Older cubers discussions

odouhaha said:
Hi guys, I have a question and hope someone can help me with my times. When i solve my times are always in a range of 20sec or more, so one solve is sub 30 and the next is in high 40s. I do around a hundred solves a day and have a PB of 24.07 but my average is usually around 40s..
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Can you tell what's the difference between your good and your bad solves? Which things are costing you time in the bad solves?

I've seen quite a bit of swings myself. Apart from skips, the main difference is usually in F2L. A smooth F2L leads to a good time, while bad F2L costs a lot of time. For me large swings are usually the symptom of moving too fast, which hurts lookahead. If you move really fast, occasionally you will get lucky, always have the next F2L pair immediately in your line of sight when the last pair is inserted and end up with a really fast solve. But more often you won't. When you don't, it takes a while to find out what to do next. By moving slower and really focusing on looking for the next pair while solving the last, my times are a lot more consistent. And they also improve faster this way.
 
Done my first ever ao12 on 6x6: 8:25. Not a great time, I know, but good enough for me. My goal is to get a single (which means beating the hard limit which is usually 10 minutes), although if I can get enough practice in between now and the competition at the end of July maybe I'll aim for a mean...

I also had my first 6x6 pop. About a third of the cube disintegrated. It was not as hard or un-fun to put back together as I'd expected... :-)

Meanwhile, good luck to h2f and Marcel!
 
odouhaha said:
I think it is called CFOP - doing white cross > F2L > 2look OLL (+6 or 7 algs) > 2look PLL

Jah i know that could be better, but the timing is keeping me motivated, even if it isnt consistent.. do you recommend learning all algorithms? I've tried slow solving for a while but it did not improve the inconsistency im having.
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I would agree with the others, learn the algorithm sets you want so full PLL and also full OLL if you want but this is obviously a bigger task being more cases. When learning and still improving times can fluctuate a lot, they can also fluctuate quite a bit from 4 look last layer. Best of luck with Progress :)
 
JanW said:
Can you tell what's the difference between your good and your bad solves? Which things are costing you time in the bad solves?

I've seen quite a bit of swings myself. Apart from skips, the main difference is usually in F2L. A smooth F2L leads to a good time, while bad F2L costs a lot of time. For me large swings are usually the symptom of moving too fast, which hurts lookahead. If you move really fast, occasionally you will get lucky, always have the next F2L pair immediately in your line of sight when the last pair is inserted and end up with a really fast solve. But more often you won't. When you don't, it takes a while to find out what to do next. By moving slower and really focusing on looking for the next pair while solving the last, my times are a lot more consistent. And they also improve faster this way.
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You're right I have problems in F2L it seems, have done a timing on cross, f2l and last layer. F2L is the part I am having very different times in. It is hard to look ahead to identify the next pair which if not obviously present I start looking and take too much time there.
 
Selkie said:
I would agree with the others, learn the algorithm sets you want so full PLL and also full OLL if you want but this is obviously a bigger task being more cases. When learning and still improving times can fluctuate a lot, they can also fluctuate quite a bit from 4 look last layer. Best of luck with Progress :)
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Full PLL is added to my to do list! Thank you.
 
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mafergut said:
I think that is completely normal. Also, with 4LLL it is reasonable that you would have more variance as just from one solve where you get a cross (so you skip 1st look of OLL) and let's say an A-perm (also doing 1L PLL) compared to another solve where you need 2L OLL and 2L PLL, only for that you might have 6-8 seconds of difference. Once you learn full PLL variance will be slightly reduced. But anyway, there are solves that are just harder than others, a hidden F2L corner in a back slot, difficult cross... or just a small (or not small) fail (like inserting an F2L pair in the wrong slot of with the edge flipped). I can have a 15 second solve and a 25 sec one right after that.
Also, as @muchacho has said, try to do slow, untimed solves to work on efficiency and as @Jason Green said I'd start learning full PLL right now. Watch walthrough solve videos, that will also help you with F2L efficiency.
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Thanks for the confidence built, but what does 4LLL mean??
 
odouhaha said:
You're right I have problems in F2L it seems, have done a timing on cross, f2l and last layer. F2L is the part I am having very different times in. It is hard to look ahead to identify the next pair which if not obviously present I start looking and take too much time there.
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Like others have said. It's all about slowing down and working on lookahead. However, one thing to be mindful of is whether or not you're really ready for lookahead. Before you can focus on practicing lookahead, you need to be comfortable building most F2L cases without looking at the pieces while you're building them. When you find your first F2L pair try building it and inserting it with your eyes closed, then do the same for each remaining pair. If you can consistently do this, then you are ready for look ahead. Another thing you can try (I did this) is to build your F2L pair, but before you insert it, find your next pair. Then track the next pair while you insert the one you just built. This will help get you into the habit of looking away from the pair you're working on and finding the next pair.

Also, put that timer in a drawer and forget about it while you practice this. Times are irrelevant when you're learning F2L and lookahead. I find I slip into so many bad habits with that blasted timer running, things I know I can execute more efficiently but when clock is ticking I tend to just go with what is familiar and requires the least thinking, and that is counter-intuitive to progression.
 
earth2dan said:
Also, put that timer in a drawer and forget about it while you practice this. Times are irrelevant when you're learning F2L and lookahead. I find I slip into so many bad habits with that blasted timer running, things I know I can execute more efficiently but when clock is ticking I tend to just go with what is familiar and requires the least thinking, and that is counter-intuitive to progression.
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Such good advice. I have a few new OLLs but I find that as soon as I start timing solves I ignore them and do more familiar 2 looks instead. I have to force myself to go the slower route for long term progression. It worked for G perms!
 
newtonbase said:
Such good advice. I have a few new OLLs but I find that as soon as I start timing solves I ignore them and do more familiar 2 looks instead. I have to force myself to go the slower route for long term progression. It worked for G perms!
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As I have said it's very difficult for me not to time myself, but when I was learning OLLs I would do a mix. I would time my solves, but if I got a new OLL I would do it and delete the time if it was slow or I botched it. If I executed it well I got to keep the time. Kind of cheating I suppose, but it worked for me to make learning more fun. It didn't really matter because I was not keeping any of those averages with deleted solves as pb averages.
 
Jason Green said:
As I have said it's very difficult for me not to time myself, but when I was learning OLLs I would do a mix. I would time my solves, but if I got a new OLL I would do it and delete the time if it was slow or I botched it. If I executed it well I got to keep the time. Kind of cheating I suppose, but it worked for me to make learning more fun. It didn't really matter because I was not keeping any of those averages with deleted solves as pb averages.
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I did the same, when I was learning cmlls and practicing lse. And after all solves I've deleted all session.,
 
Thanks a lot for all the great advice, it is true for me to keep doing the same and try to force myself to get faster with that. I'll check in here again once I got f2l down right and learned full PLL. Thanks again guys.
 
I need to learn a thing or two about lubing. I only have a bottle of Maru lube so far, it seems there are much more popular lubes out there. The weight 1-5 lubes I read so often about are the Cubicle lubes, right? Do you Europeans order them from there, or buy something similar from this side of the Atlantic pond? Many mention Traxxas 50k. In local RC shops they have lots of different silicone differential oils. Would these be the same, assuming I pick the same 50k weight?

I've read so much good about the Thunderclap, but mine came with pre-installed spring noises. Have to fix that somehow.
 
I use Traxxas 50k which I believe is the same as weight 5? And Traxxas 30k is weight 3? Used to buy Lubix a few years ago but its is very similar. I tend to lube the core with 50k once every few months using the same method as Lubix video. I tend to use Maru in addition on all puzzles at comp for some reason but it only really last a few hours.
 
3rd in 3bld after super super safe last solve - 1:37.03. The first and second were 1:07 (off by 3 edges and rolling pop during scramble) and 1:11 (off by few pieces when undo setup). I'm happy with that result. I got also 29.7 ao5 in 3x3. 2x2 was bad - bad recon off PBL which gave 11.xx and 30.xx (the 30.xx was done in 17 but I treid to catch equal 30.00). :)
 
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