Blindsolving Discussion and Help

[emolover]

Can somebody explain(or at least direct me to post)how big cube blind works? What methods and memo are there? For edges is it cycles or switching two edges? Can you visual memo centers for a 4x4? That does not seem too hard I think.

 

[RyanReese09]

People have visually memod a 7x7 before. And by people, I mean Lars.

 

[nickvu2]

As a quick note, if your edge buffer is DF don't you mean to shoot the edge target to UF and not FU? Or are you using FD as your buffer?

Ha, it worked out very nicely in my head, but yeah, you're right XD I actually like M2s more so I think that will be my primary setup, with the UF backup. Thanks Chris!

 

[Zane_C]

Ok, so I finally decided to get into BLD, and I'm wondering if I'm on the right track. A while back, I learned classic Pochmann, but there was just too much memorizing involved (orientation AND permutation for both edges and corners) that it made BLD solving kind of boring. I'm working on learning M2 for edges (not sure what I'll be using for corners, I don't know many methods besides classic Pochmann and M2), and I'd like to know whether it will make any impact on the amount of memorization required for a solve. Also, any recommendations for a method for corners?

The idea behind classic Pochmann is you don't have to memorise orientation and permutation separately. Just think of the cycles in terms of stickers.

Y-perm and M2 isn't a bad combination. If you want to progress further, perhaps learn basic commutators so you can intuitively solve simple 3-cycles, such as 8 move corner comms and edge comms involving FU or BD.

Example: DF>FU>BR
A = Insertion = D R D'
B = Interchange = M
ABA'B' = [D R D'] M [D R' D'] M'

Can somebody explain(or at least direct me to post)how big cube blind works? What methods and memo are there? For edges is it cycles or switching two edges? Can you visual memo centers for a 4x4? That does not seem too hard I think.

As far as I know, the common methods for solving centers are:
-Commutators. (3-cycles)
-U2, which solves using the same concept as M2. (2-cycles)
-Wide t-perm, Rw U Rw' U' Rw' F Rw2 U' Rw' U' Rw U Rw' F' (2-cycles)

Methods for the wings:
-Commutators. (3-cycles)
-r2, exactly the same concept as M2. (2-cycles)
-Wide t-perm. (2-cycles)

 

[Cubenovice]

The idea behind classic Pochmann is you don't have to memorise orientation and permutation separately. Just think of the cycles in terms of stickers.

Zane,
do you have any idea where this "Pre- Orient Old Pochmann" misconception comes from?
Over the last few weeks we have seen several people mention this and we have both commented on it.

Is it people just not understanding the concept?
Or combining stuff from various BLD resources and then mixing stuff up?

Asportking:
your execution method (unless you pre-orient) does not influence the amount of info you need to memo.
your memo method does (letter pair images cut the length of memo in half vs single letter images)

I still use old pochmann for edges but I am working on including more and more simple 3-cycles into my solves.
Still shooting from UR, using short set up moves into U-perms or slice comms on M or S.

 

[aronpm]

Zane,
do you have any idea where this "Pre- Orient Old Pochmann" misconception comes from?
Over the last few weeks we have seen several people mention this and we have both commented on it.

There are some tutorials on Youtube which teach this method. I learned from one of those, unfortunately...

 

[Cubenovice]

There are some tutorials on Youtube which teach this method. I learned from one of those, unfortunately...

WTF?

You can always rely on youtube to teach you some bad habits.
This reinforces my belief in first researching which tutorials to use. (preferably respected cubers like Joel for the OP tutorial)

Apart from the Badmephisto videos I have always preferred written tutorials.

 

[Mike Hughey]

I think that pre-orient Old Pochmann is not necessarily as bad as it might seem. It increases the amount you have to memorize, but decreases the complexity - you only have 8 possible values to memorize for corners and 12 for edges, instead of 24 for each. (One reason that might be useful: for corners, you can use digits - you can't do that if you don't pre-orient.) While I have never used it, I do something quite similar to it for megaminx, and find it extremely useful there (takes me from 60 possible values to 20 for corners and 60 to 30 for edges, so things mostly fit in letters now). I actually do 2-at-a-time solving most of the time for permutation with megaminx, but some cases are difficult, so for those I do one-at-a-time solving, Pochmann-style.

Maybe I'm remembering wrong or getting confused somehow, but didn't Tim Sun use some sort of pre-orient freestyle method for 3x3x3 BLD? I thought I remembered he did.

Please note I'm not saying this approach generally makes sense; I'm just saying it might not be as bad as some people think, and for other puzzles (megaminx!) it can be quite useful.

 

[riffz]

Yeah, either that or shoot your edge buffer to DB and do M2 U [T Perm] U' M2. I would say do whichever is easiest during that given solve, so you might do something different each solve.

Although M2 U Tperm U' M2 is definitely nicer than y L2 Tperm L2 for if you shoot last edge to UB, I think the comms involving UB are much nicer and you may prefer that.

 

[nickvu2]

^I'll try that out as well; thanks!

 

[Mossar]

I've just learned direct insert and A9 from BH method. Not learned - I've understood the method. I'm curious how long have you learned all of the cases? I must think about every case for at least 5 second before executing it. So I want to know your 'learning BH' time?

I mean: how long after understanding the idea of BH?

 

[ottozing]

how do you memo for breaking into new cycles for bld. im a bld nub atm.

i use numbers + tapping the position for corners and letters for edges.

i use op

 

[aronpm]

Exactly the same as you would memorize normally.

If you have A B C, then the buffer is solved, and you need to break into a cycle (D->E->F->D) then you would memo A B C D E F D

 

[dcuber98]

I just started learning M2. What do you do if the DF edge is switched with the UB edge?

 

[Zane_C]

I just started learning M2. What do you do if the DF edge is switched with the UB edge?

You have parity, so you have to solve the last edges and corners with a PLL.
Do you solve edges or corners first and what method do you use for corners?

 

[Rpotts]

Well if you just get to a point in the solve where you have the UB edge in DF then do M2 and carry on, if you get to the end of the solve and you have the DF piece in DF, but the M slice is off (parity) and there are no unsolved targets left, then do (U' F2 U) M2 (U' F2 U) if you use Old Pochmann corners.

 

[dcuber98]

I just decided to learn BLD about 3 days ago. I'm trying to learn 3OP corners since I didn't like Old Pochmann. Does that work with M2? I've been solving using 3OP/M2 with my eyes open to get the concepts. Sometimes I have many edges left to do but the buffer and target edges are switched. I've just been breaking into new cycles when I get that. Parity really confuses me but I'll probably get it eventually. Thanks!

 

[Mossar]

What are your favourite way to learn BH corners? Just scrambling a cube and trying to solve corners (of course after understanding method) or comparing your solutions to optimized algs from BH website, doing it from the beginning to the end of the list?

 

[Mike Hughey]

What are your favourite way to learn BH corners? Just scrambling a cube and trying to solve corners (of course after understanding method) or comparing your solutions to optimized algs from BH website, doing it from the beginning to the end of the list?

For me it was essentially your second suggestion. I liked going through the algorithms alphabetically (according to the way I've chosen to letter the pieces in pairs), trying to figure out a solution for each one, and then comparing the move count with the count at the BH website. I almost never bothered to even look at the algorithms at the website - I only bothered if my solution seemed particularly ugly and I was hoping for better. Since I have letter pairs for each case, and my buffer piece was "A" (so I never had a letter pair that started with "A"), I would just start with "BC" and try to solve it, then "BD", etc. After each one, I'd invert it, so that I could still work from a solved cube. So I'd do "BC", then "CB", then "BD", then "DB", then "BE", then "EB", etc. I would do all the "B"s that way, then run through them again, until I had gone through all 18 of those a few times (maybe 5 to 10 times). Then I'd start with "CD" and go from there. With "CD", now you only need 17 cases (since you already did "CB" as the inverse of "BC"), so each group is shorter to learn than the previous one.

I liked to do time attacks on each starting letter. That way you'd learn to get fast at it. I was doing time attacks when I had only practiced the first few letters worth.

It only took me a few weeks to get halfway decent at BH corners this way. And it was fun, because it was constantly just trying to solve a puzzle each time, until they got easy, whereupon it was more like doing PLL time attacks.

Other people I know didn't learn them that way - they preferred to learn them by class. But I really like how my approach worked out. I'm really fast with corners. My edges aren't as fast, and I suspect that's partly because I didn't learn them this way. I think the time attacks can really help.

 

[aaronb]

I orient corners, and then "shoot" them in place with a J-perm. I was under the impression that this was 3OP, but then I saw posts about how some people got the idea of pre-orient OP, and this apparently is a crappy method. So is what I am using 3OP or pre-orient OP, and if it is pre-orient OP, what is 3OP? Thank you in advance, I am such a BLD nub.