How do you plan a cross and look a head in F2L?

[NEONCUBES]

I'm averaging around 40-50 seconds some sub 40 times using a store brought, not yet using 2look Pll and oll I find that if I just read something on a forum or watch a video I find that my times will not increase at all I will keep that information in my head abut I guess I sort of subconsiolly think about those tips and when I try to apply them I usually stuff up but after a week I will sort of get it and then I will get faster after more time and more understanding. For example learning f2l I gave up on it after watching memyselfanpis video and not understanding I went back a couple of months later but thats when I just hit me and I saw how it worked although it still took me awhile to get faster at it. I just wanted to pu my experience in so you know that it's not going to happen instantly or it might for you but who knows just keep solving and learning and having fun with cubing.

 

[Jakethedrummer]

I've only been cubing 8 days, my PR is 1:32, but I average about 1:40. It takes me around 19 seconds to get the cross usually. I think some of the time is spent because I solve it with the white-side up, and then flip it so the yellow-side is up. Does knowing what algorithims to do just come eventually? I tried yellow side up, or even doing it white side but not aligning them right away, and I usually end up with a mess

 

[o2gulo]

I've only been cubing 8 days, my PR is 1:32, but I average about 1:40. It takes me around 19 seconds to get the cross usually. I think some of the time is spent because I solve it with the white-side up, and then flip it so the yellow-side is up. Does knowing what algorithims to do just come eventually? I tried yellow side up, or even doing it white side but not aligning them right away, and I usually end up with a mess

Try to solve the cross on bottom, Don't get discouraged, you will soon get used to it. Or maybe, Try watching videos about cross. I'm also struggling with the cross, Usually it takes me 5-7 seconds to get the cross, I'm working on it currently lol

 

[Ooi Yan Qing]

If you aren't color neutral, I'd highly recommend becoming color neutral. You'll find many more easy crosses, and it's not that hard at all to switch.

I'm a color-neutral cuber before, but recently a switch just doing the cross on the yellow or the white side of the cube. I don't think color neutrality will helps a lot in planning cross, in contrary if you do the cross on just only one fix colour and its opposite colour you can save a lot of inspection time and use the rest of time to plan your first F2L pair.

 

[SixSidedCube]

I'm a color-neutral cuber before, but recently a switch just doing the cross on the yellow or the white side of the cube. I don't think color neutrality will helps a lot in planning cross, in contrary if you do the cross on just only one fix colour and its opposite colour you can save a lot of inspection time and use the rest of time to plan your first F2L pair.

Colour Neutrality can actually help a LOT with the inspection. I've been colour neutral ever since I started cubing (3 years ago), basically, that was my very first goal (To eliminate non-cubers theories that the white side had some sort of trick to it), and it has helped a great deal indeed!

I achieved my most recent PB 3x3 Single (9.21) using red X-Cross. My PB average 100 is now 18.69, and that was while I was actually training to avoid white/yellow crosses, so as to sharpen my recognition on the other colours. If you practise enough, you can inspect every side of the cube, AND plan your first F2L pair within 10 or so seconds.

This is just my experience with CN, though, others may be different, of course.

But yeah, become colour neutral ASAP. My method to achieving this was to assign a different colour to each day of the week, and practise ONLY that colour that day, maybe the odd opposite colour swap to keep those skills fresh.

 

[Jakethedrummer]

Try to solve the cross on bottom, Don't get discouraged, you will soon get used to it. Or maybe, Try watching videos about cross. I'm also struggling with the cross, Usually it takes me 5-7 seconds to get the cross, I'm working on it currently lol

Alright, I will do that. 5-7 seconds is pretty fast

 

[Jostle]

Solve the cross blindfolded, then try to plan it out fully each solve. It'll come with time.

 

[yockee]

I've been the searching the forums for hours on these two questions, but I'm a huge nub and know nothing about cube terminology so most of the stuff here confuses me. Also, most of the people asking these questions are like sub 40 - 30 or less and I'm 1:13 and have been stuck on it for more than a week. My goal is to get sub 40 in a month and apparently, one of the huge time slashers is pre-planning your cross and looking a head in F2L.

Please, use the least amount of cube terminology required to answer this question. If you have to, at least explain what it means please?

Appreciate any helpful responses.

Looking ahead really isn't important until you get to around 30 sec. At your level, it's really more important to work on mastering your F2L. Get your cross and F2L move count down to about 35 moves. Don't come back in 2 weeks saying you've done this and are ready to look ahead, because it takes a long time to really master F2L. And in my opinion, buying a Dayan cube at your level is completely unnecessary. Yes, it may help your times, but that doesn't mean it will make you a better cuber. So many people are deceived by the difference.

Here is my video of cross and F2L examples. I currently average 14 - 15 sec:

One cannot look ahead untill one can insert pairs/ solve the cross blindfolded.

Dude, this is BS. I learned how to look ahead without being able to do anything blind. There's a difference between solving something blind, and solving something while watching it in your mind. I was only able to look ahead after learning how to physically look for the next pieces while mentally watching what I was doing.

 

[RubiXer]

You only really need lookahead to break sub 20...

 

[yockee]

Your turning speed is affected by the type of cube you use. If you are using a Rubik's Brand your times will definitely be slower than if you were using a Dayan GuHong V2, or Zhanchi. With a Rubik's brand you have to do wrist turns, which is not speed efficient, while with the Dayans you can easily do fingertricks, and greatly increase your turning speed. Just ask yourself, "How many of the top cubers use a Rubik's brand?"

You don't have to do wristing with a Rubik's brand, hahaha. My Rubik's brand was lubed once about 3 years ago, and it's better than a lot of DIY's. I have subbed 12 on it. Just ask yourself, "How many of the top cubers had Dayan's available to them when they were beginner's?" Actually, most of them didn't even have them available when they became world class.

 

[Cool Frog]

You don't have to do wristing with a Rubik's brand, hahaha. My Rubik's brand was lubed once about 3 years ago, and it's better than a lot of DIY's. I have subbed 12 on it. Just ask yourself, "How many of the top cubers had Dayan's available to them when they were beginner's?" Actually, most of them didn't even have them available when they became world class.

The same could be said of Bicycling, Surfing, Skateboarding, and countless other sports/hobbies; However, The difference between cubing and other hobbies/sports is price range.

 

[Smiles]

i used a rubik's cube until sub 23 because i didn't have time to get a dayan yet. when i got a guhong, my time improved at the exact same rate as before.
rubik's brand cubes aren't bad per se, you just need a good one that's well broken in and well lubed.

 

[sneaklyfox]

i used a rubik's cube until sub 23 because i didn't have time to get a dayan yet. when i got a guhong, my time improved at the exact same rate as before.
rubik's brand cubes aren't bad per se, you just need a good one that's well broken in and well lubed.

You just can't tell whether you'll get a good Rubik's brand or a bad one from looking at the box. And anyway, as Cool Frog mentioned, the price factor is quite different for speedcubing than for other sports. For me, a Dayan costs less than a Rubik's brand. So why wouldn't anyone buy the better cube when it also costs less?

 

[kbrune]

I got down to a 45 second average with a rubiks brand. I regret not upgrading right away but 8 years ago there wasn't as much info available then.

Coming from someone who had the same nub'ness issues as you a year ago. The best advice I can give you are the following.

- get a speed cube. it may feel too fast at first but it's worth getting used to. It took me a while to get used to fingertricks because I spent too long using a slow cube and rotating with full wrist turns and many cube rotations (physically turning the cube to make the next move or searching for pieces)
- Don't worry about being able to solve your cross blind. I still can't do it all the time and I average 25 seconds. Work on finding optimal solutions to the cross without timing yourself. A cross can be solved in 8 moves or less every time. the more you do it, the faster you will get.
- F2L is the key to speed. I struggle with it all the time. but the combination of learning fingertricks and and inserting F2L pairs using emply slots makes for less cube rotations which increases efficiency. I started learning fingertricks with "sexy move". when you perform R U R' U' using only your two index fingers to flick U and U' and your wrist to perform R and R'. when you do that 6 times on a solved cube it bring you back to a solved cube. it's fun getting faster and faster at it. also learn to use fingertricks while doing your Last layer algorithms right away.
- Don't be scared to try advanced tricks and methods. waiting too long to incorporate new things held me back a lot because I always felt I had to master one skill to be able to acquire a new one. This is bad. because I spent longer perfecting bad habits and now I still have many that I can't break! ask questions and read lots!!!
-

 

[JE007]

What is look a head? (what are you doing as you use it?)

 

[Kirjava]

You only really need lookahead to break sub 20...

Disagree. I have no lookahead and am sub10.

 

[JasonK]

What is look a head? (what are you doing as you use it?)

Basically, as you're solving a set of pieces, you're not looking at those pieces. You already know what you need to do to solve them, so your attention can move to finding the next pieces to solve. If you can do this throughout the solve, you won't have to pause to look for things because you will already know where they are and what to do with them by the time you've finished the previous set of pieces.

 

[JE007]

I can insert the pieces without looking. That's goes well.

But insert the pieces takes only a few seconds. And that time is for me a bit short to find my other pieces.
Is this just practise?

 

[Mbetou]

I got down to a 45 second average with a rubiks brand. I regret not upgrading right away but 8 years ago there wasn't as much info available then.

Coming from someone who had the same nub'ness issues as you a year ago. The best advice I can give you are the following.

- get a speed cube. it may feel too fast at first but it's worth getting used to. It took me a while to get used to fingertricks because I spent too long using a slow cube and rotating with full wrist turns and many cube rotations (physically turning the cube to make the next move or searching for pieces)
- Don't worry about being able to solve your cross blind. I still can't do it all the time and I average 25 seconds. Work on finding optimal solutions to the cross without timing yourself. A cross can be solved in 8 moves or less every time. the more you do it, the faster you will get.
- F2L is the key to speed. I struggle with it all the time. but the combination of learning fingertricks and and inserting F2L pairs using emply slots makes for less cube rotations which increases efficiency. I started learning fingertricks with "sexy move". when you perform R U R' U' using only your two index fingers to flick U and U' and your wrist to perform R and R'. when you do that 6 times on a solved cube it bring you back to a solved cube. it's fun getting faster and faster at it. also learn to use fingertricks while doing your Last layer algorithms right away.
- Don't be scared to try advanced tricks and methods. waiting too long to incorporate new things held me back a lot because I always felt I had to master one skill to be able to acquire a new one. This is bad. because I spent longer perfecting bad habits and now I still have many that I can't break! ask questions and read lots!!!
-

I absolutely agree with you!! I am now practicing doing my cross in the fewest moves possible, which is very hard for me right now, yikes. F2L pairs are sinking in, with practice of course. Even though all this learning has slowed me down, I am almost back to my pre-advanced F2L time... Got my own PB a couple of days ago, 1:04 with a computer generated scramble! Also, a fast cube makes a world of difference.. I am glad that as I got into cubing, Kbrune got out of his old habits and was able to teach me more advanced methods with better cubes. Old habits are hard to break, even for a newbie.

 

[aznanimedude]

Disagree. I have no lookahead and am sub10.

You're just a monstaaaa yo