Best path for low practice time

[slpn1]

I am have only had a cube a few weeks but am hooked as hell already!

My problem is I don't have much spare time to practice, 1 hour max a day. I can solve using the beginners method fine and have F2L has just recently clicked (just!). I'm still very slow ~2 minutes and seem to be nearing 100 moves for most solves.

My question is, do you think it's best to learn the OLL and PLL algorithms now so I can solve in fewer moves and then work on speed or should I treat solving the cross, F2L, OLL, PLL and finger tricks as separate entities and move on to the next part once I have got to an adequate level in the part before?

I am not sure if learning the whole lot at once will be better at eventually making me better at each of the parts, or vice versa.

Bear in mind I have an hour a day (maybe 2 if I'm lucky)

Thanks
Simon

 

[TDM]

Take a look at this thread. It has lots of information about how to get faster with CFOP.

If you don't have much time, then do fewer relaxed solves and focus as much as you can on what will help you improve. Doing lots of slow solves, learning one or two algs a day, and maybe a few more casual solves at the end of the day to help you get used to using algs in solves will help you improve a lot.

 

[joshsailscga]

Probably the bet idea in your situation is to learn 4-look last layer, which consists of 2-look OLL and 2-look PLL. 17 algs total, broken down into 10 for OLL and 7 for PLL.
I learned them from this site: www.cubewhiz.com, check out the '4LLL' tab. You can get into low 20's easily before you have to think about learning more algs after that.

 

[SpeedCubeReview]

Take you time and have fun! If you focus on times than you are just looking to get frustrated. Times will increase little by little. After a couple months of cubing I was at a minute and a half and was happy about that and remember saying that I don't really care if I get faster than this. Well, faster just happened in time.

I made a video about transitioning to a faster method after beginner, but it may still be a bit early in your cubing for it. Take you time, there can be a lot of variations and algorithms to learn in the end.

 

[slpn1]

Thanks all. Much appreciated. I'm in no rush so I guess I will just not try to worry about speed yet. I think it will take me a while to master F2L anyway as I understand it but have to spend ages thinking about each pair at mo. I will definitely take a look at the 4 look last layer though as that sounds a great next step.

Side thought, as there are 40 quintillion permutations for the cube, I wonder if that is enough to mean every time you shuffle the cube you can almost guarantee that no other Rubik's cube in existence has ever been in that particular state?

 

[StachuK1992]

Not sure; some people claim they've had 2 duplicate GUIDs (although they're probably wrong)

 

[slpn1]

Just read an article that said if you made one move a second it would take 1400 trillion years to go through every combination. That is pretty trippy.

 

[mark49152]

Side thought, as there are 40 quintillion permutations for the cube, I wonder if that is enough to mean every time you shuffle the cube you can almost guarantee that no other Rubik's cube in existence has ever been in that particular state?

I read somewhere (probably on this forum) that based on some speculative estimates and assumptions about total number of cubes sold and number of times each has been solved, only about 5% of the possible states have ever been seen. Can't find the link though.

 

[chee16]

I will second the 4lll recommendation. In hindsight, there was really no need for me to find myself until I learned 4lll and got decent at f2l. I enjoy figuring things out so I learned f2l intuitively, and an still learning things. I know all the PLLs now but really my f2l is where I either masks up fine or lose it.

My only other recommendation is keep it enjoyable. Who cares how long it takes you to get to a certain time blah blah blah. What's the point if it's not fun.