Being Competitive for US Nationals

[michaelcmelton]

US Nationals is being hosted near me this summer, and I was wondering with my just learning Intuitive F2L about a week ago, and beginning to start on Full PLL, my average times are around 40-50 seconds. Will I have enough time to become competitive for nationals? I'm talking like sub 20 to sub 15 times.

 

[Deleted member 19792]

Yes. Practice a lot though, and believe that you can do it.

Also just do some general solving while focusing on F2L. It helps. Don't really time yourself just go slow and see how the cube works.

 

[obelisk477]

You can do sub-20 if you work at it, but sub-15 might be be a bit much. I mean people have improved that fast, but they are few and far between.

 

[MirzaCubing]

Depends on your definition of "competitive" If you mean making it to the 3x3 finals, that might be a stretch. But if you practice diligently, I believe you can achieve sub-15 by Nationals Speaking from personal experience, I went from averaging 1:00 in June 2011 to averaging 16-17 in December 2011, and I didn't even know full OLL or PLL!
You should definitely learn full OLL and PLL by Nationals, and become efficient with intuitive F2L, while also learning more efficient algorithms for the harder F2L cases.
Best of luck at Nats!

 

[kcl]

I'd say you can probably get good enough for second round 3x3 at nats if you really work. Third round will require sub 12ish and finals will likely be sub 10.

 

[Ninja Storm]

finals will likely be sub 10.

I've got a feeling it's going to be closer to sub9 than sub10.

 

[kcl]

I've got a feeling it's going to be closer to sub9 than sub10.

Not by the time you add in finals pressure. Trust me on this one.

 

[michaelcmelton]

Thanks for the positive reinforcements guys. I know it's 6 months out, and sub-20 in 6 months is a hefty goal, but I have no idea where to start with full PLL. I want to start memorizing PLL while still familiarizing myself with intuit F2L.

 

[Myachii]

Unless you have a couple of weeks/months to spare once you're sub-20, don't bother with full OLL.
If you try to rush them all, when you compete you'll end up forgetting a lot of the algorithms and wasting more time than 2-look OLL.
Try and get familiar with which cases will come up during the last pair of F2L, i.e L shape, Line, Dot or Cross.
Full OLL is something you really need to commit yourself to, and you don't want to be learning other things alongside it, otherwise you'll get confused easily. There are a LOT of inverse algorithms in OLL, and they are all similar to algs you'll eventually learn with int. F2L and full PLL.

Perfect F2L, then PLL, then OLL if you have time.

 

[theROUXbiksCube]

Don't always time solves

 

[PenguinsDontFly]

You can get sub 13 in 6 months if you try. Thats what I did.

 

[Tim Major]

Regardless of speed, register. You won't be the slowest there, but neither will you be even if the top 20. Compete for fun, and don't worry about being too slow because even now you're fast enough.

 

[Ninja Storm]

Not by the time you add in finals pressure. Trust me on this one.

I was talking about cutoff times for finals, not finals itself. I have a feeling semi-final times are going to be much more competitive than finals.