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Older cubers discussions

I should be back to hitting the timer a lot over the next month in prep for comp. After an inauspicious start I landed a slim PB for Ao50 (sadly still over 25, though) and nudged my best Ao12 under 23. Had a counting sub 20 a couple times in the running Ao5 when I was in a groove and a best Mo3 of 20.01 lol. Also had a few spells where it seemed like I couldn't get a sub 25 to save my life. A lot of flubbed OLLs; the usual suspects, low frequency ones and some of the dot and I OLLs that I have yet to get as solid as they should be. A week of drilling the weak ones should do wonders.
 
SpartanSailor said:
Just put down a 2:40.25 (1:42.14/58.11) for a new 3BLD PB! How did THAT just happen! Previous PB was 3:13! And I was playing it somewhat safe doing an extra memo review/trace having just had a nice 3:23 just prior! Man... sub-3 and I’m feeling super great!
Click to expand...

Will be asking you at FBg how to get started with BLD. Not sure if I want to get into that though, memory was never my strong point, even less so at 80.
 
Old Tom said:
Will be asking you at FBg how to get started with BLD. Not sure if I want to get into that though, memory was never my strong point, even less so at 80.
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Definitely! I only recently (January) started and have really come to enjoy it. I know it helped me to talk with people too. Videos are good and a great reference, but you can’t really ask them questions...
 
SpartanSailor said:
Definitely! I only recently (January) started and have really come to enjoy it. I know it helped me to talk with people too. Videos are good and a great reference, but you can’t really ask them questions...
Click to expand...

Great. Looking fwd to my first comp. Zero expectations except to have fun. Resisting trying to improve much until then, just gonna do my own slow solve of, lo, these many years, but with a new F2L thrown in.
 
SpartanSailor said:
Just put down a 2:40.25 (1:42.14/58.11) for a new 3BLD PB! How did THAT just happen! Previous PB was 3:13! And I was playing it somewhat safe doing an extra memo review/trace having just had a nice 3:23 just prior! Man... sub-3 and I’m feeling super great!
Click to expand...

Nicely done! Switching to M2 didn't seem to throw you much or for long.

I had one I wish I'd timed yesterday, 10 edge and 8 corner targets with one of each already solved. Felt like one of my fastest ones yet at least. I'll be back to timing 3bld again soon, and will be making 2 cube attempts to get my mbld going.
 
pglewis said:
Nicely done! Switching to M2 didn't seem to throw you much or for long.

I had one I wish I'd timed yesterday, 10 edge and 8 corner targets with one of each already solved. Felt like one of my fastest ones yet at least. I'll be back to timing 3bld again soon, and will be making 2 cube attempts to get my mbld going.
Click to expand...
Not too long. A couple weeks of drilling edge algs for the special cases and new setups... since I already understood “how” blind solving worked, it seems to go easier than I expected.

I DEFINITELY notice an instant gain in execution time. I’ve started to push more on my memo which has resulted in a much lower success rate. But, it’s usually something simple—memo error or forgotten edge. All in all, my overall time has come down quite a bit. I’d be THRILLED to get anything in the range I’ve had the past few days. Of course, I want one with a success... not a DNF. ;-)
 
I've analyzed my biggest CFOP weaknesses at the moment and I think I've settled on my latest concrete hit-list for the attack on sub 20, in no particular order:
  • Overall: Improve transitions between steps. F2L => OLL isn't awful because I'm almost always paying attention to edge orientation on the last pair or two, but cross => F2L and OLL => PLL lookahead can definitely use improvement. It wouldn't hurt a bit to do some more 2-sided PLL recognition drills, I still auto-U2 instead of recognizing in too many situations.
  • F2L: Preference for placing solved slots in the back. I have some unconscious bad habits that lead to the opposite, I need to be more judicious and pay more attention to solved/unsolved slots when it's time to rotate.
  • F2L: Cut some rotations / incorporate wide D turns. I can continue to reduce my rotations in general with deliberate practice, it used to be worse. Using wide D turns when appropriate might optimize that some more, though it will require a lot more work to train myself; I'm considering that adjustment as a longer game.
  • F2L: Taking pieces out of wrong slots. I think many of my F2L choices are reasonably solid but when I kick pieces out of wrong slots I tend to just haphazardly take 'em out the easiest way in the moment. It can easily drain seconds if I get two of those cases during a solve and don't optimize well and is part of the excess rotation problem. There are a lot of cases and even just one or two tweaks to my F2L can cause me to regress for a while. This is going to be an investment but a very worthwhile one.
  • Cross: Work on cutting out bad cross solutions. I don't like cross drills and I've put them off forever because I don't have a lot of time to trim from my best cross solutions. This is a consistency issue, however: often the main difference between a reasonably fast solve and a reasonably slow solve for me is the slow one had a slow cross. Since transitions are another focus I think cross +1 is the drill for me. Last time I drilled it back in Feb I averaged ~7.5 seconds for cross +1 and I doubt I'm much faster if at all now. Definitely a couple seconds to be had there even for me but I'm not sure how much work it'll take me to squeeze that out. Cutting out the really bad ones is the main motivation though.
  • OLL: Drill the ones that still give me trouble. A high percentage of my slowest solves are still due to pauses for OLL recog, recall, or just getting the wrong OLL. Granted, that's been the case since tackling full OLL but I'm at the point where it's only a handful that are causing the most trouble now. This one is especially important for me leading up to comp because I've found out the hard way that my muscle memory is much worse with the adrenaline pumping. If it's slow and making me engage in thinking in the comfort of home there's a fair chance it'll lead to disaster under comp conditions.
In the less concrete column: actually look ahead and stop making dumb mistakes.
 
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