Older cubers discussions

[mitja]

Well, if I think about it, I only use one alg and reversed alg for M2 , that's FU and BD. All the rest are avoided by advanced M2, the same goes for advanced U2 +centres and xcentres, ( with wings there is one more-BUl).
My problem with BLD was, that OP edges looked far too long to me, so I gave up at the beginning. Then, after half a year, I looked into M2 and got encouraged again. Just went straight to it, learned those 5 algs and now even not all 5 are needed.

 

[mitja]

Talking about BLD. Can you guys recommend me the source with a nice demonstration and explanation of 3-cycle corners? I watched some demos of what comms look like, but that is not enough for me to understand how the comms should be built by me. For edges and M2 it is understandable,but how to build 3-cycles for corners? That's another story How did any of you approach 3-style corners? Should I start with Orozco BLD?

 

[pglewis]

1/3 on coffee shop 3bld. 1: success, 2: one flipped edge, 3: completely forgot corner memo (and edges weren't even right when I gave up and looked).

 

[SpartanSailor]

1/3 on coffee shop 3bld. 1: success, 2: one flipped edge, 3: completely forgot corner memo (and edges weren't even right when I gave up and looked).

Coffee shop practice is all the rage these days!

Well done.

 

[Shaky Hands]

My bag just got flagged at airport security and they pulled out my cube. "Rubik's cube? WHY?! It's the most annoying thing ever invented!"

I remember being one of about 30 cubers going through Eurostar security at the same time when travelling from London to Paris for last year's World Championship. I'm sure we bemused the X-ray staff quite a bit indeed!

 

[pglewis]

Coffee shop practice is all the rage these days!

Well done.

Yeah, now that I'm registered for Dixon I need to be ready for official 3bld about a month earlier than I'd originally planned. Gonna be a lot of coffee shop practice for me.

 

[JanW]

Today I've been playing with my bldtrainer, trying to figure out why I DNF so much. It seems I have a tendency to shoot certain edge cycles in the wrong direction. Gotta get rid of that habit! Once I noticed the usual suspects and started concentrating more, accuracy improved a lot. Accuracy on single edge cycles, that is. In total I did well over a hundred edge cycles, average time/cycle was just under 10s. This does also include the time it takes me to locate the stickers. In a real solve I don't need to do that, did it already during inspection, so while solving I use way less than 10s/cycle.

Next I should do similar work with corners. And I really should do some concentrated work on some of the more tricky edge stickers. In particular I should think through all cases including RU or BU. Just last week I noticed that the OLL alg R U R' U' M' U R U' r' (and inverse) is superb to handle many of those cases that are tricky with my normal system.

 

[newtonbase]

Talking about BLD. Can you guys recommend me the source with a nice demonstration and explanation of 3-cycle corners? I watched some demos of what comms look like, but that is not enough for me to understand how the comms should be built by me. For edges and M2 it is understandable,but how to build 3-cycles for corners? That's another story How did any of you approach 3-style corners? Should I start with Orozco BLD?

There's nothing great that I know of. Noah has a go at explaining it and Ollie Frost has a video with some basic comms that can be built on. The one that helped me understand comms the most is actually Daniel Sheppard's 4BLD centres video.

 

[mark49152]

alg is alg no matter if it's hard or easy to learn.

Technically that is true at some level. Kind of like fruit is fruit, no matter if it's pineapple or blueberry.

 

[pglewis]

Obviously there are at least two contexts with subtle differences when we're saying "an alg":

1) A highly vague metric for "how much crap I need to memorize" and thus how much "work" a method or substep will be to learn.

2) A series of moves you have (or want to have) in muscle memory

In the first context for OP/OP it might just be the parity alg. Just about anyone going in knows the base algs already from PLL and the concept of setup moves can be figured out in a few hours, leisurely.

After Mark pointed out cancellations, the alg count for the second context technically would have to be way higher than 50.

 

[SpartanSailor]

@pglewis i am in camp #1. For me... muscle memory comes with practice.

When I think of an alg, I think of a new (to me) pattern that is necessary or useful to more quickly solve the cube.

For example F2L. I’ve never even tried to learn algs. Now, if I write out my solution for a given pair/setup, sure that’s an alg. But I don’t think “R U R’ F’....” during F2L. I just do what I’ve learned thru trial and error to pair up my edge and corner then slot them. On the other hand, at this point I couldn’t write out the moves for a T-perm, but I definitely studied and learned that specific alg to be more efficient and speedy when solving my last layer. It is DEFINITElY part of an alg set. I’ve just burned it into muscle memory and don’t need think about it... however, if you asked me how to solve an F2L pair, I couldn’t tell you a single move. I’d just have to do it.

I guess that’s easentially the same thing after all. I suppose the difference, for me, is in how I learn it.

 

[pglewis]

On the other hand, at this point I couldn’t write out the moves for a T-perm [...]

Heh, not only can I not write out my PLLs occasionally I'll make the mistake of thinking instead of going straight into an alg and I literally have to AUF away and then back to reboot.

 

[SpartanSailor]

A little accountability for myself... 3BLD practice.

1/4. But it’s better than it seems. The first was a mess. Forgot my memo early into execution and just tried to salvage what I could. The next two were the same error... poor tracing and left 1 edge piece flipped in position. In both attempts, I just missed it. On my 4th attempt, I got it.

The other part that is good... I got 4 attempts in about 35 mins or so. I didn’t time them, just noted the time when I began and ended. That means I’m still at/or around sub-10min times. I don’t feel rushed at this pace and AM very consciously taking my time. My errors I can continue to work on...

On the whole, I feel decent about tonite’s practice. Still have 25 more days to prepare for Charleston.

 

[newtonbase]

Got my first sub 10 min 4BLD DNF. 6 centres off. Centres do seem to be my weakest area. I make far to many errors despite the memo being pretty easy.

 

[Logiqx]

Talking about algs, I've decided to make my website public after making a few tweaks recently:

https://www.speedsolving.com/forum/threads/reactive-website-for-my-cubing-algs.68446/

I've recently been through all of my OLLs and COLLs (OH and 2H) and changed a few of my algs.

If anyone hasn't tried my website then please take a look and let me know what you think.

 

[Jason Green]

Talking about algs, I've decided to make my website public after making a few tweaks recently:

https://www.speedsolving.com/forum/threads/reactive-website-for-my-cubing-algs.68446/

I've recently been through all of my OLLs and COLLs (OH and 2H) and changed a few of my algs.

If anyone hasn't tried my website then please take a look and let me know what you think.

It looks really cool! If I ever spend more time on two sided PLL recognition I may use it.

 

[Logiqx]

It looks really cool! If I ever spend more time on two sided PLL recognition I may use it.

PLL recognition was the product of a weeks worth of commuting by train.

 

[phreaker]

Yes. I count an alg for a single target made of seutp+Y/Jperm+undo setup as a single alg. This leads to 21 algs for corners, and 22 for edges + algs for flips (few) + parity. This makes around 50 algs.

I don't memorize flips/twists, I do those as two target shoots today. (Crass, but it works.) The setups and tear downs, are all really pattern based. I don't think "What is the O alg." I think "How do I move the O sticker to the right spot." So it is more like intuitive F2L for me. I also use no J perms in my OP corners.

So for me... not many algs .

 

[phreaker]

BLD progress: I usually only get 1-2 attempts a day. (Too much other mental load right now.)

That said, my memo is getting more and more solid, and I'm starting to push on it. Execution is starting to become automatic, to the degree where I think I'm making mistakes, and I'm not. (Which is a really strange feeling.)

But that said... I'm opening my eyes to more and more solved cubes. Now to find a good blindfold... I don't know where mine went!

 

[Shaky Hands]

PLL recognition was the product of a weeks worth of commuting by train.

Yeah, I've seen benefits from the time I've put into this. Usually if I notice I'm glancing too much around the cube to determine which case it in then I conclude I need to have a better recognition of the case. More specifically, I've recently fully sussed out 2-sided recognition for T vs Ra, and am also trying to make my 2-sided recognition of Gc vs Rb quicker than it is now.