Wonder if someone can help me out here? Currently struggling to break the sub 20 barrier (averaging 23-24) but thankfully I've identified a few things to work on to try and aid me.
One of these is my transition between cross and f2l. I've never really noticed that I'm making any huge losses here but I figured it can't help to improve. So to try and do this I watched a few youtube videos that all state it is a good idea to do blind cross (which I do from time to time) and to track a corner piece while doing the cross. So I attempted to do the latter while doing my cross and found that my cross and first f2l pair time was 9s on average (which is clearly outrageous for someone aiming for sub-20! But I do find it very difficult to keep track of a corner while solving the cross). I wasn't convinced that this was my normal cross and first f2l pair timing as my entire f2l average is 15s.
So I decided to do some solves where I don't actually track a corner piece but try and just focus on the rest of the cube, and not the cross edges, while doing my cross in order to quickly identify an f2l pair when I'm finished. I found my average doing this for cross + first f2l pair was more like 5s.
Now I am a little confused... Firstly is a cross and first f2l pair average of 5s good enough for someone aiming to be sub-20? Secondly is it worth me continuing attempting to track corner pieces until my times get a little lower as I can see the benefit of tracking a piece during cross building as it should be beneficial knowing where a corner is when doing the first f2l pair?
Help is appreciated.
I personally don't work on my transition so much. Not that mine is any good, but it's not like I'm having a huge pause.
I average 16, and for me breaking the 20 second barrier was mostly just practice.
Do you slow down and look ahead during F2L? cause simply by doing that during the cross as well can help you to track pieces.
And if you've had enough experience with the cube, you actually wouldn't have to track the corner piece. If your cross is simple enough and you chose a good piece to track, you should be able to guess where it'll end up during inspection. However, if you have a tough cross, then you should just track it.
Another thing that helped me get sub 20 is just F2L practice. I would not time myself, just slow down to the point where I never have to pause until OLL.
If you're comfortable with your F2L algs, you should be able to perform them without thinking, thus allowing you to look around the cube and even rotate the cube a bit in your hand while you're solving an F2L case.
I've never solved the cross blindfolded to practice, but I think that it works if you struggle with your cross. Basically, you should never have to think about your cross or look for a cross piece during your solve. The entire cross should be done in your mind during inspection. If you can do this, then you can track a corner and make your transition smoother.
and yeah peterbone I do my pairs from different angles although probably not as much as I could
