Beginner's Guide to Choosing a Speedsolving Method

[cuberswoop]

Yeah... I believe one of my friends has had the curse of learning from TC's guide... it is terrible for speed. I am now trying to encourage him to relearn his last layer. It has been a struggle.

TC's guide is [insert naughty word I'm not supposed to say]. My friend learned from it, has a PB of 34 seconds, averages 2 minutes, and has been "speedcubing" since mid-2019. They should direct people to the next thing to learn because my friend lives under a rock. I told him what 4LLL is, and he said there were "too many" algs for him. I think this was because TC's tutorial has 3~ algs. He also didn't believe me that 2LLL existed, as well at 1LLL.

To summarize, TC's tutorial is for lazy people who want to do it once and never solve it again, not for people who are going to try to speed solve.


[The end of my rant]

 

[Garf]

TC's guide is [insert naughty word I'm not supposed to say]. My friend learned from it, has a PB of 34 seconds, averages 2 minutes, and has been "speedcubing" since mid-2019. They should direct people to the next thing to learn because my friend lives under a rock. I told him what 4LLL is, and he said there were "too many" algs for him. I think this was because TC's tutorial has 3~ algs. He also didn't believe me that 2LLL existed, as well at 1LLL.

To summarize, TC's tutorial is for lazy people who want to do it once and never solve it again, not for people who are going to try to speed solve.


[The end of my rant]

That is exactly how my friend is: living under a rock.
Well, at least for speedcubing.

 

[IsThatA4x4]

That is exactly how my friend is: living under a rock.
Well, at least for speedcubing.

I learnt from TC and then me and my friends (all living under a rock) optimized it by ourselves a little (shorter U perms and corner inserts in first layer, sunes for OCLL).
That was cool for a while, but the transition to CFOP was hard, considering 4LLL has 13 algs that are longer than TC's sexy move / left sexy move (righty alg / lefty alg as they call it there). Also with TC's guide, diag CP is a massive pain and I remember it costing me at least 10-15 seconds at the time.

 

[cuberswoop]

I learnt from TC and then me and my friends (all living under a rock) optimized it by ourselves a little (shorter U perms and corner inserts in first layer, sunes for OCLL).
That was cool for a while, but the transition to CFOP was hard, considering 4LLL has 13 algs that are longer than TC's sexy move / left sexy move (righty alg / lefty alg as they call it there). Also with TC's guide, diag CP is a massive pain and I remember it costing me at least 10-15 seconds at the time.

That is why you learn from Rubik's tutorial. They basically teach you a weird 6-8 look last layer.

 

[abunickabhi]

That is why you learn from Rubik's tutorial. They basically teach you a weird 6-8 look last layer.

Sometimes it is more than 8 look last layer. Beginner's methods are weird.

 

[Burrito]

EOCross offers a slighly higher movecount (I think 48 for eoline and 52 for eocros) but better ergonomics for zz

 

[Crue11a]

Hi I am a new speed cuber, my average time is about 20 seconds and I have one of the beginner solves (with a few short cuts of my own) My algorithms are forward clockwise down counterclockwise, and I do it backwards as well. Any advice for how to solve the faster? Thanks.

 

[LBr]

That is exactly how my friend is: living under a rock.
Well, at least for speedcubing.

That’s kinda funny as a lot of the people I know know 4lll and I had 2 ‘friends’. One of them finished pll and most of oll in a single summer. The other finished pll but settled for 2 look oll. The first person got down to low 20s before quitting, the reason he wasn’t as fast was because his turning was sluggish. The second person became sub 20 by October of that year and he quit in November at an average of 18. Both of them made that progress in about 4 months as they had only started cubing in June. This can be demonstrated as proof that most normal people can pick up an advanced method with not too much difficulty and average around 20 seconds

 

[Imsoosm]

most normal people can pick up an advanced method with not too much difficulty and average around 20 seconds

Are we not normal people?

 

[LBr]

Are we not normal people?

If that’s what you want to be considered by then sure

 

[Thom S.]

Are we not normal people?

Half of this forums active userbase has a duck as profile picture.

Also, we're essentially doing the same thing over and over, each time expecting a different outcome.

 

[Abram Grimsley]

Are we not normal people?

No such thing as a normal person.

 

[duckycubing]

i have recently finished the method LBL (layer by layer) which is the one creating a daisy and stuff

i learnt the whole cube in exactly a week and i am pretty proud that i can do it in like 1:20

now i am pretty ok with it, are there any algorithms or like methods i could learn? i’ve heard of stuff like zz and petrus but all the algorithms i know atm is “sune” and “nicklas”

any help would be appreciated thanks everyone!

 

[Megaminx lover]

Choose 1 of Roux or ZZ, CFOP sucks (relatively, it's still probably the 3rd best method) and is only viable because the best cubers use CFOP
This is coming from a CFOP user

 

[duckycubing]

Choose 1 of Roux or ZZ, CFOP sucks (relatively, it's still probably the 3rd best method) and is only viable because the best cubers use CFOP
This is coming from a CFOP user

roux or zz which is easier tho

 

[TheKravCuber]

I'd recommend trying out and researching CFOP, ZZ, and Roux and spending time only solving with one of those methods for a few days to a week each. This helps you get the feel for the beginner variant of each method and you can choose which one you like the most from there. Of course you can also try out other methods but generally speaking these aren't worth it or have concepts that might be a bit hard to understand for you right now(Honestly even ZZ could fall into this category, but it's worth trying out nevertheless)

Good luck on your cubing journey!

 

[F'prime]

I recommend CFOP because it is similar to the beginner's method. Roux uses mostly Middle layer moves, so if you're good at those, Roux is your choice. But if you are good at the R and U moves, then CFOP is for you.

 

[Mastermind2368]

If you plan on using cubing for any of the social aspects, such as meeting people, going to comps, watching/making videos ect... then I would recommend at least learning the basics of CFOP before choosing between methods. I used CFOP for my first year of cubing, and while I switched over to ZZ, I can at least have intelligent conversations about CFOP. Of course, people do talk about Roux and ZZ as well, but there is less expectation of knowing how they work.

As far as which method is the "best," I'm a firm believer that they all have equal potential, with people naturally being better at different methods. CFOP is arguably the most alg heavy, with it requiring 78 algs for the full method. Roux has the most block building and it can be a challenge to initially create clever blocks, and ZZ has the most confusing inspection and most regrips. Like some of the other posts have said, it's probably best to try them all and see what works.

 

[AJT17]

As others have said CFOP is a great continuation method after LBL, but other methods like roux and zz are more intuitive than CFOP, so if you don't want to or can't come up with algorithms on the spot (for the most part), then I suggest learning CFOP, but choose what ever one interest you the most, it is your future after all.

 

[Cubing Mania]

i have recently finished the method LBL (layer by layer) which is the one creating a daisy and stuff

i learnt the whole cube in exactly a week and i am pretty proud that i can do it in like 1:20

now i am pretty ok with it, are there any algorithms or like methods i could learn? i’ve heard of stuff like zz and petrus but all the algorithms i know atm is “sune” and “nicklas”

any help would be appreciated thanks everyone!

I would learn CFOP, it and Roux are about equal in speed, but CFOP is easier to learn from the LBL method.