I use "advanced" U2 in the same sense as advanced M2. My buffer is Ubr so I try to set up D targets to Ufl and do a comm whenever possible. When not possible, there's an alg to solve Dbl directly.
I mean X centers. I haven't tried obliques yet. I would first try to set up to a comm at Ufl same as other centers. If that fails, I have no idea whether the X center alg would work, although that alg is just a complicated setup to a regular U2 swap so it might not be too hard to figure it how to adapt it to obliques.
@Selkie - Looking forward to some comps in Cape Town, we're having one early December. As for a visit, it would be good meet up with another oldie cuber ;-)@JohnnyReggae - That is excellent news. Best of luck. I look forward ti hearing about your progress as a delegate and as for comps in Cape Town. I have a lot of distant family there so I would never count out a visit
@megagoune - I think it is down to pure personal preference. Much like the difference of solving on white or black before stickerless became competition legal. I never used to be able to solve on white. I got a few stickerless as I collected cubes and found them better about 6 months ago. Solving on stickered now the borders of black just put me off. Don't think they are any better generally, just another option worth trying as you may prefer them. Having said that I was sorting out a 7x7 from my collection for a UK cuber who doesn't hav one this evening and found a boxed YJ Guansu 4x4. Decided to have a solve and 50.77. Thats a white cube, what do I know
At least it's an Ao5 of just 5 solves, not the best solves extracted of the middle of a longer session, but all solves are super sloppy and, of course, I had to do a bad one at the end. I can't really turn even this not-so-fast without locking up, making mistakes, etc. so I don't really know what to do except slow down and try to have better lookahead. Increasing TPS is not gonna work for me as for you guys.
Really nice! I think you are a tad bit faster than me. I have a few pointers though. I see you look for your first pair every time. This is probably that even with the 30 seconds inspection (LOL) you probably do not plan your entire cross. If you do plan the entire cross you should be able to find your first pair while executing the cross. Other than that, I think you will speed up anyway.. Your lookahead will become faster eventually.I didn't have the opportunity to event record a decent average last weekend so I tried again today. Got 4 cubes and tried to do several Ao5 with each, starting to record every 5 solves. I chose the Gan 356 Air, Guoguan Yuexiao, YJ Sulong and Moyu Hualong. I didn't even get to record with the Hualong and the best Ao5 was with the Yuexiao, which I bring here for everybody to critizice and laugh a bit at.
It's not even "on camera" PB but I wanted to show my new Rubik's mug
avg of 5: 17.81
1. (17.08) B2 F2 R2 B2 D2 L' B2 D2 R' U2 L D B D' L' U2 F U B' U2 L
2. 18.92 B2 F2 D' B2 L2 B2 U' B2 D' F2 B' L2 R' B' L R' U2 L2 D'
3. 17.39 L2 D' U' B2 D B2 F2 L2 U F2 U' L B' F2 D L B' F' D' L U'
4. 17.10 B U' F B' U B' U R' L' U R2 F2 B2 L2 U R2 D' L2 U' F
5. (23.51) B' L2 R2 D2 F R2 B2 F' L2 D L2 B2 L' B' R U' B L2
Thanks for the feedback but I think you are a bit faster than me
I have absolutely no sub-10 singles, for example (and no sub-11 for that matter). You are completely right that I cannot usually see my first pair unless I have already planned it during inspection, which happens rarely. And you are right that I many times have problems seeing the last D alignment of centers after cross, if it is a D or D', which makes me waste some tenths on that and also blocks my lookahead to 1st F2L pair, so I should work on that. Regarding the 30 second inspection... not sure if it was a joke or what. I overinspected in the last, terrible solve, the others were all around 8-10 seconds inspection. Do you think I over/under inspect?
I spill tea down myself often with that mug.I didn't have the opportunity to event record a decent average last weekend so I tried again today. Got 4 cubes and tried to do several Ao5 with each, starting to record every 5 solves. I chose the Gan 356 Air, Guoguan Yuexiao, YJ Sulong and Moyu Hualong. I didn't even get to record with the Hualong and the best Ao5 was with the Yuexiao, which I bring here for everybody to critizice and laugh a bit at.
It's not even "on camera" PB but I wanted to show my new Rubik's mug
avg of 5: 17.81
1. (17.08) B2 F2 R2 B2 D2 L' B2 D2 R' U2 L D B D' L' U2 F U B' U2 L
2. 18.92 B2 F2 D' B2 L2 B2 U' B2 D' F2 B' L2 R' B' L R' U2 L2 D'
3. 17.39 L2 D' U' B2 D B2 F2 L2 U F2 U' L B' F2 D L B' F' D' L U'
4. 17.10 B U' F B' U B' U R' L' U R2 F2 B2 L2 U R2 D' L2 U' F
5. (23.51) B' L2 R2 D2 F R2 B2 F' L2 D L2 B2 L' B' R U' B L2
. .
Welcome @pglewisThanks for all the welcomes. I went back a few weeks in the thread time machine and have enjoyed reading the progress other folks are making... and picked up a few things without even trying to
The one I have down in my spreadsheet ( probably picked up from Christopher Olsen) just reverses the U, D, and R moves of the Na perm. But I just added Na so no huge rush... the Ns come up with a 1/72 frequency each I think. I just tackled full PLL about 6 weeks ago. That's earlier than planned but I was about to learn a bunch of F2L optimization that was going to temporarily raise my times anyway and I figured I might as well start chewing on them. I had everything but the two Ns "learned" after a couple weeks but recognition and recall is an ongoing thing. I was hovering, plateaued, just a smidge under a minute ao5, like :58, when I started that process about a month and a half ago. Times ballooned to about 1:08 while absorbing stuff, and then all the new stuff started to come together at the same time. In quick succession I started seeing mid 50s, low 50s, then cracking sub 50 ao5s. My PB 3 of 5 is now 41.59 and I can feel I'm right on the brink of seeing a lot more sub 40s.
I'm still at the stage where I only hit the timer once or twice a week and do a lot of slow solve practice to solidify things. I recently sat down and did a dozen timed runs on the individual Cross, F2L, and LL stages to evaluate.
Adding all the means: 44.269, which matches about where I am when warmed up and in "cube brain"
Worst of each: 1:05.763, right on the money for my botched solves
Theoretical best: 32.281, about 2 seconds better than my actual PB. I've had a few untimed solves that "felt" sub 30; a friendly F2L plus PLL skip should manage to catch a single sub 30 in the act before long.
View attachment 6940
Here's my game plan based on those results:
* Cross: I'm definitely bleeding a few seconds on my averages due to the slower ones but not a lot of time to be gained on a "good solve" (keeping in mind I'm out to shed 20+ seconds, not 3). Those times are clear improvements from the last time I checked. Plan of attack: cross practice will happen as a byproduct of F2L practice, just keep doing what I'm doing and re-evaluate the cross when the F2L gains are harder to come by.
* F2L: Averaging nearly 6 seconds per pair I needn't look elsewhere for low hanging fruit. Spotting pairs is still very slow for me after months of practice; it's simply a weak point for me. OTOH it's probably down 15+ seconds from where it was a little over a month ago. Plan of attack: keep pounding F2L with a focus on look-ahead.
* Last Layer: all over the map, not surprisingly, I haven't put much effort at all into targeted last layer drills. 2 look OLL isn't costing me a lot at my current level vs the recognition full OLL would require, so that stays in the "re-evaluate later" pile for now. Still being green on full PLL means some of the algs are faster than others and there's a lot of staring time for recog and recall. Plan of attack: clearly some easy time to be had here with targeted PLL drills. I still may let it progress naturally and continue the focus on F2L. There is some comfort believing there will still be easy time to find after squeezing F2L
. Thinking bang for the buck I figured every second I cut off an F2L pair gets multiplied by 4... and there are definitely seconds to cut per pair.
Currently I tend to average around 27 seconds, and in this test my Ao12 for cross/F2L/LL was 4.2/14.4/9.5 (=28.1). I used 15 second inspection for cross and no inspection for F2L and LL.
