Colour neutral or not colour neutral?

[Cuber3]

I have been cubing for a bit (I would call myself an intermediate cuber) and I have always solved the cube being colour neutral. I was wondering if this would be helping or hindering my solve time. I know that it would help the guys doing sub 10 and stuff, but would it help someone like me? (My average is around 45 seconds.)

 

[Weston]

In my opinion, color neutralism or sticking with one color doesn't have much of an impact for 3x3. There are pros and cons to sticking with one color or being color neutral. There are world class solvers that are both color neutral, and that stick with one color.

What I personally like to do is to have 2 cross colors, one color, and its opposite color, but its entirely up to you.

(Also, I'm pretty sure that there are many other threads on this already.)

 

[Novriil]

I think you should get sub-30 at least before learning it.. I think I will not learn it soon.. also I'm no professional but still.

 

[V-te]

Black side always! I remember I had the yellow cross already solved from a scramble, and I tried to solve it, and ended up 5 seconds above average. I like black side, it's just what I'm used to.

 

[amostay2004]

I think you should get sub-30 at least before learning it.. I think I will not learn it soon.. also I'm no professional but still.

Colour neutrality is not an advanced skill. It's a habit. You don't learn it when you're at a certain speed. If you started out being colour neutral and stick to it, then you're colour neutral.

In fact if you're using only a certain cross colour, still not fast yet and wanting to start solving with colour neutrality/opposite colour neutrality, it's the best time to get started so you can get used to the lookahead when you're fast.

 

[Novriil]

Black side always! I remember I had the yellow cross already solved from a scramble, and I tried to solve it, and ended up 5 seconds above average. I like black side, it's just what I'm used to.

This is just because you are not color neutral.. it might be very good but needs a lot of practise and I don't think I could inspect that way at least not now..

But look a Faz.. he's crazy. and he's color neutral too.

E: Maybe amostay.. just might be. Well at least I think I'd learn it later.. after the competition.. Now I have a month to sub-15

 

[V-te]

Black side always! I remember I had the yellow cross already solved from a scramble, and I tried to solve it, and ended up 5 seconds above average. I like black side, it's just what I'm used to.

This is just because you are not color neutral.. it might be very good but needs a lot of practise and I don't think I could inspect that way at least not now..

But look a Faz.. he's crazy. and he's color neutral too.

E: Maybe amostay.. just might be. Well at least I think I'd learn it later.. after the competition.. Now I have a month to sub-15

Yeah, But I think it's too late for me (not impossible though) now that I'm in my 20's. Maybe I could be faster, but *sigh* I am a person who gets confused easily.

 

[qqwref]

It's not too late, I didn't even try to be color neutral until I averaged under 20 seconds and it didn't take me all that long to be decent at any color cross. I'm not fully color neutral but I think I would be if I gave it some serious practice (but 3x3 is boring ). I'm also more or less color *scheme* neutral - I can average about the same with Western (white cross) and Japanese (blue cross) color schemes. (At one competition I did each of the three rounds with a different color scheme, and got sub-17 averages on each one )

If you want to practice this I suggest you just randomly throw the cube up and do a cross on whatever side ends up on bottom (or top if you're not good at doing cross on D). Do maybe a hundred solves of this and you'll notice a clear improvement in your ability to do solves from other colors. Being truly color neutral takes some extra time but you'll be surprised that it doesn't take all that much to get almost there. Once you can comfortably do solves from every color (even if it takes an extra second or two) you should spend some time practicing finding the best cross, or at least going with one that looks nice - there almost always will be one somewhere.

In my view it can't hurt to be color neutral, and it can definitely help (at least with single solves). Sometimes in competition there's a two-move cross somewhere and if you've practiced solving from every color you'll have a huge advantage over people who try that cross but are only used to white/yellow. Basically, it might not help your average much, but color neutrality will make very nice single times more likely.

 

[Faz]

Stay colour neutral.

 

[amostay2004]

I agree with qqwref, it's not hard switching to colour neutral. I once tried an average of 12 with blue cross (I usually do white) and almost got sub-20..and the times were getting better.

But rather than throwing a cube and do a cross on the bottom colour, why not just straight away start with looking for the best cross for each colour? Screw it if you're having more than 15s inspection, it's just practice.

 

[Cuber3]

Thanks for the suggestions - I will keep being colour neutral. I was really only going to change if it made a big difference like 5 seconds or something.

I do use the best cross, or at least the best one that I can find.

I did a search for this on the fourm and it came up with nothing useful. If there is a thread that someone knows about that didn't come up in my search could you please post a link to it? That would be greatly appreciated.

 

[elcarc]

neutral ftw. it has more advantages than being only 1 or 2 colors

 

[qqwref]

But rather than throwing a cube and do a cross on the bottom colour, why not just straight away start with looking for the best cross for each colour? Screw it if you're having more than 15s inspection, it's just practice.

Yeah, you'd want to do that eventually, but the throwing the cube up thing is intended just to get used to doing a cross on any color. You don't want to find a really nice orange cross and then go "argh I hate cross on orange".

 

[mark3]

I'm color neutral, but I did spend some time doing only white cross and it helped me a lot. If you are color neutral since the start, you have never had to solve hard crosses. After you have learned some new crossing skills, switching back to being color neutral is very easy, crosses seem to come as second nature.

 

[fanwuq]

I agree with qqwref, it's not hard switching to colour neutral. I once tried an average of 12 with blue cross (I usually do white) and almost got sub-20..and the times were getting better.

But rather than throwing a cube and do a cross on the bottom colour, why not just straight away start with looking for the best cross for each colour? Screw it if you're having more than 15s inspection, it's just practice.

I like qq's idea better. I find that if I try to look for the best cross, I'll just automatically pick white/yellow anyway 80% of the time.

 

[TEGTaylor]

color neutrality rocks!

 

[amostay2004]

I agree with qqwref, it's not hard switching to colour neutral. I once tried an average of 12 with blue cross (I usually do white) and almost got sub-20..and the times were getting better.

But rather than throwing a cube and do a cross on the bottom colour, why not just straight away start with looking for the best cross for each colour? Screw it if you're having more than 15s inspection, it's just practice.

I like qq's idea better. I find that if I try to look for the best cross, I'll just automatically pick white/yellow anyway 80% of the time.

Of course, when you're only used to white/yellow but trying to learn other colours, you can force yourself to look for the best cross other then white/yellow That's what I would do.
Not criticizing qq's idea here, just stating alternatives

 

[Muesli]

It occured naturally for me. I just got bored of solving one colour over and over.

 

[JTW2007]

"NO! NEVER!"

-Dan Knights

 

[rubiknewbie]

White FTW! Don't need any other color.