Older cubers discussions

[mafergut]

@Raúl: I'm exhausted just from thinking about all the events you participated in, not to talk about organising the event. I can only imagine how demanding 4BLD and 5BLD must be so, congratulations on all your very good results.

@Jason: Nice PB single! You're getting faster fast, man!

@Marcel: I have the same problem myself. I waste a lot of time with corners of the 1st layer when, e.g. there are none already in place in any face, or just one and there are no easy ones (one-movers, etc.) I also have difficulties to predict where one corner will end up after being affected by placing another so, this ends up taking too much time. Sadly I have not found any resources. Please make sure you put a note here in case you find something. Maybe,

@Grzegorz, you have some suggestions? You did a fantastic job with skewb the other day.

 

[muchacho]

(Because of being colorblind to those light greens that are used in most cubes) I've replace the red side of a stickerless thunderclap with the black of a black thunderclap, the red pieces went to the orange side and the orange's to the green.

I've done 12 solves with it and it looks promising (33.20 average, a 24.65 being the fastest of them), once I graduate from the race to sub-25 I think I'll change to this color scheme.

I also need help building the first layer in Skewb, I should upload the ones I did in my competition, it was atrocious... wait, I've not even uploaded the 3x3's yet

Yesterday's Megaminx solves were worst than bad, today ones must be under 4:30 to get a 5:00 ao12

 

[mafergut]

(Because of being colorblind to those light greens that are used in most cubes) I've replace the red side of a stickerless thunderclap with the black of a black thunderclap, the red pieces went to the orange side and the orange's to the green.

I've done 12 solves with it and it looks promising (33.20 average, a 24.65 being the fastest of them), once I graduate from the race to sub-25 I think I'll change to this color scheme.

I also need help building the first layer in Skewb, I should upload the ones I did in my competition, it was atrocious... wait, I've not even uploaded the 3x3's yet

Yesterday's Megaminx solves were worst than bad, today ones must be under 4:30 to get a 5:00 ao12

I hope you can find a color scheme you can be confortable with. I assume that is an added difficulty for Mega, as 12 colors is a lot and even I have issues telling the two greens and the two yellows apart in my Shengshou.

Anyway, it looks like the sudden worsening of the times in mega might be more caused by the pressure of being close to winning the race that we being close to our limit because I am even fearing that tomorrow I will get the new WC scrambles and will do really badly

Also, to increase the number of events I do at WC I yesterday learned a very basic method for SQ-1 and also did Match the Scramble, which, by the way, I found to be a lot of fun. Terrible times at both events but at least I'll get points for participating. Maybe I will even try (next week?) MultiBLD with 2 cubes. At like 12-15 minutes currently for each rescrambling I don't think I have time for 3 cubes in 1 hour and it's going to be a DNF anyway so... (I haven't even had my 1st success at 3BLD so, how come I want to try multi? I'm crazy, that's why).

So far a record of 14 events at WC and that's just because I don't and won't ever do Feet (ughhh!) and I don't have a Magic or a Clock. Nice times at most of them this week, except for some failures here and there. Of course, even though I'm crazy I don't even think about trying 4BLD, well, I don't even know how to do the dang thing So, only way to increase the number of events is to buy a 6x6 and 7x7. Shengshous are good enough? I don't want to spend a lot in Moyus. Yuxin, can you build a cheap and great 6x6 and 7x7, please? CB? QiYi, somebody?

 

[h2f]

I did a Skewb solve this weekend, because I registered for Skewb in May this year. I understand the part where you do U turns with slegde hammers. What I do not get is how to make a quick first 4 corners. Are there any good sources for learning that? The Skewb cross equivalent?

I've watched nothing. I just try to find one or two moves corner and predict how it affects on the others which arent in their spot. I almost always start with one or 2 corners solved. If you want I may try to make a walkthrough few solves but I'm not advanced solver just noob.

My winning 3bld solve:

 

[mark49152]

I also seem to have the most amazing ability at the moment to get double parity on what feels like 90% of solves

Yeah I feel the same. In my last session I counted 18 OLL parities in 25 solves and despite the obvious psychology, it feels typical. I do wonder if maybe my scrambler always makes an odd or even number of moves, and then my centres solutions are biased towards an odd or even move count. It's not implausible that there's a real bias.

Can't beat the hard cut for 5x5 at the moment, so have a long way to go. Hoping practice will pay off.

What worked for me was dedicated practice, meaning do only 5x5 for a few weeks. For me, doing a couple of sessions a week among everything else was just not working. Also, 5x5 practice definitely improves 3x3 skills like lookahead, but I don't think the converse is true. After a few weeks of 5x5, 3x3 feels trivial

 

[muchacho]

I hope you can find a color scheme you can be confortable with. I assume that is an added difficulty for Mega, as 12 colors is a lot and even I have issues telling the two greens and the two yellows apart in my Shengshou.

Anyway, it looks like the sudden worsening of the times in mega might be more caused by the pressure of being close to winning the race that we being close to our limit because I am even fearing that tomorrow I will get the new WC scrambles and will do really badly

For the megaminx I replaced some colors and rearrange others, but it's fine, it's just those light greens the ones I can't "see".

For my bad times I'd like to blame the natural lighting, it was cloudy last two days... today it's sunny, will see if my theory fails

 

[muchacho]

My winning 3bld solve:

When you saw it solved you knew you were gonna win

 

[Shaky Hands]

What worked for me was dedicated practice, meaning do only 5x5 for a few weeks. For me, doing a couple of sessions a week among everything else was just not working. Also, 5x5 practice definitely improves 3x3 skills like lookahead, but I don't think the converse is true. After a few weeks of 5x5, 3x3 feels trivial

Aye. I've done 11 hours of 5x5 practice in the past week. I think my technique is improving although my times aren't. Things can only get better, as the song goes; and whilst I'll set myself targets I don't mind missing them so long as I'm motivating myself to improve.

I agree that bigger cubes can only help 3x3. I just got a new Personal Best with my first sub-20 solve. It's probably got my best Ao12 and Ao25 in there too.

Spoiler

 

[mafergut]

What worked for me was dedicated practice, meaning do only 5x5 for a few weeks. For me, doing a couple of sessions a week among everything else was just not working. Also, 5x5 practice definitely improves 3x3 skills like lookahead, but I don't think the converse is true. After a few weeks of 5x5, 3x3 feels trivial

Then I definitely need to spend a few weeks practising 5x5 only. Another few at 4x4. Same with Pyra, Skewb, Mega & SQ-1 I would revert back to sup-25 at 3x3 by then

[...] I just got a new Personal Best with my first sub-20 solve. It's probably got my best Ao12 and Ao25 in there too.

Welcome to the sub-20 club. You know, you start by single, then you get a sub-20 Ao5, then an Ao12... then you want to be globally sub-20. Up to Ao12 things are easy. From Ao100 onwards it takes a little bit more time, at least for me. Might not apply to you. Congratulations and, you know, keep pushing!

@Grzegorz: Nice as always to watch your 3BLD videos. I would be more than happy to get sub-2 some day but I know you can get an official sub-1 so, go for it!

By the way. I almost forgot that I had my FMC solution written down in a piece of paper for the WC and I hadn't posted it yet, so it is 15 events so far this week!!! How's 47 moves for my 1st time ever trying FMC using just a bit of blockbuilding and standard CFOP? Need to learn advanced techniques for that as well.

 

[MarcelP]

If you want I may try to make a walkthrough few solves but I'm not advanced solver just noob.

Yes please..

How's 47 moves for my 1st time ever trying FMC using just a bit of blockbuilding and standard CFOP?

That's not too shabby.. With little corner commutator (insertions) practice you will be just fine. Here I tried to explain it:

 

[Jason Green]

I agree that bigger cubes can only help 3x3. I just got a new Personal Best with my first sub-20 solve. It's probably got my best Ao12 and Ao25 in there too.

Awesome job, my first sub 20 was not long ago I was ecstatic! I still have not got ao5 though very close.

Nice reaction Grzegorz. Looks like relief.

 

[h2f]

Nice reaction Grzegorz. Looks like relief.

Yes, it was.

 

[mafergut]

Yes please..

That's not too shabby.. With little corner commutator (insertions) practice you will be just fine. Here I tried to explain it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAic-uTNCFI

I second your request for walkthrough solves!

Regarding your commutators video you explain it nicely enough but I'm afraid I don't quite follow how this is useful for FMC as you are cancelling a commutator with the inverse of the scramble or something like that but, one is not supposed to use the scramble or parts of it for the solution in FMC so, I'm a bit lost.

 

[sqAree]

I second your request for walkthrough solves!

Regarding your commutators video you explain it nicely enough but I'm afraid I don't quite follow how this is useful for FMC as you are cancelling a commutator with the inverse of the scramble or something like that but, one is not supposed to use the scramble or parts of it for the solution in FMC so, I'm a bit lost.

It's not related to the scramble or its inverse. A good tutorial for FMC is here: http://fmcsolves.cubing.net/fmc_tutorial_ENG.pdf. Page 15 onwards explain commutators for FMC.

 

[mafergut]

It's not related to the scramble or its inverse. A good tutorial for FMC is here: http://fmcsolves.cubing.net/fmc_tutorial_ENG.pdf. Page 15 onwards explain commutators for FMC.

Nice tutorial! I just skimmed through it. Now I get it: "if there are only 3 corners left to solve, I can go through my whole skeleton move by move and solve them when the corresponding commutator only requires 8 moves". So you basically insert the commutator in the middle of your solve, whenever the pieces are in a position to do it with a pure 8-move comm and, if possible, cancelling as many moves as you can.

What I did not realize is that I could end up with an entire cube solved but just 3 corners. I understand that OLL and PLL are not the way to do it efficiently for FMC but I don't know enough of Petrus, Heise or even Roux or ZZ to be able to use them in FMC solves so, by using just blockbuilding / FreeFOP it's not likely that I can benefit from inserting a commutator anywhere. Most probably I would need at least one for 3 corners and another for 3 edges in the LL

 

[muchacho]

Megaminx race to sub-5 ao12, PBs:
Single: 4:18
Ao5: 4:52
Ao12: 5:13

So... Sunny days = good times

Mo6 today was 4:54, so now depending at what time you make your attempts I may still have an opportunity tomorrow, if so I would still need a sunny day, be fully focused and some luck.

If we make it the same day it's a draw, right?

 

[sqAree]

Nice tutorial! I just skimmed through it. Now I get it: "if there are only 3 corners left to solve, I can go through my whole skeleton move by move and solve them when the corresponding commutator only requires 8 moves". So you basically insert the commutator in the middle of your solve.

What I did not realize is that I could end up with an entire cube solved but just 3 corners. I understand that OLL and PLL are not the way to do it efficiently for FMC but I don't know enough of Petrus, Heise or even Roux or ZZ to be able to use them in FMC solves so, by using just blockbuilding / FreeFOP it's not likely that I can benefit from inserting a commutator anywhere. Most probably I would need at least one for 3 corners and another for 3 edges in the LL

You can basically just use blockbuilding / freeFOP until F2L minus one pair, and then insert the last pair while solving the edges of the last layer (try out different inserts). After that you have only 3 or 4 corners left to solve and for those you use one or two 8-move commutators. And you don't only want to insert your commutator where it is only 8 moves but often you can do better when it cancels moves with your skeleton. 6 or 7 total moves for a 3-corner insertion is not uncommon.

 

[mafergut]

You can basically just use blockbuilding / freeFOP until F2L minus one pair, and then insert the last pair while solving the edges of the last layer (try out different inserts). After that you have only 3 or 4 corners left to solve and for those you use one or two 8-move commutators. And you don't only want to insert your commutator where it is only 8 moves but often you can do better when it cancels moves with your skeleton. 6 or 7 total moves for a 3-corner insertion is not uncommon.

Got it! In this particular case, after OLL I ended up with an A-perm as PLL, which is 9 moves. Just for fun I'm gonna try to improve my solution, searching for an insertion that maybe saves me a couple moves Not sure that the rules of the WC will allow me to rectify my result, though. Not sure I will be able to identify and come up with the exact pure commutator I'll need even if it's barking at me

 

[newtonbase]

1:51.58 4x4 PB single. Lost over a second missing the timer.

 

[Jason Green]

1:51.58 4x4 PB single. Lost over a second missing the timer.

Nice one, I'm jealous!