Start of a new addiction?

S

SamDor

Member
Joined
Feb 12, 2010
Messages
2
Hi there!

About 3 weeks ago I started cubing, and since everything I start with I want to be good at it, I'm seriously addicted to it :mad:. And I think this forum is going to take a big part in my cube-life.
I'm a 16 year old (17 within 1 month) boy from Holland. I like to become good at things. I play tennis for 3 years now, 1 hour a week. Since I'm still at school (Havo 4, failed last year) my English is not thát good, but I hope you all understand and don't bother to ask me something when you don't.
Only have a 5 year old Rubik's cube and since I'm using it alot 35% of the stickers has peeled of. That's why I order a new one:

http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.16433 (Expect it to be here Tuesday or something)
http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.13754

And after that order I found Cube4you, and this is what I ordered yesterday:
http://www.cube4you.com/product-536.html
http://www.cube4you.com/product-569.html
http://www.cube4you.com/product-549.html

(Btw I don't know if it's allowed to add these links so please correct me when I'm doing something wrong).

Still using the cross-first layer-second layer-third layer thing because I learned it from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5ewVv9ANYc&feature=related
I want to master that and after 3 weeks from now or something I want to discover some faster methods. P.B atm with the horrible-almost-no-sticker-on-it cube (3x3x3 ofc) is 01:25:85

I hope to stay here for a while and speak to you all!
Sam
 
You seem like a nice guy, welcome to the forums :)
When you feel like your've really mastered the beginners LBL (layer-by-layer) method, go find a more advanced method. The most popular is Fridrich, but there's a lot out there. Hopefully in 3 weeks you'll decide which method your going for.
 
Sorry for not responding sooner, I had nothing important to say.
First of all: thanks for this warm welcome! I think I will be around here for a looooong time!
Second: I think I master LBL. Today got 01:16:79 (lucky) and non lucky 1:25:something. Cross on yellow to white - FL - SL my average is about 1 minute. I'm now trying to learn F2L Friedrichs method, but it is impossible with my old Rubiks! At orange 6 out of 9 stickers already peeled of, and 7 out of 9 from the green one... Expected my new Dealextreme DIY cube today, but maybe tomorrow or something... F2L average is about 3 minutes now I think, but it's all intuitive.

When I have my new cube you get a new story!
 
Welcome, again. Here, while you are still begginning your adventure in cubing, look up something called color-neutrality. It means you can start the cross with any color. It doesn't really improve your times too much, but it can give you an edge in some situations. If you don't learn it early, it will be extremely more difficult to learn later. If you start now, your times may not even take much of a time dip. But of course, the choice to learn it is up to you. Happy Cubing :) !
 
Good to hear that!!

It can be really depressing when F2L slows you down massively but when you master a simple alg for each case your speeds will just keep dropping...

Also worth learning 2Look OLL and 2Look PLL if you don't know those yet... :)
 
Feryll said:
Welcome, again. Here, while you are still begginning your adventure in cubing, look up something called color-neutrality. It means you can start the cross with any color. It doesn't really improve your times too much, but it can give you an edge in some situations. If you don't learn it early, it will be extremely more difficult to learn later. If you start now, your times may not even take much of a time dip. But of course, the choice to learn it is up to you. Happy Cubing :) !
Click to expand...

Perhaps as a (slow) fellow newbie I do not have too much right to comment on this but wouldn't color nutral cross solving give a beginner even more troubles in quickly identifying corner-edge pairs in F2L?

My suggestion would be to keep working on intuative F2L so you speed up your first two layers.
And then offcourse you can work on 2 look OLL and 2 look PPL at the same time. Not many new algo's to learn but you wil skip some steps of the beginner method.

Check our badmephisto.com for info on all the thing mentioned.

Cheers!
 
@Jeff: Yes I use full silicon (doesn't work for my girlfriend, that sucks). I will buy that 4x4. Someone who know which one is better @ Rubiks Magic?

@Cubenovice: I tried it and indeed as you said it really confused me! I'm now working o nsome PPL and OLL. After I did the F2L I try to learn the PLL :D
 
Cubenovice said:
Feryll said:
Welcome, again. Here, while you are still begginning your adventure in cubing, look up something called color-neutrality. It means you can start the cross with any color. It doesn't really improve your times too much, but it can give you an edge in some situations. If you don't learn it early, it will be extremely more difficult to learn later. If you start now, your times may not even take much of a time dip. But of course, the choice to learn it is up to you. Happy Cubing :) !
Click to expand...

Perhaps as a (slow) fellow newbie I do not have too much right to comment on this but wouldn't color nutral cross solving give a beginner even more troubles in quickly identifying corner-edge pairs in F2L?

My suggestion would be to keep working on intuative F2L so you speed up your first two layers.
And then offcourse you can work on 2 look OLL and 2 look PPL at the same time. Not many new algo's to learn but you wil skip some steps of the beginner method.

Check our badmephisto.com for info on all the thing mentioned.

Cheers!
Click to expand...

Not at all. When I started, I had a few friends who could get F2L, and one started with white, I started with green, another friend started with red or yellow, so when I had to do LL, I had to be able to recognise the different cases from a different perspective.
Colour-neutrality at its earliest forms can develop quite nicely in the long run. Just DON'T GIVE IT UP. (Never gonna give you up....)
I did. I know now that that was a horrible choice.
Go for colour-neutrality. It really helps with determining the best possibilities in a solve.

anyway!
Welcome to the forums!
What I would suggest for you is waiting for your cubes, and then playing around with them until you can get a good enough feel to them. Then decide which one will be your main cube. Once you have chosen, use a DIFFERENT cube and try perfecting your algorithm speed, look-ahead, and recognition to get under 50 seconds. This shouldn't be too hard considering the good cubes you chose.
Once you arrive there, start contemplating whether or not to expand to a different method. On the Speedsolving wiki there is a great list of good methods out there, as well as partial methods and experimental methods to try out.

I use the CFOP method and am currently averaging about 25 seeconds, considering my look-ahead and recognition are TERRIBLE. This method, as I'm sure you know, consists of the Cross (intuitively solved, and can always be solved in 8 moves or less), First two layers (four slots, pair up the corner with its E-layer edge, and insert), Orientation of the last Layer, or OLL (here, you get the last layer stickers facing up, so you have the first two layers and, for me, using white cross, a top face of complete yellow), and Permutation of the last layer, or PLL (this gets the last layer pieces, already oriented, into their correct places). I consider this method to be quite efficient, but there are other methods out there equally, if not more so, efficient.

When you decide you want to go on to learn the CFOP system, I have a page dedicated to new people to the Fridrich (CFOP) system here. This page establishes my take on what a beginner to Fridrich's time goals should be like. Hope you do well in cubing, and keep it up! I expect great things from you!
--Ranzha
 
Last edited:
Update!

Thanks Ranzha! I will definately read it again to see if I have reached the goals.
Friday I got my new cube, it's the DX DIY one! Toke some time to get the perfect settings but I got it.
My PB is now 00:59:87, sub 1 min, I was so happy lol! Yesterday I did some averages, results:
3/5: 1:16:69
10/12 1:22:72

Both are including that new PB. I have no 2+ min solves anymore, unless I make a mistake or when I drop the cube (that happens a lot actually :D). Since I have holidays now I only want to do F2L and no more LBL. When I'm good at it (I think that will be Friday or something) I will learn the PLL, because I think that's much more important than OLL?

I'll keep you guys updated!
 
If F2L seems too infuriating like it did for me try going to keyhole first and then F2L, F2L will make 1000 times more sense afterwards, plus keyhole only takes about 5 minutes to pick up.
 
F2L is clear to me, and I tried to understand that keyhole method but it's not that important to me. My stats on my first day, first session F2L:

RA of 12: 1.46.72
RA of 5: 1.44.31
Best RA of 12: 1.46.50
Best RA of 5: 1.41.46
22/23 solve average: 1.48.26

I think that's not to bad, it's about 20 seconds more than I use to do with LBL. Hope to be on 1.35 on Friday.
 
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