Agh! F2L Needs to be Faster!

[dChan]

I took a break from speedcubing for like, half a year and now that I'm back I've been practicing and surprisingly I hardly ever get 30 second times now. I recently even got a 19 second time. I realized that my only problem is my F2L(plus cross) solving time. At my fastest it can be 12 seconds but on average it takes me 18 seconds and can sometimes balloon to 20 seconds. I am trying to learn all the OLLs(I learned 75% of them then I took a speedcubing break) but I doubt that those will give me more than a -1 or -2 second faster time so it must be my F2L.

I really want to be sub-20 by the time the Discovery Science Center competition comes up or at least by the time San Diego 2008 is here so what can I do to decrease my F2L time? I've tried all kinds of different methods from starting b building a 2x2 block to working systematically from cross to each and ever slot, to going super smooth and looking ahead, to going super fast with slight pauses in between, etc. I already make use of empty slots and different angles for slots but I think it might be my technique rather than the algorithms I am using that is wrong. Any ideas/suggestions?

 

[striderxo]

I'd go with smooth and slow. Make sure you aren't pausing when you look ahead. From personal experience, I am unable to look for the "best" edge/corner pair, so I look for the first 2 I see. Maybe you are trying to look for too many pairs instead of focusing on one.

Stanley Wong

 

[Lofty]

I have found that to be true as well. If you only see one pair in your look ahead and it isn't horrible then just solve it so you don't have any delays. But often the "best" pair is the easiest to see because one of the pieces in in the top.