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Older cubers discussions

pglewis

Member
Joined
Sep 23, 2016
Messages
1,268
Location
Cincinnati
WCA
2016LEWI07
I'm still in 3x3 slow solve mode right now, focusing on cases where the edge or corner is in the wrong slot. Most of my F2L cases are solid but those particular ones still slow me when they turn up and contribute to the wobbly average. There are only a few of those cases I need to change but I still need to develop better case recognition for the ones I was doing "right". I'm not bothering to track averages knowing this is necessarily going to slow me down a few seconds until the new stuff is absorbed. For singles, full-step 17s are a thing, generally about two of those show up per day along with the occasional 16. It has been a while since I've had a skip during a good solve; I had a shoulda-coulda 15 flat two weeks ago with a PLL skip but +2'ed it.

3bld is beyond what I could call "rusty" at this point, it's been so long I'll have to relearn some of my M2 algs. I do want to get it back in shape though, I'd like to get to at least one comp before the year is done and blind is the only thing besides 3x3 I'm interested in as far as official solves right now.
 

Sergey

Member
Joined
Feb 16, 2018
Messages
288
as executed, toooo many rotations, but...

z2 // inspection
D' L R B' R2 //cross
y' U' R U' R' L U' L' //1st
y' U' R U R' U' R U R' //2nd
y2 L' U L //3rd
U' R U' R' U2 y L' U' L //4th
R U2 R' U' R U' R' U2 //OLL, PLL skip, AUF

@alg.cubing.net

About my training - all by mood. Most of the time it is 3x3 (if it is possible I'm trying to do 100+ timed solves a day). Further descending - 4x4 and 5x5. Sometimes in the evening - 2-3 6x6 and 7x7 untimed solves.
 

openseas

Member
Joined
Oct 11, 2015
Messages
425
WCA
2015PARK24
3bld is beyond what I could call "rusty" at this point, it's been so long I'll have to relearn some of my M2 algs. I do want to get it back in shape though, I'd like to get to at least one comp before the year is done and blind is the only thing besides 3x3 I'm interested in as far as official solves right now.

You may want to learn advanced M2. Once you understand how it works, not much memo needed. You can actually enjoy figuring out those comms (M2 heavy) in your practice run. I almost forgot M2 algs (special cases & middle slice layer cases), too.
 

pglewis

Member
Joined
Sep 23, 2016
Messages
1,268
Location
Cincinnati
WCA
2016LEWI07
as executed, toooo many rotations, but...

z2 // inspection
D' L R B' R2 //cross
y' U' R U' R' L U' L' //1st
y' U' R U R' U' R U R' //2nd
y2 L' U L //3rd
U' R U' R' U2 y L' U' L //4th
R U2 R' U' R U' R' U2 //OLL, PLL skip, AUF

@alg.cubing.net

Well done and a good reminder for me to practice back-Sune more, I don't use it speedsolves. What was your previous single and what are you averaging these days?
 

Tom Joad

Member
Joined
Jun 29, 2016
Messages
137
Well done and a good reminder for me to practice back-Sune more, I don't use it speedsolves. What was your previous single and what are you averaging these days?

I think my times are just a bit faster than yours so here’s mine, maybe you can aim for something like this?

PB 12.4
Ao5 15.8 (not really, I was using unlimited inspection to look for first pair, it’s 16.1 really)
Ao12 16.6 (usually more like 17.5 but I was in the zone)
Ao100 18.8

I don’t think I care much for my luckiest single or my average of 100. I like to focus on beating my average of 5 and average of 12 when I’m in the zone.

Sometimes I feel like I can almost reach out and touch sub 15 and then other times it feels like my progress has been almost nothing in the last year or two.

I’m still convinced that maximising lookahead during inspection is key to progress and I will now start each session with 20 unlimited inspection solves. I feel like this was helping when I tried it today but then my brain started hurting.
 

pglewis

Member
Joined
Sep 23, 2016
Messages
1,268
Location
Cincinnati
WCA
2016LEWI07
I think my times are just a bit faster than yours so here’s mine, maybe you can aim for something like this?

PB 12.4
Ao5 15.8 (not really, I was using unlimited inspection to look for first pair, it’s 16.1 really)
Ao12 16.6 (usually more like 17.5 but I was in the zone)
Ao100 18.8

I don’t think I care much for my luckiest single or my average of 100. I like to focus on beating my average of 5 and average of 12 when I’m in the zone.

Sometimes I feel like I can almost reach out and touch sub 15 and then other times it feels like my progress has been almost nothing in the last year or two.

I’m still convinced that maximising lookahead during inspection is key to progress and I will now start each session with 20 unlimited inspection solves. I feel like this was helping when I tried it today but then my brain started hurting.

You're up 4 or 5 seconds on me, which at this stage is definitely at another level. My current low :18 Ao5 is an outlier and it's still rare for me to get a sub :20 Ao5. I can get effortless feeling full-step :18s now but I still haven't fully assimilated a few things, leading to 2 or 3 small mistakes per solve typically and a bell-curve around :23. My primary short term milestone is a sub 20 Ao12, I have all the tools to do it with just a smidge more consistency.

The ".6 guideline" from a 23 average says a sub :14 single is in my future with the perfect storm so I just shrug that off to statistics and hope the timer is running when it comes. [0.6 * 19 = 11.4, so looks like you're due for that sub 12].

I'm close to being in the same boat, where the best gains are in deeper inspection. I was doing 4 and 5 move cross exercises with unlimited inspection and two things were clear: 1) it can improve my averages significantly if I can predict just an edge and its orientation and 2) it's going to be somewhat of a long-game before it really clicks well enough to do it in 10-12 seconds. I need to keep at it for that very reason though and it felt like there were some immediate benefits, if only a little better first pair lookahead. I haven't done that or cross+1 drills since then, though.

Currently I'm spending 10 mins or so a day trying cross through F2L with a metronome set at 60bpm. One move per second is very easy for me to keep up with but it immediately exposes cases I recognize slowly or when I'm letting my lookahead lapse. Ironing out the hiccups it exposes should lead to a lot more sub 20s for me.

And then there's last slot/last layer drills, which I'm sure wouldn't harm me one bit right now...
 

Tom Joad

Member
Joined
Jun 29, 2016
Messages
137
You're up 4 or 5 seconds on me, which at this stage is definitely at another level. My current low :18 Ao5 is an outlier and it's still rare for me to get a sub :20 Ao5. I can get effortless feeling full-step :18s now but I still haven't fully assimilated a few things, leading to 2 or 3 small mistakes per solve typically and a bell-curve around :23. My primary short term milestone is a sub 20 Ao12, I have all the tools to do it with just a smidge more consistency.

The ".6 guideline" from a 23 average says a sub :14 single is in my future with the perfect storm so I just shrug that off to statistics and hope the timer is running when it comes. [0.6 * 19 = 11.4, so looks like you're due for that sub 12].

I'm close to being in the same boat, where the best gains are in deeper inspection. I was doing 4 and 5 move cross exercises with unlimited inspection and two things were clear: 1) it can improve my averages significantly if I can predict just an edge and its orientation and 2) it's going to be somewhat of a long-game before it really clicks well enough to do it in 10-12 seconds. I need to keep at it for that very reason though and it felt like there were some immediate benefits, if only a little better first pair lookahead. I haven't done that or cross+1 drills since then, though.

Currently I'm spending 10 mins or so a day trying cross through F2L with a metronome set at 60bpm. One move per second is very easy for me to keep up with but it immediately exposes cases I recognize slowly or when I'm letting my lookahead lapse. Ironing out the hiccups it exposes should lead to a lot more sub 20s for me.

And then there's last slot/last layer drills, which I'm sure wouldn't harm me one bit right now...

1. Yes my next PB single is well overdue. Possibly because I spent so much of the last year focusing on oll, which is certainly the least rewarding practice.

2. Yes the unlimited inspection time yields such a smoother solve but the idea of seeing all that in 10 seconds currently seems impossible. Definitely a long, long game.

3. It’s so long since I did any pll drills... I know it would help a great deal but always prioritise other stuff. My pll auf integration has become a complete mess, need to focus on that explicitly for a month or two but it’s way down my list of priorities!

4. The .6 thing is interesting. I feel like my last year’s cubing has only made my worst solves better and hence made me more consistent but hardly improved my best solves. When I used to compare cubers Ao5 with their PB in the rankings, I notice any cuber with a Ao5 of 12 secs or more really struggled to post a sub10 single in competition. It seems like the standard deviation of their solve times became much smaller by this point so to have a realistic chance of a sub 10 in competition you needed to be averaging sub 12. But it’s a long time since I looked, maybe I am misremembering.

5. Good luck and enjoy
 

pglewis

Member
Joined
Sep 23, 2016
Messages
1,268
Location
Cincinnati
WCA
2016LEWI07
4. The .6 thing is interesting. I feel like my last year’s cubing has only made my worst solves better and hence made me more consistent but hardly improved my best solves. When I used to compare cubers Ao5 with their PB in the rankings, I notice any cuber with a Ao5 of 12 secs or more really struggled to post a sub10 single in competition. It seems like the standard deviation of their solve times became much smaller by this point so to have a realistic chance of a sub 10 in competition you needed to be averaging sub 12. But it’s a long time since I looked, maybe I am misremembering.

It's just a random guideline I picked up from someone here without a clue to the original source, but it's based of your rough global avg (and of course ignores "official" times, which just limits the attempts you get to land it). It instinctively feels like some percentage of your best Ao5 would be a better indicator since that's more indicative of your top potential, but .6 of my general average has been a surprisingly good ballpark for what to expect for PB singles thus far.
 

Sergey

Member
Joined
Feb 16, 2018
Messages
288
Well done and a good reminder for me to practice back-Sune more, I don't use it speedsolves. What was your previous single and what are you averaging these days?
Thanks! Previous single was 12.10 about month ago. Best avgs now are 17.03/18.30/18.84/19.49. But stability is quit poor. I cannot even say that I'm confidently sub20 solver, still huge amount of solves are over20. BTW, last PB solve OLL was regular anti-sune not back-sune.
 

pglewis

Member
Joined
Sep 23, 2016
Messages
1,268
Location
Cincinnati
WCA
2016LEWI07
[...] BTW, last PB solve OLL was regular anti-sune not back-sune.

Ah, I've been using the wrong name for that. I thought anti-Sune was the variant I do use, R' U2 R U R' U R. Maybe I had the two names reversed... I couldn't even find "back Sune" in a Google search just now and I swear it used to be in the variant list in the wiki but I'm not finding it anywhere in the page history.

Anti-sune and its mirror are so easy to incorporate though and it'd give me three angles for my Sunes.
 
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