has forced me to do two things that I think others have said are important steps for beginners: keeping your first side facing down rather than up, and completing edge-corner pairs to finish solving that face. I can usually get to the point where the last layer corners are solved, and sometimes after a long struggle I can get all of the remaining edge pieces correctly permuted -- and then I give up. Which generally leads to solving the two bottom edges by inspection, and the last layer by the beginners' method. :p

It's a strong temptation to solve the two bottom remaining edges before the last layer, but it seems like the Roux method makes use of that middle slice until the very end. I could probably go either way at this point -- either continue with the Roux method, or complete the bottom layer and then learn the more traditional way of solving the last layer. I'll keep practicing as right now I'm aiming for efficiency rather than speed. If any of you could watch me solving a cube you'd be screaming at me for looking all around and over the cube so much. :eek:

On a last note, if anyone could point me to reliable ways of dealing with 4x4 parity that don't involve cube rotation moves, I'd be forever grateful. I have yet to find one that doesn't result in the whole thing getting messed up. I realize it's a matter of operator error at this point, combined with some degree of inconsistency in notation from one site to another.

Meanwhile, since the topic of placing online orders has come up -- I have an order from the Cubicle on deck, plus two from Cubezz and one from FastTech, and yet last night I started putting things in my Cubicle cart. I think it's an illness. ;)
 
This was my cheat sheet for parity. I had it memorized shortly after I wrote it so I never used it much. I think I watched crazy bad cubers YouTube tutorial and wrote these down. I use number 1 for the first PLL case.
14116712753551ad14ff326c38a38f62.jpg
 
As a fellow blue cross solver, I had a stab at Chris Selkies scramble.
How does this sound?
....
U (R'FRF') R' U' R
L' U' L y' R' U2 R
y' R' U R2 U' R'
y U R U R'
+OLL unknown
 
As a fellow blue cross solver, I had a stab at Chris Selkies scramble.
Here is my try ... I am a blue cross solver btw, so the scamble fits me :) (Didn't bother timing it) (F U2 B' D2 B2 R2 D2 F R2 F' R2 U' L B' F' D' R' D2 L U2 F')
z' U x R2 U R2 U' R // X-Cross
y' R U R' U2 R U2 R' - Dw L U L' - R U' R' Dw R' U' R // F2L
y' Sune Uperm-ccw // LL = 42 moves total or 39 if you cancel the 3 moves (R U R' U R U R U R U R U' R' U' R2)
 
It's a strong temptation to solve the two bottom remaining edges before the last layer, but it seems like the Roux method makes use of that middle slice until the very end. I could probably go either way at this point -- either continue with the Roux method, or complete the bottom layer and then learn the more traditional way of solving the last layer. I'll keep practicing as right now I'm aiming for efficiency rather than speed. If any of you could watch me solving a cube you'd be screaming at me for looking all around and over the cube so much. :eek:

If I may put an advice: dont do your own method. If you solve Roux way - solve with all steps of that method. Doing bottom edges first ruins all the power of the method. If you dont like M slices or something else - switch to CFOP. At this point you are, you need a patience, because you need tons of solve to learn of good habits. But they will pay you off later with a very good progress. Just try to understand how to orient the edges.

And talking about parity. Dont be affraid of cube rotations. It's impossible to solve the cube without them (ok. in Roux you can do no ratation). :)

Good luck, you can make it!
 
On a last note, if anyone could point me to reliable ways of dealing with 4x4 parity that don't involve cube rotation moves, I'd be forever grateful. I have yet to find one that doesn't result in the whole thing getting messed up. I realize it's a matter of operator error at this point, combined with some degree of inconsistency in notation from one site to another.

Meanwhile, since the topic of placing online orders has come up -- I have an order from the Cubicle on deck, plus two from Cubezz and one from FastTech, and yet last night I started putting things in my Cubicle cart. I think it's an illness. ;)
Edge flip (Edge at UF)
r', U2,l,F2,l',F2, r2,U2,r,U2,r', U2, F2,r2,F2 - you can switch all the inner slices moves for wide moves if you prefer on this one

Opposite edge swap (Edges at UF and UB)
r2,U2, r2, Uu2,r2,u2

I'll have a look for the YouTube videos I got these from if you would like?

Cube buying is indeed an illness and is rife on this site. The theoretical cure is to own enough cubes but nobody has ever got into that position.
 
If any of you could watch me solving a cube you'd be screaming at me for looking all around and over the cube so much. :eek:
Don't worry about that, I'm guessing it would as painful as watching this poor guy :p
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GES2r6vVakc

Don't give up, you almost have it, watch again those tutorial videos, practice that part a bit and then you could have all the fun ;)
 
Edge flip (Edge at UF)
r', U2,l,F2,l',F2, r2,U2,r,U2,r', U2, F2,r2,F2 - you can switch all the inner slices moves for wide moves if you prefer on this one

Opposite edge swap (Edges at UF and UB)
r2,U2, r2, Uu2,r2,u2

I'll have a look for the YouTube videos I got these from if you would like?

Cube buying is indeed an illness and is rife on this site. The theoretical cure is to own enough cubes but nobody has ever got into that position.

For one degde flip (OLL parity) I prefer this one:

r U2 x r U2 r U2 r' U2 l U2 r' U2 r U2 r' U2 r'

I execute it also with wide Rw (and Lw) instead of inner slice r and l. It's basically the same alg but with the x rotation after the first Rw U2 so that it's all R L U2 instead of having Fs. Chris Olson has a video doing this alg in like 1.8 seconds. I, of course, take way longer than that. :p

For opposite swap (PLL parity I use the same, I just do the final u2 as Uw2 U2.

Regarding the theory of having enough cubes I am not that sure. A Spanish Youtuber (TheMaoiSha) has more than 800 cubes and twisty puzzles in general and he doesn't look like he's got enough yet so... :p
 
For one degde flip (OLL parity) I prefer this one:

r U2 x r U2 r U2 r' U2 l U2 r' U2 r U2 r' U2 r'

I execute it also with wide Rw (and Lw) instead of inner slice r and l. It's basically the same alg but with the x rotation after the first Rw U2 so that it's all R L U2 instead of having Fs. Chris Olson has a video doing this alg in like 1.8 seconds. I, of course, take way longer than that. :p

I really like this alg. It flows so much better than what I've been using up to now. Definitely swapping to using this one.
 
I really like this alg. It flows so much better than what I've been using up to now. Definitely swapping to using this one.

I like it also because it can be used for 5x5 tredge parity with just replacing the Rw' that goes after the Lw for a Rw3'.

@muchacho, I feel your breath on the back of my neck in the Mega race. Good job!
 
I eventually gave up on trying to reconstruct. Very frustrating as reconstructing is a very useful skill to have. Still searching for the elusive first sub 10 on camera though but not going to get hung up on like I did with sub 15 ao12 and sub 14 ao5 on film :)
 
I wanted to increase the number of events I do at WC (currently 11) and decided to give it a go at 3BLD, even though I have just been trying 2BLD for only 3 weeks and the last time I attempted 3BLD was almost 2 years ago. Memo was not a problem and, surprisingly, I managed to do corners wrong somehow and ended up with 5 corners wrong but I got all the edges right!!! (with OP, as I have not learned M2 yet).

The scramble was the 1st in the WC#07
1. 15:24.49 D R2 F2 D2 L2 U' R2 F2 R2 U2 R2 F' D' B2 R F D B2 R B R'

Mi memo was:

corners: BH LT NC LN (not sure what the heck I did, the memo is wrong in the end pair and also I executed BC instead of BH, because BH is a bycicle name in Spanish and I imagined a bycicle and recalled as BC instead of BH, so I have to be careful with my letters in memo)

edges: EG OC UP HT LQ + edge in DB is flipped

I'm surprised that I could do the edges okay. It was close enough to a success for almost a 1st time. And yeah, it took 15 minutes :)

Any advice? (apart from "learn M2" ;))
 
Just one more thing, practice!

Sorry, I had to :p ...but yeah, I guess (*) it's like Megaminx, practice is even more important than for other events.

(*) I'm a newbie, I have only tried to memo and solve edges but sighted.

If you just want to increase the number of events it would be easier to learn clock or even feet ;)

edit:
En BH a Lituania uno que NaCió en León.
A EGipto en OCtubre ¿Arriba? en un HoTEL en Liquidaciones DiaBólicas.
 
Last edited:
This was my cheat sheet for parity. I had it memorized shortly after I wrote it so I never used it much. I think I watched crazy bad cubers YouTube tutorial and wrote these down. I use number 1 for the first PLL case.
http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160221/14116712753551ad14ff326c38a38f62.jpg

I didn't even know there was a way of swapping adjacent dedges in the PLL parity above. Obviously I've done the adjacent dedge swap a bunch of times. The setup move to allow the adjacent swap seem easy enough, so will make sure I add this to my repertoire. Thanks very much.
 
I wanted to increase the number of events I do at WC (currently 11) and decided to give it a go at 3BLD, even though I have just been trying 2BLD for only 3 weeks and the last time I attempted 3BLD was almost 2 years ago. Memo was not a problem and, surprisingly, I managed to do corners wrong somehow and ended up with 5 corners wrong but I got all the edges right!!! (with OP, as I have not learned M2 yet).

The scramble was the 1st in the WC#07
1. 15:24.49 D R2 F2 D2 L2 U' R2 F2 R2 U2 R2 F' D' B2 R F D B2 R B R'

Mi memo was:

corners: BH LT NC LN (not sure what the heck I did, the memo is wrong in the end pair and also I executed BC instead of BH, because BH is a bycicle name in Spanish and I imagined a bycicle and recalled as BC instead of BH, so I have to be careful with my letters in memo)

edges: EG OC UP HT LQ + edge in DB is flipped

I'm surprised that I could do the edges okay. It was close enough to a success for almost a 1st time. And yeah, it took 15 minutes :)

Any advice? (apart from "learn M2" ;))

That is a nice scramble. I had memo lockup - I forgot to wear blindfold and lost few seconds, but I've lost also my memo and got a lock. Finally I could finish it.
 
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