5x5x5 Blindsolve!

[dbeyer]

Not at all. He's making great progress to have memorized it all visually. I tip my hat off to those who can memorize the large amounts of data without a memory system.

I hope for the best for him! Practice while young ... it gets harder and harder once you graduate (and I thought it'd become easier!)

 

[AvGalen]

it gets harder and harder once you graduate

If it wasn't for Mike Hughey, I would have thought that no one above 30 (like me) could solve a cube blindfolded below 5 minutes.

 

[Mike Hughey]

I figured I'd resurrect this thread to say - I finally did it! 74 minutes, 43.00 seconds. It was only my third actual attempt (although I've done many sighted "blindfold" 5x5x5 solves as practice). I was on the plane back from the Philippines yesterday and realized I'd have a couple of hours relatively undisturbed when the kids fell asleep on the plane, and so I scrambled it and gave it a try.

Caveats:
1. It wasn't an official scramble - I did probably about 200 random turns just to make sure it was scrambled. Based on the memorization, I can safely say it was adequately scrambled.
2. I didn't use a blindfold. I needed to make sure I could watch the kids while I was solving, in case they woke up. I pulled down the seat tray in front of me after memorizing and solved it under the seat tray. I think that's only fair, since pulling down the seat tray takes every bit as long as pulling on a blindfold (longer, no doubt).
3. I used my stopwatch as a timer - it was all I had. And yes, I really got 43.00 seconds. Guess it really was a lucky attempt.

I had corner parity, but not wing edge parity. It took a little over 35 minutes to memorize, and 39 minutes to solve. It's still always been true that memorization is quicker than execution for me, no matter what size the cube is.

I find the 5x5x5 BLD to be significantly easier on average than the 4x4x4 BLD. By that I mean that it seems like it should take significantly less than double the time the 4x4x4 BLD takes. The wing edges take me by far the longest to memorize and execute, so the 4x4x4 has the hardest part of big cube BLD solving. Once you can do a 4x4x4 BLD, it's really not that big of a step from there to doing the 5x5x5 BLD. I only took so long about it because it takes so much longer to do an attempt, and it's hard to find that big of a block of time to work on it.

I had hoped to do this for the first time in a competition, but oh well. I may try to do one in this week's competition, though.

 

[dbeyer]

Congratulations Mike! I seriously prefer the 5x5x5 blindfolded as well. I find that I waste too much time rotating the 4x4x4
It is a lot easier relatively to solve the 5x5, it's not that much more of a mental taxation on the brain.

Later,
Daniel Beyer

 

[Mike Hughey]

Thanks, Daniel! Interesting what you say about the 4x4x4. It takes me a little bit of time rotating the 4x4x4 as well, but I guess I'm still slow enough that I don't really notice it all that much - relatively speaking, the rotating is still not that big of a deal for me yet. On the other hand, I do tend to notice the problem when BLD solving the 2x2x2 (although I have gotten a bit better about it lately).

My first 5x5x5 BLD solve was 14 minutes faster than my first 4x4x4 BLD solve, which is pretty cool. However, that's really just a reflection of the fact that I've gotten a lot more comfortable with commutators in the meantime.

The key to learning how to do big cubes BLD is NOT memorization - it's getting good at commutators. If you want to do big cubes BLD, practice commutators over and over again, and once you get good at it, it's just a matter of determination to do it. If you want to be fast at big cubes BLD, I suspect you have to develop a good memory system. But if you don't care if you're as slow as me, you can just think up images for the letter pairs that Daniel and Chris use as you go, and you can do it without much practice at all.

 

[Toojdwin]

Yeah. I disagree about 5x5x5 BLD being not much harder than 4x4x4 BLD, because 4x4x4 blind takes me around 5 minutes to memo usually, while 5x5x5 takes me twice as long. And of course 5x5x5 BLD takes much longer during the execution as well. I've gotten some pretty fast 4x4x4 BLD solves, just been too lazy to post them

 

[AvGalen]

OK, this is inspiring. I will start big cubes blindfolded after I get a succesfull 5/5 (or maybe 6/6) multiple blind

 

[deadalnix]

How do youy do to memorise, then solve centers ? I have a very long and confusing piece by piece method that a found by myself, but I think a better one exist.

 

[Mike Hughey]

Yeah. I disagree about 5x5x5 BLD being not much harder than 4x4x4 BLD, because 4x4x4 blind takes me around 5 minutes to memo usually, while 5x5x5 takes me twice as long. And of course 5x5x5 BLD takes much longer during the execution as well. I've gotten some pretty fast 4x4x4 BLD solves, just been too lazy to post them

I think the reason this works out this way for me is just that I've always been VERY slow on the wing edges. It takes me twice as long to memorize the wing edges as it does to memorize center corners, and execution is bad too: in one case I timed it - it took 14 minutes for me to solve the wing edges, and only 7 minutes to do the center corners. The other center pieces are even easier than the center corners, and the middle edges are really fast - 2 to 3 minutes - so it's the wing edges that slow me down on either the 5x5x5 or 4x4x4 BLD. Since no one else seems to have this problem, I think it's just me.

But my wing edges are finally starting to actually speed up. Maybe I'll start to see the same results as you soon.

I still think 5x5x5 BLD isn't much harder to be able to do than 4x4x4, though. Once you can do a 4x4x4 BLD, it's not a very big step from there to being able to do the 5x5x5 BLD. The big step is from 3x3x3 BLD to 4x4x4 BLD.

I wish I could memorize a 4x4x4 in 5 minutes! My best time ever was this week in competition - 12 minutes to memorize it. And I didn't know you finally got a 4x4x4 cube. Now there's one more person who I have to hope will not compete in 4x4x4 BLD if I'm to have a hope of winning it each week.

And Arnaud, I'm looking forward to seeing your first 4x4x4 BLD solve in our weekly competitions after you get your successful 5/5 at the Polish Open.