[Video] Tips/Tricks for learning OLL/PLL [New!]

I should really get around to OLL. Hopefully it'll be easier like people say it will be after COLL...
 
Look for bars and their position to the shape of the OLL. That's usually a pretty good hint. Like the small lightning bolts. Two of them are fat sune / fat anti sune (and there are two sets of bars in the F/L/B/R faces of the U layer), and the other two shaps only have one bar. Things like that.
 
Look for bars and their position to the shape of the OLL. That's usually a pretty good hint. Like the small lightning bolts. Two of them are fat sune / fat anti sune (and there are two sets of bars in the F/L/B/R faces of the U layer), and the other two shaps only have one bar. Things like that.

yea i hate those lightning bolt OLLs its hard to recognize them if you have to do an AUF and then do the OLL i don't know how to recognize them at a different angle
 
Just look for double bars. If you see double bars you know it'll be fat sune/antisune. If no double bars learn to recognize which ways the bars point if it's only a single bar for the other two small bolt shapes. There are the large bolt shapes that are kind of like a Z, only two of those, and the way I recognize those is put the bars pointing to the right, I'll then know if it's R' F or R B'. I know to move the bars to the opposite side (so if the bar is at BU slot then do R' F etc and if it's at FU slot do R B' etc).

Most OLLs have easy recognition like this. Such as the sune/antisune that turns it into a T shape (has headlights with two dots, you put it so one dot is on R and then you either have front headlights or back headlights, you move R toward the headlights and finish out the alg). Etc.

The bolt pattern that gives me the most problem is OLL 12 (F RUR'U' F' U F RUR'U' F'). I get that somewhat mixed up with the other one with just a single bar quite a bit and have to AUF a few times to get it right. Although the "fat" version of OLL 10 (y' R U R' U R' F R F' R U2 R'). That's the 3rd alg listed but I like redundancy because it makes it easier to learn OLLs (with the given similarities).

Another trick: With the dot cases like OLL 3 and 4, if doing OLL 4 is awkward because of the U instead of the U', then you can do f R U R' U' f' U' f U R U' R' f' instead (it's the T shape backwards as if the T is on the left instead of right. Meaning if you see the T on the left you can do f' U R U' R' f' instead of U2 F R U R' U' F'). You can do that same trick as the T with the B shapes with the straight line (OLL 43 and 44).

Learning the inverse of cases makes things easier. Such as the H shape and Manta shape can be solved using the F/f sexy move F'/f' (F SM' F' f SM f' and f SM' f' F SM F'). You can also do neat things with F/f SM F/f' AUF F/f SM/SM' F'/f/.
 
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