Arnaud's 5x5x5 Edge-Pairing method: Examples

[dbeyer]

Psst, Arnaud ... I do

RUR' x UR'U'R x'

 

[AvGalen]

Mike, I will get back on your examples but I don't have a 5x5x5 with me.

Daniel: There are a lot of ways to do that flip. Personally I don't use d (F' U2 F) (R U R') d'. I use the inverse d (R U' R') (F' U2 F) d' because it gives me the best look-ahead.

 

[Mike Hughey]

Mike, I will get back on your examples but I don't have a 5x5x5 with me.

Daniel: There are a lot of ways to do that flip. Personally I don't use d (F' U2 F) (R U R') d'. I use the inverse d (R U' R') (F' U2 F) d' because it gives me the best look-ahead.

That's funny. I was just constantly quoting d (F' U2 F) (R U R') d' in my messages because that's what you used in your examples, and I didn't want you to have to translate. I also always use d (R U' R') (F' U2 F) d' (although actually I use r (U L' U') (F' L2 F) r).

 

[Jack]

For flipping an edge I just do R F' U R' F. It takes a bit less moves, but I don't really know anyone else who uses it...

 

[AvGalen]

The bad thing is having to do the double lookahead, but really you only need to worry about what 2 spots look like: FR and BL.

d R U R' d' U' R B' U' proves that you also have to look ahead at DB.

F2 d' F2 d' F2 R2 d' R2 u F2 u' F2 d2 F2 R U' z' F2 d' F2 d' F2 R2 d' R2 u F2 u' F2 d2 F2 R U', now you can just do it like you would with d, only with d2:
B' d2
F U F' (special case "parity before the end") (and now you can see what piece you need to swap with at the BR location)
B U' B' d2

I would have never seen that while going for speed. My solution would have been straightforward: U R' B' d' (F U2 F') d2 (R U' R') d' (12) or U R' B' d' (U F U' F') d2 (R U R') d' (13).

The light is very bad right now (and it's late) so I can't do your full solve. I will do that another time......................which was just now. I have analyzed your d2 solve (only deviates twice) and it works perfectly. I don't see the advantage though:
1) You have to think about where you are going to bring the piece FR or BR
2) You have to check for poisoned pieces
3) You have to rotate the cube more
4) You have to do d2 + d2' instead of just d+d'
As I mentioned before there are some cases where d2 is better, but the gain is very little and the lose is too high. Having said all that, if d2 works for you then you should use it.

I just do R F' U R' F

I saw that "alg" when I first studied 2-edges at a time (on 4x4x4), but I could never remember it and I don't like the first two moves[/quote]

 

[Mike Hughey]

Arnaud, the more I look at this, the more convinced I am that you're right that d2 is almost always not worth it, intellectually. I think it just costs too much time to try to look ahead like that to make it work, and when you're sub-3 minutes (like you are), there's no way it's worth it. (Except maybe in a couple of special cases you could remember, where it's always easy, such as the "flipped wing". Since there's no other piece involved, it's ALWAYS safe.)

On the other hand, I'm just now starting to get sub-4 minutes, and at my speed the world is very different. I'm starting to realize that the big advantage of using d2 as well as d is that I now have 2 quick options to get the pieces in line for the slice move, and I can choose the one I can see quickest. That speeds me up. I'm finding that often I don't get a chance to look at the "poisoned" spots, but that's okay because I simply undo the move, move the poisoned piece out, and redo the move, and then do d2. For me, as slow as I am, that's faster than figuring out how to get the piece to where I can do d. So I've had some great times. I just had my first average of 10 less than 4 minutes yesterday (3:54), and my two best times ever (my best was 3:32 - still more than 3:30, I'm afraid). I know my average last week in the competition was better than this average, but I have to say that the competition was a really lucky set for me - I was still averaging over 4 minutes for sure before I started using d2 as well as d. So I'll probably keep using it for a while, until I start to realize I'm being slowed down by it. It will be interesting to see if I can get under 3 minutes with it before I have to switch.

And after my first sub-4 average yesterday, I finally can start thinking about sub-3! Way cool! (Maybe I'm not doomed to be painfully slow forever?)

 

[AvGalen]

figuring out how to get the piece to where I can do d

I think this is the reason I am relatively good at this method. As soon as I have spotted the correct edge-center for the d-move I stop thinking about it. My hands will move that piece to the FR-position with the correct orientation. While my hands are moving my head/eyes just circle around the cube Front-> Left -> Back -> Right -> Up -> Down to find the next edge-center. I found this order to be best. That is why I said

Just remember, don't look at the pieces you are solving, always look for the next center-edge. If you do it correctly you don't stop at all during the 24 semi-pairs and you have only looked at the Front-Left-Down Edge-Wing once!

 

[Mike Hughey]

I know - and I've watched you do it, so I've seen how well it works. But I just can't seem to get good at it. I probably just need to try harder, though. I'm sure it's mainly a matter of practice, like most cubing things.

Of course, if I keep allowing d2, that will work against me ever learning to do it your way. Which is why maybe I shouldn't try it. But I'll probably try anyway. (That's probably why I'm so slow to improve.)

 

[Pedro]

Arnaud, I think there's something written wrong on the intermediate part...I tried 2 times and when I get to
Orange-Yellow: B R2
Blue-Yellow: d R U' R' d'
it doesn't work...if it was R U2 R' instead, it would solve the blue-yellow, but then everything would be different

am I doing something wrong?

 

[AvGalen]

I can't check it now, hopefully tonight.

I also thought it would be a good idea to point people to a video tutorial that I made for the beginners method (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOpWRIfdJvc) and for two example solves (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLlx7ZWn054)

I have checked it 3 times. 2 times it was unsolved and 1 time it was. I am going to the Polish Open tomorrow at 5 am, so I need to sleep now. I will check/correct on tuesday!

 

[hdskull]

thanks a lot for sharing, i'm gonna try this out as soon as i get a 5x5x5. i think i used a 4x4 method on a 5x5 my friend owns and i solved everything except 2 edges are flipped on opposite sides, haha. i'll learn this someday.

thanks.

 

[Derrick Eide17]

omg grrrr im glad u posted these solutions arnaud because they are very helpful to some people. just not me.... they just DONT work for me i did the moves EXACTLY like the way they should be done in the ADVANCED solve and it totally screwed up some edges and made no sense??? any reason why this happened? is their undoing certain setup moves that wasnt posted or something im missing here?? thanks arnaud and i hope you can answer these question for me

 

[Derrick Eide17]

okay phew nvm Arnaud i tried the solve ONE more time and i got it. i think i get it now. and i never knew you should setup the next Middle Edge at the Up back position BEFORE doing the d move. also i learned how to deal with 1-2 special cases that always confused the hell outta me. Thanks Arnaud!!

 

[Cuber123]

could someone do me a huge favor and type in the parity algorithms here? I clicked the link to bigcubes.com but the java windows wont load on my computer.

 

[AvGalen]

I don't want to "steal" from other sites, so I hope they don't mind (< 10 lines is citation right)

from http://bigcubes.com/5x5x5/lastedges.html
(Dd) R U R' F R' F' R (Dd)' and (Dd)' L' U' L F' L F L' (Dd)
(Uu)2 (Rr)2 F2 u2 F2 (Rr)2 (Uu)2 and (F2) (Rr) D2 (Rr)' F2 U2 F2 (Ll) B2 (Ll)'
(Uu)' (Dd) R U R' F R' F' R (Dd)' (Uu)
(Rr)2 B2 U2 (Ll) U2 (Rr)' U2 (Rr) U2 F2 (Rr) F2 (Ll)' B2 (Rr)2
(Rr)2 B2 (Rr)' U2 (Rr)' U2 B2 (Rr)' B2 (Rr) B2 (Rr)' B2 (Rr)2
(Ll)' U2 (Ll)' U2 F2 (Ll)' F2 (Rr) U2 (Rr)' U2 (Ll)2
(Ll) U2 (Ll) U2 (Ll)' U2 (Ll) U2 (Ll)' U2 (Ll)2 U2 (Ll)
(Rr)' U2 (Rr)2 U2 (Rr) U2 (Rr)' U2 (Rr) U2 (Rr)2 U2 (Rr)'

 

[Tomarse]

Your knowledge of the 5x5x5 is very impressive, you go very into detail nicely done mate.

 

[fredqbr]

I don't want to "steal" from other sites, so I hope they don't mind (< 10 lines is citation right)

don't worry about them : http://tinyurl.com/2vz9l2

 

[Rama]

Sub 2:20 now with AVG and I get quite a few sub 2:10's.

I started since Erik was at my place and I just do 2 to 3 solves a day, so this method really rocks!

 

[rxdeath]

I don't want to "steal" from other sites, so I hope they don't mind (< 10 lines is citation right)

don't worry about them : http://tinyurl.com/2vz9l2

i like your method quite a bit as well. i like the idea of only looking for centers, since there are half as many.

the knowledge on bigcubes.com is for everyone to use, feel free to quote/use anything on there anytime you like. the knowledge on bigcubes.com is owned by no one, including you, frederick.

f, you've made 5 posts, all of them negative, this on here and on eriks thread. maybe you should get over yourself and quit crying that you didn't make a decent website or work hard enough to get a v-cube.

 

[Rama]

Yesterday I got my first sub two solve (1:59.40) since the UK Open and this time I used the AVG method, I really like it now, since now I know the technique! (slow turning, you'll get faster when there are little more centerwing-edges to look for)