SpeedBLD Memorization Methods?

[Mike Hughey]

I've finally gotten interested enough in speedBLD to actually want to try it. (And besides, now that I'm not requiring myself to do all the solves for the weekly competition every week, I might have time to actually try it!) Since I know there are several regulars on here who have done a fair amount of speedBLD, I was wondering what methods you use to memorize as you go?

It seems like the only real long-term task is remembering the solve itself as you construct it. Do you memorize just visually and by feel for this, or do you use some sort of mnemonic? It's a fairly long sequence, so I'm a little concerned about memorizing that much without any mnemonic devices, especially since it's necessary to be using a fair amount of short-term memory in the process. If I were better at speedsolving, I suspect I'd be naturally better at this, but I don't have that advantage. I'll probably be the world's slowest speedBLD solver if I ever manage it - I probably won't be able to sub-20 a solve unless it's lucky, even with practice. To begin with, I'll probably be way over 30 seconds.

Also, are there any useful tricks to keep track of the pieces as you're figuring out what your OLL is? It seems to me like, other than remembering the full solution, the OLL might be the hardest part (although the PLL could be a challenge too, I guess).

 

[Lucas Garron]

I've done it so often that the process is transparent for me, but most of my techniques are summarized at http://cube.garron.us/BLD/speed/index.htm.

The most I ever have in my head is 8 stickers at a time, which happens at the beginning of F2L, as well as for OLL and PLL.

Don't worry about forgetting parts of the solution. You get so much mental practice on the moves that it's practically impossible to forget.
(For comparison, try the same speedsolve on the same scramble until you can do it blindfolded. 10 tries would probably be enough.)

 

[Mike Hughey]

Don't worry about forgetting parts of the solution. You get so much mental practice on the moves that it's practically impossible to forget.

Wow - that seems so hard to believe at first, but after thinking about it a bit, I can see that surely it's true. I suspect that's one reason not so many people have tried it - it just seems daunting. But I see now that it's an illusion. I'll probably try one fairly soon.

I had skimmed your main page for this before, but never dug into the sub-pages. I hadn't thought about how useful it would be to trace all 4 F2L pairs after the cross, but now I see. I'm glad I asked, or I wouldn't have learned to do that until after a few tries, I'm sure.

Keep in mind that one reason that spurred me to do this is our current "silliness" of doing fewest moves BLD in the weekly competition. I figure I can just trace through the scramble instead of starting with the scrambled cube, and use speedBLD to solve fewest moves BLD. It's just like speedBLD, only a little harder. (And you have to write the moves down instead of executing them.) And doing fewest moves BLD is what finally convinced me this isn't so hard. I was surprised how easy it was to trace the pieces through a scramble.

 

[Zane_C]

I'm also interested in SpeedBLD, I'll definately keep an eye on this thread and have a read through that link.

 

[Sakarie]

I've only tried once, and it was very slow "memo" (about 40 minutes), but it wasn't at all hard. The hardest part to me was to trace the stickers, but I'm sure it's easier if you practice!

I'll definitely try more some day!

 

[F.P.]

Don't worry about forgetting parts of the solution. You get so much mental practice on the moves that it's practically impossible to forget.

Yes, that's it.

You will go through the whole solve a few times in your head before you actually start solving it...and that's all you need to do.

 

[Innocence]

Don't worry about forgetting parts of the solution. You get so much mental practice on the moves that it's practically impossible to forget.

Keep in mind that one reason that spurred me to do this is our current "silliness" of doing fewest moves BLD in the weekly competition. I figure I can just trace through the scramble instead of starting with the scrambled cube, and use speedBLD to solve fewest moves BLD. It's just like speedBLD, only a little harder. (And you have to write the moves down instead of executing them.) And doing fewest moves BLD is what finally convinced me this isn't so hard. I was surprised how easy it was to trace the pieces through a scramble.

Hang on - I didn't know about fewest moves BLD as I don't really keep track of the competitions, but do you even need a blindfold for that, as the execution is only on paper? Have I interpreted it wrong? If you don't even need a blindfold, why is it called BLD?

On a slightly more serious note, I'm starting to learn speed BLD too, at a slower speedsolving speed than Mike . So my question is, Lucas, if you have eight stickers in your head at once, you must be tracing more than one piece at a time. For F2L, what I've been doing is tracing 2 stickers, being 1 piece, at a time through all the previous moves to their destination, twice per F2L slot. (Corner/Edge)

 

[Lucas Garron]

On a slightly more serious note, I'm starting to learn speed BLD too, at a slower speedsolving speed than Mike . So my question is, Lucas, if you have eight stickers in your head at once, you must be tracing more than one piece at a time. For F2L, what I've been doing is tracing 2 stickers, being 1 piece, at a time through all the previous moves to their destination, twice per F2L slot. (Corner/Edge)

I normally only trace one piece at a time, but keep a few cumulative traces in my head (tracing both pieces of an F2L pair is doable, but I haven't tried it consistently).
At the beginning of F2L, I trace all 8 F2L pieces separately in order to have a full overview, then decide what to do.

 

[Mike Hughey]

Don't worry about forgetting parts of the solution. You get so much mental practice on the moves that it's practically impossible to forget.

Keep in mind that one reason that spurred me to do this is our current "silliness" of doing fewest moves BLD in the weekly competition. I figure I can just trace through the scramble instead of starting with the scrambled cube, and use speedBLD to solve fewest moves BLD. It's just like speedBLD, only a little harder. (And you have to write the moves down instead of executing them.) And doing fewest moves BLD is what finally convinced me this isn't so hard. I was surprised how easy it was to trace the pieces through a scramble.

Hang on - I didn't know about fewest moves BLD as I don't really keep track of the competitions, but do you even need a blindfold for that, as the execution is only on paper? Have I interpreted it wrong? If you don't even need a blindfold, why is it called BLD?

As I said, we're being silly. The idea is that you need to put the blindfold on before you write down the moves. So you have to write the moves down without being able to see yourself write. One of the most challenging things is making sure you don't overwrite a previous move when you move to the next line. It's really hard to write the moves legibly while blindfolded!

On a slightly more serious note, I'm starting to learn speed BLD too, at a slower speedsolving speed than Mike . So my question is, Lucas, if you have eight stickers in your head at once, you must be tracing more than one piece at a time. For F2L, what I've been doing is tracing 2 stickers, being 1 piece, at a time through all the previous moves to their destination, twice per F2L slot. (Corner/Edge)

Well, I was just tracking one piece at a time, but the idea is that you first track the first piece and memorize where that is going, then track the second piece and add that to your memory, and so on, until you have all 8 for the F2L. Then you know where they all are and can pick the best one to solve. Then, if you can keep track of where all 8 were, you can just run through your first pair solve moves to see where the other 6 end up, and you can do it again. And you only need to trace one of the stickers on a piece; that tells you where the whole piece winds up.

 

[Innocence]

Well, I was just tracking one piece at a time, but the idea is that you first track the first piece and memorize where that is going, then track the second piece and add that to your memory, and so on, until you have all 8 for the F2L. Then you know where they all are and can pick the best one to solve. Then, if you can keep track of where all 8 were, you can just run through your first pair solve moves to see where the other 6 end up, and you can do it again. And you only need to trace one of the stickers on a piece; that tells you where the whole piece winds up.

Oh, well the way I was approaching it was simply pick the easiest f2l pair after the cross, solve that pair, trace another pair, solve that one, trace another pair through the last 2, solve it, then trace the final pair and solve it.

There's less re-tracing involved, and is it really worth having a slightly easier f2l?

 

[Lucas Garron]

Oh, well the way I was approaching it was simply pick the easiest f2l pair after the cross, solve that pair, trace another pair, solve that one, trace another pair through the last 2, solve it, then trace the final pair and solve it.

There's less re-tracing involved, and is it really worth having a slightly easier f2l?

Well, yes. "simply pick the easiest f2l pair" is the hardest part of it all.

Also, the amount of tracing should be no more, if you do it right.

 

[Innocence]

Oh, well the way I was approaching it was simply pick the easiest f2l pair after the cross, solve that pair, trace another pair, solve that one, trace another pair through the last 2, solve it, then trace the final pair and solve it.

There's less re-tracing involved, and is it really worth having a slightly easier f2l?

Well, yes. "simply pick the easiest f2l pair" is the hardest part of it all.

Also, the amount of tracing should be no more, if you do it right.

But I thought tracing 1 pair was definitely less than tracing 3. Am I misunderstanding something? Here's what I gather from what I've heard.


My method: Trace all f2l pairs through cross. Solve the easiest one, trace the first pair you see. Solve that one, trace the next pair you see. Solve that pair, trace the final pair. Solve it. OLL/PLL.

Pros: Less tracing?
Cons: Slightly harder F2L.

Your method: Trace all f2l pairs through cross. Solve the easiest one, trace all three remaining pairs. Solve the next easiest one. Trace the two remaining pairs. Solve the easier one. Trace the last pair, solve it. OLL/PLL.

Pros: Easier F2L.
Cons: More tracing?

From what I've derived from what you've told me, with the way I do it, you have to trace pairs 8 times. With what I've inferred from your method, you have to trace pairs 10 times.

What have I missed?

 

[Lucas Garron]

What have I missed?

You do more of the tracing at a time. Still the same total amount of moves traced (disregarding your opportunity costs). Each digit n represents tracing the nth F2L pair through the moves of a step (e.g. cross/F2L insertion)

Me:
Before placing slot #1: 1234
Before placing slot #2: 234
Before placing slot #3: 34
Before placing slot #4: 4

You:
Before placing slot #1: 1234
Before placing slot #2: 2
Before placing slot #3: 33
Before placing slot #4: 444

You also need to keep the same amount of information in your mhead both ways, although the info is updated more frequently my way.

 

[Sakarie]

What have I missed?

You do more of the tracing at a time. Still the same total amount of moves traced (disregarding your opportunity costs). Each digit n represents tracing the nth F2L pair through the moves of a step (e.g. cross/F2L insertion)

Me:
Before placing slot #1: 1234
Before placing slot #2: 234
Before placing slot #3: 34
Before placing slot #4: 4

You:
Before placing slot #1: 1234
Before placing slot #2: 2
Before placing slot #3: 33
Before placing slot #4: 444

You also need to keep the same amount of information in your mhead both ways, although the info is updated more frequently my way.

Well, it's the same amount of tracing, and you have to trace your pieces through equal number of moves (in general, but since Lucas' version probably uses less moves, the number of moves will be slightly lower, but let's just put that aside).

But the reason I'd say Innocences version is easier, is that you don't have to remember as much. If you trace the fourth F2L-pair, from start through Cross, F2L 1, 2 and 3, you don't have to "save" their position in your mind after every step, and be able to load it when you continue the tracing.

If you start by finding a cross, and trace all the 8 F2L-pieces, and the find te best pair to start to solve, then you must be able to remember permutation and orientation of the other six pieces.

It's cons isn't that you have to trace more, but that you have to remember all the positions for them between every "trace".