4x4 Almost Beginner - Perfect Reduction or Struggle With Yau?

[Irotholoro]

I have picked up the cube again after a few months away. I can solve a 3x3 with two look decently well. I do regret not jumping to two look on the 3x3 sooner as I feel like it was hard for me to transition from the beginner algorithms I had learned originally. I've started playing with the 4x4 and don't want to make the same mistakes.

According to this article creating the white cross before the rest of the edge pairing is significantly more efficient. My brain struggles a lot more with that because of the restriction on not being able to break those three white edges. I am hoping for some feedback on whether I should force myself into Yau early and set up those good habits from the start or if maybe I just need to spend some more time practicing with edge pairing to have a better understanding of how everything works before moving on. Any personal examples or thoughts would be helpful.

For reference, I average about 1 minute on 3x3 and about 5 minutes on 4x4. I'm an adult so don't have the same brain plasticity as the youths.

 

[Garf]

I have picked up the cube again after a few months away. I can solve a 3x3 with two look decently well. I do regret not jumping to two look on the 3x3 sooner as I feel like it was hard for me to transition from the beginner algorithms I had learned originally. I've started playing with the 4x4 and don't want to make the same mistakes.

According to this article creating the white cross before the rest of the edge pairing is significantly more efficient. My brain struggles a lot more with that because of the restriction on not being able to break those three white edges. I am hoping for some feedback on whether I should force myself into Yau early and set up those good habits from the start or if maybe I just need to spend some more time practicing with edge pairing to have a better understanding of how everything works before moving on. Any personal examples or thoughts would be helpful.

For reference, I average about 1 minute on 3x3 and about 5 minutes on 4x4. I'm an adult so don't have the same brain plasticity as the youths.

www.jperm.net is a really good site to learn how to get faster at 3x3 and learn good techniques on 4x4.

 

[DuckubingCuber347]

Yau is not more efficient than redux. It is, however, faster for 4x4. I wouldn't restrict yourself to just those two options though. There are plenty of other neat methods! Do some research and you'll come across Hoya, SCR, Triforce, MI4, K4, and many other cool methods.

 

[Isaiah Scott]

I would stay with redux until you are at least sub-2 min. Work on your efficiency with making sure you know how to form the edge and try to really improve lookahead. If you want a good cube, get the Mgc or YLM for 20 and 14 USD. Good luck.

 

[Irotholoro]

Yau is not more efficient than redux. It is, however, faster for 4x4. I wouldn't restrict yourself to just those two options though. There are plenty of other neat methods! Do some research and you'll come across Hoya, SCR, Triforce, MI4, K4, and many other cool methods.

I am confused by your response. Do you mean that it is more efficient for 4x4 but not other cubes?

I would stay with redux until you are at least sub-2 min. Work on your efficiency with making sure you know how to form the edge and try to really improve lookahead. If you want a good cube, get the Mgc or YLM for 20 and 14 USD. Good luck.

Having that 2 minute time as a benchmark to look at is really helpful. Thank you Isaiah.

 

[OreKehStrah]

I would suggest just completely switching to Yau. It is very clear at this point Yau is better than redux on 4x4. Yau is also gaining users on 5,6,&7 as well for consistency. I’d highly recommend just getting used to Yau instead of procrastinating it to the future.

 

[xyzzy]

Do you mean that it is more efficient for 4x4 but not other cubes?

Yau is not more efficient for any cube. Its benefits come from whatever it's trading off efficiency against, i.e. lookahead and ergonomics.

 

[Megaminx lover]

Yau

 

[NigelTheCuber]

Switch to yau, and a way to help yourself not turn the 3 cross edges is to treat it as a bandaged part of the cube (unturnable)

 

[OldSwiss]

In the beginning I had a lot of problems destroying my 3 cross pieces while solving the centers, but you get used to it.

I hold it on the left side at the 3 solved pieces an don't move my fingers away from there until the centers are solved.
As long as you do that, you can't move these pieces and also don't destroy them.

On 5x5 i just switched to Yau recently and there it still happens sometimes., but it' always my fault because I take my fingers from the 3 edges


For bigger than 5x5 I still prefer redux, somtimes also for 5x5 if I see some good edges. But if I don't see much better options I solve and insert white first after the centers. But with 4 Minutes on 5x5 and even more on the bigger ones you shouldn't take that as a reference

 

[Irotholoro]

Thank you all for your responses!

 

[Filipe Teixeira]

Thank you all for your responses!

thanks yau*