At what point does TPS matter?

[Musicalboy2]

I don't think so. The reason people have trouble with sub-20 is because they are spamming TPS, and are not looking-ahead when doing so

That's pretty much what I said. Down to around 20 by spamming turns...

 

[brian724080]

Before I got into speedcubing, I learned about commutators and could solve my brother's 3x3. Then last July I bought a 5x5 just to see if I could solve it without any help, and parity had me stumped for about a week, but I figured it out. My trick was to just move one inner slice a quarter turn, and then solve the displaced center pieces with commutators. The remaining edge pieces can now be solved by commutators! This is obviously a horrifically inefficient way to fix it, which is why we have algorithms. There's a difference between figuring out how to do it yourself, and actually doing it that way consistently because you refuse to do it the way the rest of the community has figured out how to do it through their combined intellects (and the help of computers!) So I will never do intuitive LL as a speedsolving method, even though I'm perfectly capable of it (pre-orient edges, use last slot as a buffer to permute all edges, then solve corners with commutators, aka Heise method) because I can do it in 5-7 seconds using the 28 algs I already know with little effort. It's the F2L that's the fun part.

Wow! I am very impressed. No idea how long that'll take me to figure out...

 

[rebucato314]

According to Cyoubx, The best time to get increase your TPS is at sub-12. If you are higher than that, you should probably work on F2L and Cross. (No full OLL until sub-15 btw)

 

[mark49152]

According to Cyoubx, The best time to get increase your TPS is at sub-12. If you are higher than that, you should probably work on F2L and Cross. (No full OLL until sub-15 btw)

It's all relative depending on at what point you think you transition from natural/easy TPS to requiring work. Sub-12 is about 4-5 tps with no pauses. To me, that's pretty fast, and it took me months of drilling to achieve that consistently just on PLL and OLL algs with no pauses, let alone on full solves.

In my opinion, 2-3 tps is about where an average person would settle at if not trying to turn fast. That would be equivalent to 20-24 seconds.

 

[SpicyOranges]

I usually get like 6-7 tps, and average high 10. Back when I was barely sub 15, my tps was like 4-5 on average. It just kinda happened naturally, I didn't really thing about it much, just kinda did a lot of solves. So probably around 13 is where it is important.

 

[lerenard]

Wow! I am very impressed. No idea how long that'll take me to figure out...

thanks! :3

@Quinson: Don't assume everyone does CFOP, please. I did Petrus for my first 4 months and have since moved to FreeFOP. I never plan to learn full OLL because I know enough intuitive tricks and algorithms to orient edges before I get to the LL, and otherwise 2-look OLL takes maybe an extra second over full (for me at least) I have found that some of the algorithms I have learned recently I am still slow with because I don't know them super well, so that decreases my speed. And I'm doing 2-side PLL recognition, and sometimes it takes me 3-5 seconds to recognize the case. I plan to continue doing these things because even if they're slow now, once I get used to them they will be faster than not using them. That being said, I can easily translate your F2L and Cross to the specific points I need to work on doing the intuitive part of my solve, which I agree is more important at the moment.

@everyone: I did an ao100 last night and really noticed I had a /lot/ of pauses and time spent looking for pieces, so that just reinforced my idea that I just need to do a lot more slow solves to practice. I see slow solves as more like studying, and speedsolves as more like testing.

 

[Escher]

I think it's wise to assume there are lots of things you aren't doing that the same high level cubers are, outside of mechanics. For example, choosing A pair rather than B or C pair based on reasoning beyond what immediately seems the most efficient, or linking two muscle-memo'd 2gen sequences and finding shortcuts in execution at 9tps while focusing on LL EO. All the moves are easily explainable to most cubers, it's just speed and creativity of application that sets them apart. 'Knowing the path' isn't the same as sprinting down it full pelt! So with your practised solve, yeah, not only is there a significant difference in sustained tps (having fingertricks for a large variety of move sequences), but also a significant difference in pair selection and general solve ergonomics.

Anyway, tps on its own is unimportant for the most part. Sustaining an efficient 4tps is much better than inefficient bursts averaging 4tps in many, many ways. Like you've said I'd focus on smoother solves, and being confident in your intuition is usually the main thing I see your level having problems with (constant double-checking of knowledge you already have), along with a focus on pieces you know you're just about to solve anyway.

Regarding 'slow solves', I'm perfectly comfortable turning in a way I perceive to be slow and getting 11-12 second solves, even though the actual tps is relatively high, simply due to each move being done efficiently in consideration to neighbouring moves, and I think this is a big element that's hard to translate to newer cubers when more advanced ones (</=12s) suggest practising them with the intention of improving lookahead.

When you get to the point of wanting to practise this stuff, I'd suggest practising a lot of different LL algs after copying pro level fingertricks, and practising scrambling as quickly as you can.

In regards to freeFOP, I would suggest studying a bunch of f2l algs to improve treading that line between pure move efficiency and occasionally teching in a 9 move tps-spam algorithm.

 

[goodatthis]

I get solves with sup 5 TPS sort of often, and I average about 16. I think this is kind of unusual, though.

 

[GuRoux]

I get solves with sup 5 TPS sort of often, and I average about 16. I think this is kind of unusual, though.

that's like around 80 moves... at least that means your turn speed is pretty good. just need to work on that lookahead and move efficiency.

 

[goodatthis]

that's like around 80 moves... at least that means your turn speed is pretty good. just need to work on that lookahead and move efficiency.

Well I mean usually those solves are in the 13-14 range, but I often do have solves over 70 moves. I find that for me, high move count and fast w/o pausing>turning slower and looking to be more effiecient. In other words, I often sacrifice efficiency for lookahead.

 

[minstorm340]

that is lookahead and tps
i use roux and i have the opposite problem, i match most others tps but i am really inneficient

 

[lerenard]

I think it's wise to assume there are lots of things you aren't doing that the same high level cubers are, outside of mechanics. For example, choosing A pair rather than B or C pair based on reasoning beyond what immediately seems the most efficient, or linking two muscle-memo'd 2gen sequences and finding shortcuts in execution at 9tps while focusing on LL EO. All the moves are easily explainable to most cubers, it's just speed and creativity of application that sets them apart. 'Knowing the path' isn't the same as sprinting down it full pelt! So with your practised solve, yeah, not only is there a significant difference in sustained tps (having fingertricks for a large variety of move sequences), but also a significant difference in pair selection and general solve ergonomics.

Anyway, tps on its own is unimportant for the most part. Sustaining an efficient 4tps is much better than inefficient bursts averaging 4tps in many, many ways. Like you've said I'd focus on smoother solves, and being confident in your intuition is usually the main thing I see your level having problems with (constant double-checking of knowledge you already have), along with a focus on pieces you know you're just about to solve anyway.

Regarding 'slow solves', I'm perfectly comfortable turning in a way I perceive to be slow and getting 11-12 second solves, even though the actual tps is relatively high, simply due to each move being done efficiently in consideration to neighbouring moves, and I think this is a big element that's hard to translate to newer cubers when more advanced ones (</=12s) suggest practising them with the intention of improving lookahead.

When you get to the point of wanting to practise this stuff, I'd suggest practising a lot of different LL algs after copying pro level fingertricks, and practising scrambling as quickly as you can.

In regards to freeFOP, I would suggest studying a bunch of f2l algs to improve treading that line between pure move efficiency and occasionally teching in a 9 move tps-spam algorithm.

I agree with you to a large degree. I think that there is a lot of efficiency and just general "good moves" that I miss out on because I'm just not that skilled yet, but that I would immediately recognize as good if someone more experienced showed them to me. I think I should do some of the scrambles in the example solves section and then see how others did them so I can see what I missed. And as for efficiency vs. algs, I have intuitively "discovered" a lot of efficient, 2-gen ways to form and insert pairs that I use pretty often. I'll generally block build the full F2L minus a pair or two, and form and insert those with said algorithms while working on EO. But yeah, at this point it's mostly just a matter of solving better, not faster, and it looks like it will be that way for a long time.