any 4x4 tips?

[skinnyandweak]

my fastest average on 4x4 so far is sadly, 1:47. i have been doing it for about 2 months now. i guess i had one good day, and the rest of em were bad. i haven't gotten any good times lately, and i don't know why. anyone have any good tips for speeding up the 4x4? i get very frustrated when it takes me over 2 minutes, and i don't want that anymore. seems like i'm getting worse at all the cubes

 

[ExoCorsair]

Keep persevering and practicing.

Also consider slowing down on edges to keep delays down; just like F2L.

 

[jonny guitar]

4x4 is like golfing to me -- I always seem to screw up a bit on one aspect of the solution. In golf, I get a great drive, nice approach, screw up the chip, nice put or some other variation; 4x4 I do the centers fast, edges fast, 2L okay, Oll fast and somehow manage to screw up an Oll that is totally run of the mill....

Once in a blue moon I get all 5 things going perfect and have a good time but more often than not I screw up something. Practice practice practice I guess.

 

[skinnyandweak]

i mainly need work on edge pairing. i use 2 at a time, which is the only one i like out of all the other methods. i'm fast at everything else, it's just those edges that slow me down. exo already suggested that i slow down. anything else to add to that?

 

[hdskull]

Isn't 1:47 pretty decent ? I avg like 1:50+ cuz i never do it, lol.

I want to learn 6 pair does anyone know where I can do so ?

 

[Jason Baum]

Here's something I learned from Frank Morris: If you do your pairing on the E ring, after you pair up your first two edges, put them in the BL and BR spots. I guess if you pair up on the M ring, you would put them in the UB and DB spots. Usually if an edge piece you need is back there it's a pain to take care of, but if you fill them up right away you'll never have to look back there. Aside from that, it's all about slowing down and looking ahead.

 

[velcro]

I do it all the time and I average like 5 minutes. Well I only have done it for two weeks. For six pair learned from http://www.cubestation.co.uk/cs2/index.php?page=4x4x4/edges

 

[AvGalen]

Don't think 6 pair makes you much faster. Some of the fastest people in the world (Michael Fung, Erik Akkersdijk) don't use 6 pair.

6 pair saves moves
2 pair saves cube rotations and prevents weird cases

 

[brad711]

I learned 6 pair from cubestation also. The weird cases can be mostly cleared up with looking ahead. However, it still takes me forever. My best time is 2:26.57.
My question about going faster is:
Is there a method for storing pieces in certain slots so that you can find them faster?
I have to look at most of the 12 edge areas to find an edge.

 

[tim]

I learned 6 pair from cubestation also. The weird cases can be mostly cleared up with looking ahead. However, it still takes me forever. My best time is 2:26.57.
My question about going faster is:
Is there a method for storing pieces in certain slots so that you can find them faster?
I have to look at most of the 12 edge areas to find an edge.

If you don't rotate your cube too often, you could try to memorize, where your pieces are. This will probably take some practice, but over time you'll immediately know, where the "blue-yellow" piece is .

 

[jackolanternsoup]

dang... I'm really terrible in that case... my new-ish averge is about 3:30.xx and PB is 3:04.... sigh... Practice i must..

 

[skinnyandweak]

i use all 2 pair. i just need to stop pausing, but i also need to speed up at the same time. not easy. and those parities are a pain. my PB is 1:34.xx, with no parities =D

 

[rachmaninovian]

Ha ha I use modified cage and I get about 2 minutes 40 average and personal best of 2 mins 8 s. slow. bleah.

 

[skinnyandweak]

i suggest you learn the method on bigcubes.com =P. probably the best you can get.

 

[skinnyandweak]

i wanted to compare my centers + edge pairing with the rest of the solve, so i took an average of only solving the centers and edge pairing. the average was 1:06.03. my centers are usually pretty fast (to me). around 17-18 seconds i would say. so that leaves my edge pairing at about.. 48 seconds. i had no times on my average, however, that was under a minute. fastest was 101.13 (in the middle of the average), slowest was 1:14 (first time in the average =P).

if there is no parity, i can solve the last part as a 3x3 under 30 seconds. parities also slow me down too.

i realized that i need to work on edge pairing and maybe centers.

i've already asked about edge pairing, so what do i need to know about centers? any tips and such?

 

[hdskull]

I know a lot of people use 2 pair, but I have the problem of trying to find pieces so if i have 6 pairs taken care of then it'd be easier to find the pieces. I like Jason Baum's idea, I"m gonna try that.

 

[skinnyandweak]

okay today was a weird day.

i was taking a 4x4 average like how i usually do everyday, but today was terrible. like, horribly terrible. i got no times under 1:40. and i even had times over 2 minutes. i don't know what happened. i kept on going until the average time was above 1:50, which is about 12 seconds slower than my average yesterday. i already know the problem, which is edge pairing of course. i have gotten a lot of advice, but edge pairing still seems to be very bad for me. i'm very angry about it. i would look up at the time when i'm done with edge pairing, and today it was around 1:20, about 14 seconds longer than usual. why is this happening!? i practice every cube everyday and yet i get worse. if i don't, i also get worse. i really want to improve my 4x4. i don't think it will ever happen.

 

[Harris Chan]

The thing is, if you start off with 4 pair or 6 pairing, you already have 2 or 3 solved edges (respectively) on the E (ud) layer, so you don't have to worry putting the edges in that spot. But yah, sometimes weird cases pop up in 6 pairs solving (running out of edges).

May be I should switch from Pochman's center to something else...though in the sim my centers with Pochman is like 10-15 seconds lol