I just solved a 4x4x4 blindfolded!

[jackolanternsoup]

Exactly. Maybe I should try to find some poor soul that I can convince to solve a 4x4x4 BLD before they ever solve a 3x3x3 sighted.

haha. good luck with that... But maybe you should start off with teaching me how to solve 4x4x4 BLD before 3x3x3 BLD.. that's still an accomplishment

 

[Mike Hughey]

Exactly. Maybe I should try to find some poor soul that I can convince to solve a 4x4x4 BLD before they ever solve a 3x3x3 sighted.

haha. good luck with that... But maybe you should start off with teaching me how to solve 4x4x4 BLD before 3x3x3 BLD.. that's still an accomplishment

That would be fun. You really should try it. You can start by learning r2 (Erik's site is good for explaining that), and get where you can do that, first sighted, then blind. Then you can learn centers, using my explanation. I guess you also need to figure out corners, so you'll be able to do a 2x2x2 BLD. But if you go in that order, you should still be essentially incapable of doing a 3x3x3 BLD, so you'll have pulled it off - r2 won't work for 3x3x3 edges; M2 is a little different. So it would be legitimate.

(Betcha didn't think I was serious, did you? I am serious.)

 

[Lt-UnReaL]

Darn, nowadays I wouldn't even make it into the top 20 anymore. What happened to the good old days when only a handful of people were able to do this?

being the first successful solver of th 5x5 BLD

I thought Richard Carr and 1 or 2 other guys were before him?

 

[Mike Hughey]

Stefan was the first one to solve 5x5x5 BLD in competition, though. Richard Carr and Dror Vomberg both tried at that competition, but failed. (At least, according to the WCA database.)

 

[Stefan]

Stefan was the first one to solve 5x5x5 BLD in competition, though. Richard Carr and Dror Vomberg both tried at that competition, but failed. (At least, according to the WCA database.)

Once I get control over the unofficial database as well, I'll make it look like I was the first unofficially, too. Mwuahahahaha. Just kidding, actually I'd like to show more history than just everybody's latest record.

 

[jackolanternsoup]

Exactly. Maybe I should try to find some poor soul that I can convince to solve a 4x4x4 BLD before they ever solve a 3x3x3 sighted.

haha. good luck with that... But maybe you should start off with teaching me how to solve 4x4x4 BLD before 3x3x3 BLD.. that's still an accomplishment

That would be fun. You really should try it. You can start by learning r2 (Erik's site is good for explaining that), and get where you can do that, first sighted, then blind. Then you can learn centers, using my explanation. I guess you also need to figure out corners, so you'll be able to do a 2x2x2 BLD. But if you go in that order, you should still be essentially incapable of doing a 3x3x3 BLD, so you'll have pulled it off - r2 won't work for 3x3x3 edges; M2 is a little different. So it would be legitimate.

(Betcha didn't think I was serious, did you? I am serious.)

haha i thought you were. And I'm serious too... Just that i need to get a new 4x4x4 or replace the center so that i can start. Cubesmith's been out for at least the past 2 weeks... (i don't think I've ever seen them carry stock for it since i started visiting their site since October)

I'll probaably buy a new one sometime next month when i get my allowance if cubesmith doesn't have stock yet.

 

[Jason Baum]

I crushed my old PR earlier tonight: 14:59.74. This solve was amazing. I memorized in 6:30, and I've never been able to do sub 10 memo before. I basically tried to memorize and solve as quickly as I can with minimal review. I think I was able to memorize so quickly because my story actually made some sense. A lot of times my stories are very random, but this one flowed together quite nicely. My previous record was 36:xx, but I had 10 consecutive DNFs before this attempt, and they were all low to mid 20s. Anyway I'm thrilled to have gotten a sub 15 already! 4x4x4 BLD is awesome.

 

[Tim Reynolds]

Wow, nice Jason! Maybe I should try that, just rushing through memo, it seemed to work for you!

 

[Jason Baum]

Yeah, I think rushing through memo is actually quite effective. I read some tips on how to increase your reading speed a few years ago, and one of the things they mentioned is to actually read slightly faster than what your comfortable pace is. The reason for this is that your brain naturally responds when it is challenged, so if you read slightly faster you will naturally retain more information. Obviously you don't want to just blaze through the text, but force yourself to read just slightly faster than normal. I think this is very applicable to blindfold solving as well. I'm not by any means an authority on BLD, but I've found that whenever I force myself to memorize slightly faster than normal, I have no problem retaining the information. I've been doing this with the 3x3x3 recently and I've been able to memorize in as fast as 45 seconds on some solves, which is a massive improvement for me. This was the first time I tried this approach on the 4x4x4, and it obviously produced a great result. So I definitely think rushing through memo is a good way to approach any BLD solve, you just have to know what your limits are in terms of how fast you can go.

Edit: I just did another attempt, again with memorizing slightly faster than what's comfortable, and I got a 15:25.xx, but I was off by a 3 center cycle. Still, this has clearly dropped my times considerably, so it definitely works!

 

[joey]

Woah Jason, thats improvement. I was happy when I broke my 3x3 BLD by 17s!

 

[Mike Hughey]

Awesome, Jason. See, you caught up to me in just a matter of weeks - I knew you would. You'll probably be sub-10 in just another month or two. (And I'll probably be happy with getting sub-13 at about the same time.)

I've been having a rough time with my 4x4x4 BLD lately as well. I'm getting a little more than half successful solves, but they're really mostly disasters even when I solve them - I've been having a lot of attempts over 20 minutes lately. I'm memorizing the wrong pieces, getting confused and having to go back over my memorization before I even pull on the blindfold, etc. The actual solving phase is usually going well, but the memorization phase is just a mess lately for me. I'm hoping this is just a passing thing before a new personal best, like it apparently was for you.

 

[ROOT]

a bit late but congrats, ive gotten close, but no cigar. just right now i was off by 5 edges and 2 centers.