Older cubers discussions

[Selkie]

@muchacho - Glad to see you are learning Square-1. @Lid is far, far superior to me on Square-1 but I'll offer my 2 cents anyway...

That parity alg in the link is very short for parity and quite easy to learn but it does have the by product of doing some other EP as well. As you quite rightly say it does an H perm on the bottom and an opposite swap on the top.

If you wish to use that alg then my recommendation for a beginner method would be do cube shape, do CO and EO to leave cubeshape of each separate colour on top and bottom then quickly look at top and bottom. They are going to loom like Ua, Ub, H or Z PLLs or are going to look impossible (like you need to do PLL parity on 4x4) then do the following

• Top and Bottom Ua, Ub, Z or H - Solve one side, flip solve other side (No parity)
• Top and Botton both not PLLs - Perform alg that does a 2 edge cycle on top and on bottom to make both legal PLLs [(1,0)/(0,3)/(-1,-1)/(1,-2)/(-1,0)] then do as above No parity)
• Any other case - Do parity alg and you will have one of the two again

Might sound a bit complex. I personally use a two adjacent edge parity alg and did use an opposite toi till I forgot it but either effect bottom layer so I do a combination similar to above with those

Most of the algs I use I learned from this guide back in the day http://www.kungfoomanchu.com/guides/andy-klise-square-1.pdf but as I said I am no Square-1 expert and someone might have better advice mate

So lifted straight from the PDF my adjacent parity swap is:-
/(-3,0)/(0,3)/(0,-3)/(0,3)/(2,0)/(0,2)/(-2,0)/(4,0)/(0,-2)/(0,2)/(-1,4)/(0,-3)/(0,3)

 

[muchacho]

Thanks both!

@h2f, that page is awesome, but I'll try not to learn more algs, or I would forget them soon

@Selkie, that may be a good beginners method, but I guess not for me, I have no idea of how to recognize a legal PLL

 

[Shaky Hands]

@Selkie and other Clock-solvers. This lunchtime I got a PB Clock single of 10.99 (previous best 14.87.)

Guess I'd have to call this a lucky scramble, right?

 

[biscuit]

@Selkie and other Clock-solvers. This lunchtime I got a PB Clock single of 10.99 (previous best 14.87.)

Guess I'd have to call this a lucky scramble, right?

Wow! That's an amazing scramble!

 

[Selkie]

@muchacho - Do you never get the PLLs of Ua, Ub, Z and H on L6E in Roux? If not they are on the wiki. Basiclly by that stage you are just changing the place of the edges (smaller Square-1 slices) by that stage and the sides will look like one of those PLLs or not

@Shaky Hands - Lovely scramble sir. I wouldn't call it 'lucky' but it is a good point we call a CFOP solve lucky if you skip say OLL or PLL but how many dials skips makes a lucky clock solve? Good question

 

[muchacho]

Ah sorry that PLLs, yeah, I get them in Roux solves, but still I would need to learn to recognize them.

I think I've learned the last alg I'm going to learn for square-1, unless it likes me too much and I also get fast... unlikely.

 

[newtonbase]

@Selkie and other Clock-solvers. This lunchtime I got a PB Clock single of 10.99 (previous best 14.87.)

Guess I'd have to call this a lucky scramble, right?

That looks a great scramble . I really should do a bit of clock practice before the weekend .

 

[h2f]

Thanks both!

@h2f, that page is awesome, but I'll try not to learn more algs, or I would forget them soon

I like this one page: https://www.speedsolving.com/forum/threads/square-1-full-ep-pdf.56094/

I've learnt U perm from it - H and Z are intuitive.

Top and Botton both not PLLs - Perform alg that does a 2 edge cycle on top and on bottom to make both legal PLLs [(1,0)/(0,3)/(-1,-1)/(1,-2)/(-1,0)] then do as above No parity)

Nice alg. Looks like the one I use from badmephisto page.

 

[pglewis]

www.algdb.net

Yes, but there is little or no annotation about the algs (that I've seen), just a pile of algs. Plus some of the tricks I'm looking to dig into are special case, like the triple sexy case with different destinations I recently picked up in here. Nonetheless, algdb and the wiki are the first two open tabs for me while I'm working on F2L.

Some competition woes for your amusement...

Wow, that's hard to watch. You handled it incredibly well, at least outwardly/vocally . Looks like the same brain hijack in action that I experienced when I didn't understand about resetting the timer. The unexpected emergency situation short-circuited the logic center and wouldn't immediately let go even after the emergency was over.

It's hard for me to "like it". I know how it hurts:

I never saw it coming What luck.

 

[pglewis]

Just had an incidental untimed solve that very well may have been a mid 20 lol. Or 40, sometimes I can gauge well sometimes not. Unplanned x-cross, last pair was already joined, OCLL + A Perm. #alwayswhenthetimerisntgoing

 

[One Wheel]

That looks so long and scary, I'll try to make mine work... or I'll use this one I've just found in http://www.cubezone.be/square1step5.html:
(UR UL)
/ (3,3) / (-1,0) / (2,-4) / (4,-2) / (0,-2) / (-4,2) / (1,-5) / (3,0) / (3,3) / (3,0)

Like most algs it's not half as bad as it looks. After (-3,-3) you're back to cube shape, and it finishes up with some CO and an easy EO.

 

[defhacks]

Yes, but there is little or no annotation about the algs (that I've seen), just a pile of algs. Plus some of the tricks I'm looking to dig into are special case, like the triple sexy case with different destinations I recently picked up in here. Nonetheless, algdb and the wiki are the first two open tabs for me while I'm working on F2L.

Have you already stumbled on macky's F2L pages at cubefreak.net ? Different slots, special cases, comments, sounds like it might be just the ticket (other than the broken images).

Going through archive.org's wayback machine can fix some of the broken images, but not all of them
e.g. http://web.archive.org/web/20120226115940/http://cubefreak.net/speed/advancedf2l/standard.php

Depending how determined/techy you are, it may also be helpful to note that mirroring the html locally and running visualcube at /v/ restores the site to it's full glory.

I have emailed the maintainer (macky) to try and help get things fixed up as he doesn't seem to have recent activity on the forums here, but haven't heard back yet.

 

[mark49152]

I have emailed the maintainer (macky) to try and help get things fixed up as he doesn't seem to have recent activity on the forums here, but haven't heard back yet.

There's a note on his site that images are broken, so he knows about it, and the note has been there for at least 4 years so I assume he's not planning on fixing it.

Viktor Danilov's F2L resources are excellent too, for anyone who hasn't found them yet.

 

[pglewis]

Depending how determined/techy you are, it may also be helpful to note that mirroring the html locally and running visualcube at /v/ restores the site to it's full glory.

Yeah that was a frustrating find, being almost exactly what I was searching for but borken. I'm actually a back end web developer for a WordPress plugin so I should have thought to look into that. That'll work well enough for me to extract and get into a Google sheet for safe-keeping, good thinking.

Viktor Danilov's F2L resources are excellent too, for anyone who hasn't found them yet.

I don't think I've seen that yet, but noted for later reference, thanks!

 

[pglewis]

Here's a typical solve on the faster side for me at the moment. I was just quickly experimenting with my phone's camera and managed to hit a sub 40 right off the bat. Obvious where to focus with all the stop and start. Some random notes:

* You can see my weird dyslexia in action while scrambling. If I consult my brain on clockwise/counterclockwise and it can't come up with an answer quickly it just provides a random answer lol. I do this and correct at least twice during the scramble.

* Most of my focus for the past few of weeks has been cutting down on cube rotations and being more efficient with my pairs (still not focused on blind pairs, but that's soon). This is beginning to pay off, I really had no business getting a sub 40 with that much staring time. Still some bad habits creeping in, that incredibly slow y2 was unneeded and done before I had any idea where I really needed to rotate. Reasonably proud that I did the cross without a rotation though.

* I haven't even started spamming TPS, turn speed is just natural progression. I'm still way out-turning my lookahead, in this case to the point of practically no lookahead at all on the first 2 pairs. Blind pair practice should help tremendously it's just that my actual F2L cases are still in flux. I'll also be getting in the habit of turning slower during F2L so my speed matches my lookahead.

Probably painful to watch and/or make you nostalgic for the days where it was obvious where to shed lots of time. Cube is my trusty Cubicle Thunderclap.

 

[biscuit]

Here's a typical solve on the faster side for me at the moment. I was just quickly experimenting with my phone's camera and managed to hit a sub 40 right off the bat. Obvious where to focus with all the stop and start. Some random notes:

* You can see my weird dyslexia in action while scrambling. If I consult my brain on clockwise/counterclockwise and it can't come up with an answer quickly it just provides a random answer lol. I do this and correct at least twice during the scramble.

* Most of my focus for the past few of weeks has been cutting down on cube rotations and being more efficient with my pairs (still not focused on blind pairs, but that's soon). This is beginning to pay off, I really had no business getting a sub 40 with that much staring time. Still some bad habits creeping in, that incredibly slow y2 was unneeded and done before I had any idea where I really needed to rotate. Reasonably proud that I did the cross without a rotation though.

* I haven't even started spamming TPS, turn speed is just natural progression. I'm still way out-turning my lookahead, in this case to the point of practically no lookahead at all on the first 2 pairs. Blind pair practice should help tremendously it's just that my actual F2L cases are still in flux. I'll also be getting in the habit of turning slower during F2L so my speed matches my lookahead.

Probably painful to watch and/or make you nostalgic for the days where it was obvious where to shed lots of time. Cube is my trusty Cubicle Thunderclap.

The video is private FYI.

 

[pglewis]

The video is private FYI.

Yeah, that was intentional since I won't likely keep it up all that long. Should still be viewable though, right?

 

[Logiqx]

Yeah, that was intentional since I won't likely keep it up all that long. Should still be viewable though, right?

You need to make it "unlisted" for us to see it via a link. Unlisted means that only people with the link can get to it.

Private means only you can play it.

Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

 

[pglewis]

You need to make it "unlisted" for us to see it via a link. Unlisted means that only people with the link can get to it.

Private means only you can play it.

Doh! I knew that at one point but forgot which was which. Fixed, thanks.

 

[pipkiksass]

So I've never really done much slow turning practice, mainly because I've never had time. I used to cube for maybe 45 minutes a day on my lunch breaks at work. I'm currently on long-term sick leave, so following @Selkie's suggestion t'other day, I've been indulging in some slow turning practice.

I still leave my lookahead behind most of the time, but I think I'm now comfortably back to sub-20 (maybe). My The "I quit / pause / return / change / etc." thread post was on the 6th of October, and I averaged 21.25. I reckon I could squeeze an Ao50 in under 20 seconds if I can concentrate, and don't screw up/lock up too much.

Still learning OLLs, and occasionally confusing some of my new ones, but getting there. I've finally nailed the cross, I'm finding cross solutions much better than previously, but still don't play my first pair, which I need to start doing.

Never know, I might dust off my 4x4 or 5x5 in a week or so!

@MarcelP, good to see you back on the Substep Comp.