The fastest fingers competition

[MarcelP]

Ok, here is a new forum competition. Every week there will be a new round where a scramble will be given. For now the competition will be

limited to the most popular puzzle, the 3 X 3.

The rules:

You scramble a solved cube with the given scramble. The scramble comes from Prisma Puzzle Timer, category Rubiks cube. You can (and must) prepare the solve. Solve it as many times as you like and use different angles (or cross colors) as you please. Once you have found the optimal solution for your solve, then repeat the solve as many times as you like in order to get the best possible time on the scramble. Ofcourse this time is not a true PB if it beats your current PB. But what it does it shows your 'finger speed'. Since no lookahead is needed you can at least see how fast you could become if lookahead was perfect.

Post results like this, one being the first time you solved the cube with the scramble and the second result is after preparing the scramble to get as fast as you can.

For example

Round 1

-initial: 00.28.23
-shortest solution:
x
R'U d F cross
R U R' 1st pair
..
-fastest time: 00.14.03
-TPS (60 moves in 15.23 seconds = 3.94)

If you have the chance to film one of the fast solves posting them here in the competition is highly appreciated. Imagion watching a prepared solve of Mats V. or Feliks Z.

Why?
1) This is just fun.
2) Learn to find better solutions.
3) Drilling the solve over and over might help you doing faster LL or get faster in general.

The idea of this came to me after the 4 seconds fake solve in Mexico when a fast person got a sub 5 seconds solve on the scramble after repeating it hundreds of times.


Round 1

L2 F2 R2 U L2 D2 U F2 D2 U R2 F' R' F U B2 F D R2 U2 F' U

Results will be compiled every friday evening-ish CET.

 

[Username]

Initial: 15.81
Prepared: 5.32

Prepared solve:

z
R' F B' U' R U R2 U R'
L U' L'
U R' U R
L' U2 L U' L' U' L
U f R U R' U' R U R' U' f'
U x R' U R' D2 R U' R' D2 R2

Sneaklyfox, I used your X-cross but the continuation is my own

 

[already1329]

Initial: 13.91
Prepared: 6.88

 

[MarcelP]

Round 1:

-Inital: 21.85 on yellow cross. An exceptional good time for me (averaging 27 - 28 seconds)
-prepared: 15.92 on red cross. Man this was a tough scramble.. Could not find anything good

Cube: MoYu HuangYing (my current main)
[video=youtube_share;iAg52SVF8N0]http://youtu.be/iAg52SVF8N0[/video]

 

[TDM]

This is a great idea. It'll force me to learn a new COLL if I don't know the one I get when solving. Luckily for this one, there's an EPLL skip!

Spoiler

z2 // Inspection (0/0)
F D2 R U2 L U L y' R' // Cross (8/8)
U' R U R' U' R U R' // F2L-1 (8/16)
U' R' U' R // F2L-2 (4/20)
U2 L' U L U2 y' R U R' // F2L-3 (8/28)
U y' R U R' U' y L F' L' F // F2L-4 (9/37)
U' R' U R U2 L' R' U R U' L // COLL (11/48)
U2 // EPLL (1/49)

Round: 1
Initial time: 23.200 (Average is 25-26)
All times:

Spoiler

23.200, 20.557, 20.907, 25.883, 22.774, 22.058, 19.706, 19.764, 15.588, 14.922, 28.355, 14.837, 16.699, 12.175, 14.553, 16.021, 13.405, 12.162, 18.385, 12.124, 14.794, 14.580, 12.964, 12.229, 15.522, 16.187, 11.553, 12.230, 11.845, 12.613+, 11.413, 11.568, 12.300, 12.585, 11.379, 12.041, 11.586, 14.287, 11.457, 13.491, 11.316, 12.780, 11.811, 15.533, 10.826, 9.896, 10.345, 13.540, 14.818, 11.560

Final time: 9.896

I was trying to get sub-11... didn't expect a sub-10 with nearly 5 TPS!

 

[Schmidt]

1.try=19.13

16.71, 15.02, 19.38, 18.31, 15.33, 14.88, 14.31, 14.63, 13.69, 12.91, 14.27, 13.90=15.11 (σ = 1.41)

Spoiler: My solution

z2
F R' D2 R' U R' F
U R U' R' U2 L' U L
R U' R' y' U' L' U L
y U R U' R'
d2 L' U L U' L' U L
r U R' U' r' F R F'
d T-perm

 

[mark49152]

Round 1
Initial time 36.86 - not great, can't remember what I did but it ended in an A-perm
Prepared time... 18.69!

That was without even pushing tps - only eliminating pauses, after about 5-6 practice solves. Shows how much time I waste on hesitation, and motivates me to keep on plugging away at the lookahead practice (and maybe do some cross and recognition practice too).

EDIT: 15.15...!! Man that felt good!!

Solution:-

Spoiler

z2 F R' U' L' B u' L u' // 8 - could have optimized more but I liked the OLL/PLL finish this gave
R' U R d' L' U L // 7,15
L U L' U' L U L' // 7,22
R U R' U2 R' U' R // 7,29
d' L' U2 L U2 L' U L // 8,37
U' f' L' U' L U f // OLL 7,44
R U R' F' R U R' U' R' F R2 U' R' U2 // Jb-perm 14,58

 

[KongShou]

Initial: 14.13

Ill try a final tomorrow, cba now, but I had a oll skip with easy f2l and u perm, ill find it tomorrow

 

[sneaklyfox]

Round 1
Initial: 14.06
Prepared: 6.73

Spoiler: Solution

z // red cross
R' F B' U' R U R2 U R' // Cross+F2L-1 (9/9)
L' U L U2 L' U L // F2L-2 (7/16)
R' U' R // F2L-3 (3/19)
U2 L U' L' // F2L-4 (4/23)
U' f R U R' U' f' // OLL (7/30)
U R2 U R U R' U' R U' R' U R' U' // PLL (13/43)

 

[MarcelP]

Right now I feel so slow having the slowest time of all of you LOL.. I will try out some solutions that where posted here to try if I can get a better entry in the first round and not finishing last.

@Mark kudos on the low 15 second solve. Amazing man. Did you film any of your solves?

 

[Username]

Are you allowed to edit your solution and try to get even better times?

E: I see you posted you're gonna do that aswell, so I'm gonna edit my original post since I got a better time with another solution (5.32)

 

[Gordon]

Round 1:

Initial time: 26.77 quite fast for me... with OLL 28 and G(b) Perm.
Prepared time: 16.77

Did aproximatly 30 - 35 solves, no faster time than 16.77. Funny thing is that it is exactly ten seconds faster that the initial time.

Solution:
z2 // inspection
F' U' L F' U' R y R2 // cross
U R' U2 R L' U L // F2L 1
y' L F' L' F // F2L 2
U' R' U R U' y R U R' // F2L 3
y R U2 R' y' U R' U' R // F2L 4
U2 R U R' U R U2 R' // OLL (Sune)
U R2 u R' U R' U' R u' R2 y' R' U R // PLL (G(a))

54 moves (if counted correct), 16.77 seconds -> 3.22 tps


Question: What criteria will be ranked? Fastetst time? Biggest improovment in seconds? Biggest improovment in percent? Something else? Everything?


Edit:

Are you allowed to edit your solution and try to get even better times?

I would suggest that you will have time for the prepared solution until the round closes. Or will there be a time limit?

 

[sneaklyfox]

Right now I feel so slow having the slowest time of all of you LOL.. I will try out some solutions that where posted here to try if I can get a better entry in the first round and not finishing last.

@Mark kudos on the low 15 second solve. Amazing man. Did you film any of your solves?

Are we allowed to use any solution? Even ones that other people find?

@Marcel, I tried the red cross that you said you tried. My solution for the red cross is posted. So far, I think my solution has the fewest moves... (not absolutely sure).

 

[Username]

Are we allowed to use any solution? Even ones that other people find?

@Marcel, I tried the red cross that you said you tried. My solution for the red cross is posted. So far, I think my solution has the fewest moves... (not absolutely sure).

I took your Xcross and made my continuation and got 5.32

Check out the first answer in this thread to see it

 

[MarcelP]

Are you allowed to edit your solution and try to get even better times?

Yep

Question: What criteria will be ranked? Fastetst time? Biggest improovment in seconds? Biggest improovment in percent? Something else? Everything?


I would suggest that you will have time for the prepared solution until the round closes. Or will there be a time limit?

No time limit. You can edit your post up untill I will compile the results. I will rank the results by the fastest time. I think the biggest improvement is also an option. I will have to think about that. Right now, it's about fastest fingers..

Are we allowed to use any solution? Even ones that other people find?

Yes, the whole purpose is to get a quick solve. So looking at other peoples solutions is a learn moment. For one, I totally missed the x-cross you found. I will try that one too. I had an easy red cross by just 5 moves. But most of the times (especially in prepared solves) is an x-cross much faster since it saves a whole pairing in F2L. My solution was a full solve. So I am still quite happy with my 15 second achievement.

 

[mark49152]

@Mark kudos on the low 15 second solve. Amazing man. Did you film any of your solves?

Cheers . None filmed. Actually what I learned from this is the importance of lookahead and recognition. As a ~35 average solver, I got under 20 really easily after just 2-3 solves, without increasing tps. My time almost halved by eliminating pauses. Then getting to the 15 involved an hour or two of frenzy including spraying the Lingyun round the room a couple of times. Much harder work. So eliminating pauses accounted for 75% of my total improvement and was all brain work not finger work.

I doubt that would hold for faster cubers, but to those who say "don't bother to practise lookahead until you're sub-20", I think this shows you should.

Are we allowed to use any solution? Even ones that other people find?

Cube Explorer, anyone? .

I'm tempted to have a go with Sneaklyfox's 43-move solution, but apart from fun and numbers I don't see what is gained from switching solution, since the point of the game is to see how much we can improve by preparing and practising a solve.

It would be interesting to see a third result from people: as well as initial solve and best solve after unlimited practice, the best solve of the first 5 attempts or something like that, to get a sense of how much improvement they get from preparation as opposed to drilling. Or maybe just post your sequence of times!

 

[Gordon]

I've encountered the same as mark posted before me. My improvement so far is mainly from eliminating pauses. However, there are still some pauses, it doesn't flow like a T-perm for example.
First I thought that I will hardly make it sub 20, but that I've achieved within the first few solves.

One other thing that I came across, is that if I messed up the prepared solve, the time was much worse than the initial solve.

And once I've scrambled wrong and got a OLL and PLL skip... first time ever! Of course untimed, since the scramble was wrong

 

[Tao Yu]

Initial: 11.30
Prepared: 6.80

53turns/6.80s = 7.79tps

 

[MarcelP]

One other thing that I came across, is that if I messed up the prepared solve, the time was much worse than the initial solve.

I have done about 50 solves yesterday evening on that scramble. And I messed up quite a few. I noticed that I was in the really fast turning mode that when I screwed up I still got a sub 24 solve most of the times. That is very good for me

53turns/6.80s = 7.79tps

Nice

, I got under 20 really easily after just 2-3 solves, without increasing tps.

I noticed that you and Gordon fairly quick got good results. I did not get sub 20 in the first few tries... Hmmm... Also most of my results in the end where 18 - 19 seconds.. I had about four 16 second solves and only one sub 16 solve... I am guessing that you and Gordon are capable of turning faster than me..

 

[Username]

I should calculate my TPS

45/5.32=8.45864661654 TPS