3x3 17.71 Average of 6 Rate my solves!

[Phaint]

3x3 17.52 Average of 6 Rate my solves!

I was recently stuck at around 19.5 average for around 2 months and my average recent dropped by about a second and a halt to 17.5-18 seconds. I am now in a stage where my F2L is finally fairly fluid and has little to no pauses. I still want to improve and want specific things that other people may notice that I do not. I know my cross needs work I recently finally switched from doing cross on top to bottom and am still learning to finger trick more on the bottom. If anyone has tips on that that would be greatly appreciated. I would also like to point out that I usually turn a tiny bit slower during F2L and LL and am more accurately the camera made me feel pressured and rushed. So I paused more had more catches due to over and under turning than normal. If people have any tips other than practice that would be greatly appreciated.

P.S. Sorry if the angle and lighting is bad didn't spend much time setting any of that up also I couldn't figure out how to make the camera record Audio while I was recording so opted for just putting music in the background.

^^Also rate my grammar!

 

[JustinTimeCuber]

it isn't exactly 17.71... the mean is 17.72 and the average is 17.52
ao6 does seem like an interesting idea though
one thing you should work on is cross in most of your solves it is slow
good job with the improvement... I wish I would improve by a second and a half!

Edit: I think I know what you did you rounded down instead of up. Not a big deal. If you use a timer such as csTimer or qqTimer, it will automatically calculate your average for you, and round it appropriately.
One thing that you should keep in mind is that "Average" and "Mean" mean two different things in cubing.

For an average, you remove the best and the worst solve (except for large averages, such as an average of 50, where you remove the top n solves, for an ao50 and csTimer n is 3, but it can vary). So, (16.06) 17.96 16.55 (20.17) 18.57 17.00, averaging the four not in parentheses, you get an average of 17.52.

For a mean, you average all solves. If you get a DNF during a mean, then your mean is automatically DNF. In this case, 16.06 17.96 16.55 20.17 18.57 17.00 comes out to 17.72. Normally, means are very small, like mean of 3. Since this is used in competitions for 6x6, 7x7, and a few others, some people have wanted to change the WCA system to "Median of 3" where only the middle time counts.

Also, one more thing. Average of 6 isn't really a thing... but I guess you can make it one I won't yell at you

 

[Ordway Persyn]

I agree with all the stuff Justin said but I got one piece of advice, Learn better U-perm algorithms. Also you can work on drilling other PLL's or finding better algs for some of them.
Speedsolving has a wiki you can go to that has a list of different algs for PLL, OLL, etc. that you can learn from.

 

[JustinTimeCuber]

I agree with all the stuff Justin said but I got one piece of advice, Learn better U-perm algorithms. Also you can work on drilling other PLL's or finding better algs for some of them.
Speedsolving has a wiki you can go to that has a list of different algs for PLL, OLL, etc. that you can learn from.

Another good alg source is algdb.net

 

[Ross The Boss]

i r8, stupid music / 6

 

[collppllzbf2lll]

listen to different music while solving

 

[scottishcuber]

Ok i'll ignore some of the useless comments in this thread and do what you've asked.

You should be able to plan out your cross entirely, but also solve it efficiently. I recommend watching walkthrough solves, going through reconstructions, as well as just experimenting.

I am now in a stage where my F2L is finally fairly fluid and has little to no pauses.

I become skeptical when people slower than me say this. It would help your own progress if you are more critical of your own style/solving/efficiency. For example, I would say I need to improve my fluidity and pause a lot less - and yet I average around half your speed. I would say you need to work on your transition between cross and f2l, as well as between each f2l pair - i.e. your fluidity can be greatly improved.7

There were a few inefficiencies I saw in the vid. For the case at around 2:06 (setup: (F R' F' R)*2)) you did R U R' U' R U R' U' R U R' U2 y L' U L. Instead you could have done Sledgex2, or what I would do which is y' R' U' R U R' U' R (a saving of 8 moves!). To eliminate these kinds of inefficiencies you need to go through F2L algs and see if your intuitive solutions match the algs. Watching walkthrough solves would also help.

Learn full PLL (including better U perm algs and multiple angles) and try to adopt more advanced fingertricks such as U2/U2' double flicks and thumb for F'. Drill your PLLs/OLLs, or at the very least try timing all of them. The latter stage of your solving will improve greatly if you do it consistently, and one day when you reach my speed you'll be grateful you tried to make turning fast and performing good fingertricks a decent part of your practise.

 

[theROUXbiksCube]

Your F2L is still choppy, make it more fluid and learn U2/U2' double flicks with both hands

 

[Phaint]

it isn't exactly 17.71... the mean is 17.72 and the average is 17.52
ao6 does seem like an interesting idea though
one thing you should work on is cross in most of your solves it is slow
good job with the improvement... I wish I would improve by a second and a half!

Edit: I think I know what you did you rounded down instead of up. Not a big deal. If you use a timer such as csTimer or qqTimer, it will automatically calculate your average for you, and round it appropriately.
One thing that you should keep in mind is that "Average" and "Mean" mean two different things in cubing.

For an average, you remove the best and the worst solve (except for large averages, such as an average of 50, where you remove the top n solves, for an ao50 and csTimer n is 3, but it can vary). So, (16.06) 17.96 16.55 (20.17) 18.57 17.00, averaging the four not in parentheses, you get an average of 17.52.

For a mean, you average all solves. If you get a DNF during a mean, then your mean is automatically DNF. In this case, 16.06 17.96 16.55 20.17 18.57 17.00 comes out to 17.72. Normally, means are very small, like mean of 3. Since this is used in competitions for 6x6, 7x7, and a few others, some people have wanted to change the WCA system to "Median of 3" where only the middle time counts.

Also, one more thing. Average of 6 isn't really a thing... but I guess you can make it one I won't yell at you

Yeah I know average of 6 isn't a thing I just wasn't watching the number of solves and thought I might as well leave it in there. The timer I used told me it was mean 17.71 which I realize is not average I just wasn't paying attention. I uploaded this and posted it at like 1am. Thank for pointing that out and explaining it though. This timer http://cubezapp.com/ gave me mean 17.71. I guess it was just trying to inflate my ego... ;P

Ok i'll ignore some of the useless comments in this thread and do what you've asked.

You should be able to plan out your cross entirely, but also solve it efficiently. I recommend watching walkthrough solves, going through reconstructions, as well as just experimenting.



I become skeptical when people slower than me say this. It would help your own progress if you are more critical of your own style/solving/efficiency. For example, I would say I need to improve my fluidity and pause a lot less - and yet I average around half your speed. I would say you need to work on your transition between cross and f2l, as well as between each f2l pair - i.e. your fluidity can be greatly improved.7

There were a few inefficiencies I saw in the vid. For the case at around 2:06 (setup: (F R' F' R)*2)) you did R U R' U' R U R' U' R U R' U2 y L' U L. Instead you could have done Sledgex2, or what I would do which is y' R' U' R U R' U' R (a saving of 8 moves!). To eliminate these kinds of inefficiencies you need to go through F2L algs and see if your intuitive solutions match the algs. Watching walkthrough solves would also help.

Learn full PLL (including better U perm algs and multiple angles) and try to adopt more advanced fingertricks such as U2/U2' double flicks and thumb for F'. Drill your PLLs/OLLs, or at the very least try timing all of them. The latter stage of your solving will improve greatly if you do it consistently, and one day when you reach my speed you'll be grateful you tried to make turning fast and performing good fingertricks a decent part of your practise.

By fluid I guess I mean little pauses I usually turn slower and was unconsciously trying to "perform for the camera" which left my turning rushed and a little jittery. For the F2L inefficiencies I see what your saying and will probable look at that. ZZ left me trying to do little to no rotations and spamming R U L moves where it would not be most efficient and would just try to use moves that I found faster to execute. As for the U perm algs... I learned them when I first learned to solve the cube and I know they are slow I just haven't made an effort to find new ones. Thanks for the advice!

listen to different music while solving

i r8, stupid music / 6

If your talking about the music playing in the background it was the first non-copyrighted music I had that was the same length as the video. If your talking about what was on iTunes on my other screen. I have 35 000 songs I do listen to different music not that just one song over and over. Thanks for the tips! Side note I'm averaging 25 seconds with roux now.