Which method is right for me?

He wants to get under 28 seconds, and doing that without full Fridrich would require a LOT of practice, which is what he doesn't want.

And how would you know this? How much is "a LOT" of practice? By the way, you can turn slow with intuitive f2l and use 3-4 looks for the last layer and easily be sub 30. You can throw in some pauses and still be ok.

Long story short, wanting to get twice as fast without much practice is a bit silly.
 
Last edited:
And how would you know this? How much is "a LOT" of practice? By the way, you can turn slow with intuitive f2l and use 3-4 looks for the last layer and easily be sub 30.

Long story short, wanting to get twice as fast without much practice is a bit silly.

He said his time was 55 seconds and he wants to b half his time, so, less than 28 seconds. A LOT of practice means just that, I've been using Fridrich with 3l-ll and even then I haven't been able to manage sub 30 yet. But yes, this whole thread is kinda redundant as you can't get fast without much practice.
 
Well, I ultimately want sub-30, I feel like an outsider with my high times. I have learned long ago from the Dan Brown method, after watching his videos. I solve a cross, first layer, second layer, top cross, then corners.. averaging about a minute, I know it's pretty sad. I want a new method to learn, the roux seems pretty cool. I can practice the first two steps of the roux, but I get caught up on the step 3 and 4, I haven't found a guide that makes very good lament terms sense of it!!
I also ordered the Haiyan Memory, hopefully it'll be better than this Rubik's brand lock-up p.o.s.
 
I am not new to cubing. I can accomplish the easy method with a few algorithms memorized in just over 55 seconds (was my self timed unofficial record), average about a minute. Due to the method being limited I cannot decrease my time anymore. I need a new method that requires very little memorization and very intuitive. Which one can you recommend that's fast to learn and can cut my time in half with a little practice?

You should learn heise and LL(heeheehee)

Just kidding, what you should learn is F2L right now, then after that you should learn ELL then after that you should learn CLL for 3x3.
 
I've been using Fridrich with 3l-ll and even then I haven't been able to manage sub 30 yet

I don't think his situation has much to do with yours. Everybody is different when it comes to learning. Now that you've said that though...people will probably tell you to practice more lol. Sub 30 is very easy if you have fluent turning and consistent look ahead.
 
Or Human Thistlewaite for low move count.

Not true, unless you go for the "Advanced" version and this requires learning a fair amount of Algorithms.
Especially when coming from a beginners method where you do not yet use the CO algs, some Guimond or Ortega to make corner orientation, pairing and separation more efficient.

I really like HTA as decribed on Ryan Heises website but without knowing any algs apart from the ones mentioned in the tutorial it is not a low count method.
 
The basic idea you should be getting is that the decrease in your times will be directly proportional to the amount of practice you do. Regardless of the method you choose, this statement will hold. There is no magic method that is extremely easy to get fast with.

In the case of any of the mainstream methods (CFOP, Roux, Petrus, etc.), you can get away with learning a small number (<10) of algorithms and pretty easily be sub-30, and with a little more work be sub-20 still using a small set of algs. From there, if you have the desire to be faster, you have the choice to learn more algs to get the extra boost. The most important skills you develop, and you'll develop these while practicing any method, are look-ahead, recognition speed, and just an overall comfortability with the cube.

Regardless of the method you choose, the journey to fast times will be relatively the same.
 
Last edited:
On an unrelated note, I have a friend that got a lucky 11.xx solve. It was his modified LBL (uhm, EO, CP, CO, EPLL or EO, EP, CO, CPLL or EO, CO, 2LPLL) but it was an LL skip. He's averaging 24 now. He has a really nice look ahead and smooth but fast solve.

What I'm trying to say is that you need practice to be fast. Little practice doesn't help much at all.
As for the method, Roux or Heise.
 
Ok. I think our definition of beginner method is different, I learned the way the paper said when you buy an official cube, the Dan brown online also helped. What is look2, and all these oll, ep, op, blah blah stuff?
 
i think this is funny. if you want to be sub 30 and not practice a lot. . . you will have to learn intuitive methods and they will have to 'click' instantly. a LOT of people on this forum struggled learning intuitive F2L and times dropped considerably before they became better. even once you understand F2L, training on corner/edge bias and lookahead is something that is learned over many many solves and takes much patience. if you try to go high TPS every solve in hopes to get faster times, you will not develop the lookahead which is essential to getting better times.
 
Ok. I think our definition of beginner method is different, I learned the way the paper said when you buy an official cube, the Dan brown online also helped. What is look2, and all these oll, ep, op, blah blah stuff?

Anonymous Cuber gave you the right definitions, and hic's links are all useful, but it might be hard for you to trudge through so much info... long story short is:

If you plan on using some form of Fridrich, which is the most popular method and probably what you want if you want a low practice : speed ratio, then the following terms will be very important to you:

OLL is Orientation of Last Layer. Basically, this means that after the first two layers, you have a top layer that's all screwed up, right? OLL is making the top face the right color, but not necessarily putting all the pieces in the right place. For beginners who are slightly more advanced than you, this is done in two steps: EOLL and OCLL. EOLL is making the edges face the right way with one out of three algorithms, and OCLL is making all the corners face correctly with one of seven algorithms.

PLL is Permutation of Last Layer. After OLL, you'll have your F2L done, and your top layer will be the right color, but the sides of the top layer will be screwed up. This is because all the cubies are in the wrong position. PLL uses one of twenty one algorithms to place all the cubies in their correct places at once. Just like with OLL, most beginners who are slightly more advanced than you split this up into two steps: CPLL, which is placing the corners, and EPLL, which is placing the edges. PLL is the last step of the cube.

So here's where you're probably thinking, "that's weird, I usually put the corners in the right place before I make them face the right way", or something to that effect. That's probably because your beginner's method taught you a last layer method not compatible with what's described above, generally called 4-look-last-layer, or 4LLL. If that's the case, and it probably is, just start learning them from scratch. It's only, what, thirteen algs? It shouldn't be too hard to learn almost all at once, and then you can slowly add algorithms.

Of course, that would require practice...
 
Back
Top