F2L Progression

[thelurch1986]

I have been working on F2L a little heavily for about a week now, which is about 50 solves per day for me. I already knew LBL well and Petrus pretty well (just wasn't fast with Petrus). I have been cubing for a total of about 2 months.

I am currently trying to work on Advanced Cross solving and look ahead, I use Intuitive F2L and 2 Look OLL with 2 Look PLL, is there anything I should be working on instead? How do you think I am progressing so far.

My current times are a personal best of 38.14 and a 5 solve average with the best time and worst time removed of 47.98

 

[byu]

Why did you make this thread? Just to tell us this, or do you have a question?

 

[ThatGuy]

advance cross will come with time so you don't really need to focus on it now. Just work on look ahead.

 

[blgentry]

I think you're at that magic stage where F2L is going to make huge improvements for you. Without knowing the timings of each step of your solve, I can't be certain, but I can tell you that when I was at that stage, F2L made the biggest difference. I know that now, but back then I was focusing on learning all of PLL, all the while practicing entire cube solves, so I got lots of F2L practice at the same time. Had I just focused on F2L, I might have gotten better faster, even with a 4LLL.

The big thing for me with F2L at that stage was figuring out shortcuts like inserting pairs in the two back slots, learning to do the simple cases from the back as well as the front, and generally programming (in my mind) the exact sequence for common pair cases.

Pretend that you're not allowed to rotate the cube during F2L. Then figure out what techniques you would need to make that happen. Eliminate the stuff that's just stupid slow, and you'll be left with some things you can practice that will make you much faster at F2L. I hope that makes some sense.

Brian.

 

[Ellis]

Why did you make this thread? Just to tell us this, or do you have a question?

is there anything I should be working on instead? How do you think I am progressing so far.

 

[thelurch1986]

Without knowing the timings of each step of your solve.

Cross: ~6s
F2L not including cross: ~30s
4LLL: ~16s

Total Solve: ~52s

It's 2a.m. so these might be a couple seconds higher than normal

 

[TurbulentTurtle]

Naw bro, your cross and last layer times look solid.
Totally just work on your F2L now. Make each edge-corner pairing and insertion slow to work on your look ahead, and also try to think up of more optimal ways to pair up and insert the pieces that you're looking for.
It's easy to see that F2L is burning the largest chunk of your time, so if you can even get that down to 20 or even 15 seconds, that can help a ton. I wouldn't worry too much about your last layer at this point, especially if in the future you pick up 3LLL and even 2LLL. Just work on your look ahead during the solve and you should definitely see some improvement.