I'm nearly sub 30. How do I make that constant?

[pglewis]

[...] However, it isn't really too much of a problem for me since I rarely finish a solve with PLL nowadays [...]

At the risk of derailing a little from the OP, I'd like to know what you do for LL.

 

[kemuat]

No. For example, I could just memorize the moves F' U F U2 R U R' and treat it like any other algorithm, but it's better to understand the case (in this case, think of it as splitting up the pair and inserting it after a U2). This allows for better improvisation mid-solve too. For example, if I split up the pair and see that no last layer edges are oriented, I could insert the pair with a different algorithm (maybe R' D' r U r' D R2 U R') to force an EO skip. If I didn't understand the algorithm and just knew what moves to do, I wouldn't realize that and would miss out on a better last layer.

Isn’t that recognition of case rather than learning algs? My original reply said “learn F2L algs”

 

[CarterK]

Isn’t that recognition of case rather than learning algs? My original reply said “learn F2L algs”

Yeah, but learning how the "algs" affect the cube means that you can recognize those cases, such as edge orientation.

 

[kemuat]

Understood. But you don’t really need that to be sub 30. Learning how to do EO during F2L is definitely not as necessary as fixing F2L algs or full PLL for a 30+ solver.

 

[CarterK]

Understood. But you don’t really need that to be sub 30. Learning how to do EO during F2L is definitely not as necessary as fixing F2L algs or full PLL for a 30+ solver.

No, but it's better in the long run to learn what you're doing to the cube. The eo was just an example.

 

[kemuat]

No, but it's better in the long run to learn what you're doing to the cube. The eo was just an example.

Again, that’s not relevant to the OP. Inferring that you mean to memorize what it does to the other F2L pieces, that’s not very practical. While I’m usually against slow turn styles to increase lookahead, it’s the best option in this situation.

 

[Oatch]

At the risk of derailing a little from the OP, I'd like to know what you do for LL.

I use the ZZ method, so most of the time I do LL with COLL + EPLL, and sometimes with ZBLL if I know the case. So I guess it's only a half truth that I don't finish with PLL, just a significantly reduced subset of it, but it means I don't need to worry about all of the other algs and two-sided recognition which I struggle with.

 

[pglewis]

I use the ZZ method, so most of the time I do LL with COLL + EPLL, and sometimes with ZBLL if I know the case. So I guess it's only a half truth that I don't finish with PLL, just a significantly reduced subset of it, but it means I don't need to worry about all of the other algs and two-sided recognition which I struggle with.

Gotcha... I experimented with ZZ earlier this year primarily for the last layer benefits but not long enough to reliably get EOLine or even just EO planned out in 12ish seconds, plus I never fully embraced block building. I love the elegance of the method, though, and my first experience was literally giggling for 10 mins straight over nothing but OCLLs. I'm considering learning COLL next and have already learned the H cases with poor recog. With basic 2LLL mostly out of the way I'm pondering where I'll go next for influencing cases. /digression

 

[Oatch]

Gotcha... I experimented with ZZ earlier this year primarily for the last layer benefits but not long enough to reliably get EOLine or even just EO planned out in 12ish seconds, plus I never fully embraced block building. I love the elegance of the method, though, and my first experience was literally giggling for 10 mins straight over nothing but OCLLs. I'm considering learning COLL next and have already learned the H cases with poor recog. With basic 2LLL mostly out of the way I'm pondering where I'll go next for influencing cases. /digression

Yeah, the reduction of 57 OLL's to just the 7 OCLL's was a massive motivation for me to pick up the method, although ironically now I've learnt even more algs than I would have otherwise!

In terms of some more LL plugin methods to try after OLL + PLL, some popular choices are Winter Variation or COLL, I'd recommend COLL because the recognition is pretty good and it's also fairly useful for OH, but again I'm probably a little biased against Winter Variation because of the PLL finish, but both are fine subsets. In either case, learning more edge control tricks during F2L will be quite helpful in that regard, and will generally make your OLL's easier anyway (like avoiding 4-flips). /thread takeover

 

[ComputerGuy365]

You could learn full PLL, but do not even bother with full OLL. I'm nearly sub-15 without full OLL (I do know a few, but far from all). Get that cross down to 2-4 seconds as well, and ditch the bad f2l habits.

I recommend you watch this video by Drew Brads:

 

[Gavin Olson]

I wouldnt really focus on colour neutral at this stage.

I average 12.5 on yellow/white cross, full oll/pll.

Do lots of slow solves. Look ahead means so much.

Also practice your tps on oll/pll, and your recognition.

One final tip is learn to do your cross blind. That will really help your solves.

 

[Sue Doenim]

I wouldnt really focus on colour neutral at this stage.

I average 12.5 on yellow/white cross, full oll/pll.

Do lots of slow solves. Look ahead means so much.

Also practice your tps on [c]oll/[e]pll, and your recognition.

One final tip is learn to do your [EOline] blind. That will really help your solves.

That'll probaby be more helpful.

 

[kemuat]

Do lots of slow solves. Look ahead means so much.

Not really at a 30 average. TPS matters much more at 30. I barely practiced lookahead until I became sub 20. It helps a lot more to get used to turning quickly.

 

[cuber314159]

If there is any chance you would want to become colour neutral then do it now, it won't help with sub 30 but it will with sub20 and sub 15...

 

[Gavin Olson]

Not really at a 30 average. TPS matters much more at 30. I barely practiced lookahead until I became sub 20. It helps a lot more to get used to turning quickly.

If you spam tps at 30 secs without worrying about lookahead it will really make getting sub 20 a pain. I diregarded lookahead until i worked on sub 20, and it was pain.

 

[Reed Merrill]

If you spam tps at 30 secs without worrying about lookahead it will really make getting sub 20 a pain. I diregarded lookahead until i worked on sub 20, and it was pain.

I totally agree, and this points out the same type of thing in that @DGCubes was talking about. That is that the longer you cube the more you ingrain your habits and muscle memory, and it makes learning important skills more and more difficult as you go if you choose to ignore them early on. Your progress might be slower when you try to have good look-ahead and an in depth understanding of F2L early on, but it helps in the long run IMO.

So, how do you want to do it? Move from one short term goal to another, or slowly become overall better at cubing with long-term goals always in mind?

J Perm makes a really good point on this in his how to be sub-20 video. He demonstrates two sub-20 solves. One is good overall, and the other is bad in every way other than TPS. So if you wanted to, then you could be a relatively fast but very unskilled speedcuber. But that's not the easiest way to get really fast down the road.

J Perm's video (the part I'm talking about is at 6:00):

 

[ComputerGuy365]

Not really at a 30 average. TPS matters much more at 30. I barely practiced lookahead until I became sub 20. It helps a lot more to get used to turning quickly.

That's just false. TPS almost always means absolutely nothing until you're nearing sub-15 and faster, typically because people at this level pause like crazy.

If your lookahead is terrible then faster turning does nothing for you. While at some point faster turning will help, it does nothing for you if you have huge pauses between f2l pairs.

Fast but riddled with pauses is always worse than slower but no pauses.

Lets say for a 16 move solution for 2 f2l pairs, we have two candidates. Candidate A turns 8 TPS, but has a 4 second pause between the pairs (If you average > 30 seconds you can have pauses that long). Candidate B has no pause but turns 4 TPS.

This means that candidate A essentially spent 6 seconds doing 16 moves, as he had a 4 second pause.
Candidate B, spent 4 seconds to do the 16 moves, cause there were no pauses.

So which is better?

I think the underlying issue with f2l for people who average greater than 15 seconds (I average 15-16 seconds for reference), that a lot of people don't notice, is efficiency. People place a heavy emphasis on lookahead and TPS, but that's much less important at the sub-30 range. I'd even argue lookahead isn't important to get sub-20 if your TPS is good enough. Notice I say good enough, not fast. Obviously as you work towards sub-15, 12, 10, etc, it becomes much more important. The real issue imho is efficiency. A lot of people will use crappy f2l solutions, will do y2 rotations excessively, stuff like that. This, combined with not planning cross in inspection, among other things, are what inhibit most people from breaking the sub-15, sub-20, and any other beyond barriers.

 

[cubing master]

If you really want consistent times, just do a bunch of solves. Then, your times should be more consistent, and you can practice things like color neutrality, and once you learn that, do solves to make your times more consistent.

 

[joshsailscga]

I would definitely agree with anyone who is saying not to wait for color neutrality. Sure, there's the guy who was sub-9 before switching (Seung I think) but that is very very hard to do. I'll give you my personal example: I started out white-cross only (because that's what everyone does lol) and tried playing around with color-neutral when I was around 18 global. White cross was so far ingrained into my head at that point that if I held the cube at any orientation other than white or yellow on D, even though every side of the cube is the same length, my brain would tell me the cube was sideways. I know if I stuck with it long enough, that would have gone away eventually, but the moral of the story is, it's much easier to start out color neutral than to pick it up later on. Just my two cents.
Also, spamming TPS is crap for getting faster unless you're doing 5x5 and up. Slow is smooth and smooth is fast.

 

[cuber314159]

I would definitely agree with anyone who is saying not to wait for color neutrality. Sure, there's the guy who was sub-9 before switching (Seung I think) but that is very very hard to do. I'll give you my personal example: I started out white-cross only (because that's what everyone does lol) and tried playing around with color-neutral when I was around 18 global. White cross was so far ingrained into my head at that point that if I held the cube at any orientation other than white or yellow on D, even though every side of the cube is the same length, my brain would tell me the cube was sideways. I know if I stuck with it long enough, that would have gone away eventually, but the moral of the story is, it's much easier to start out color neutral than to pick it up later on. Just my two cents.
Also, spamming TPS is crap for getting faster unless you're doing 5x5 and up. Slow is smooth and smooth is fast.

Agreed, I struggle to understand how you can ingrain to one cross colour since I've always been colour neutral, then again, I keep my cubes white up, red facing out usually.
How I love giving non white xcrosses to white cross solvers.