Blindsolving Failure Thread

[Tim Major]

I think this is my most epic fail BLD solve ever.
... spilled some of my drink when I hit the cup without remembering exactly where it was on my desk?
... had to wander around my room and search for a towel to clean off my desk, since my computer was on it?
... drank all of the rest of my drink, carefully searching around my mouth with my tongue with each sip in case the piece had fallen into my drink?

... set the cube down at one point so that I could search with both hands, but then quickly realized that this was going to take too long, so I resorted to laying down on the floor and using my legs/arms/stomach/face to search more floor area at the same time?
... do not find this situation funny in the least, but I probably will in another week or two?

I think this is the most epic failures thread post of all time, made my day :tu
I especially love the quoted parts
And about not finding the situation funny, but you will in a week, I still don't find something that happened at MCD funny, where I did audio for edges and corners, had JEM in one of the two, and GEM in the other (both sounded the same), I usually use a story for edges, but this memo was so easy that I did it audio.
Would've been (at the time) pb D:<
Reason I don't find it funny? All 3bld, and all Multi attempts in comp, I've DNF'd (3 multi dnfs at MS2011 which isn't on my profile if you're wondering about lack of DNFs)

I got a 1:54~ DNF by R' and 4 edges today, and I knew at the time where I stuffed up.
DF -> RB, the setup is [R' B' R B: M2], but instead, I felt myself doing something along the lines of R' B' R B M2 B' R B R'. Somehow I managed to undo my mistake, and redo it correctly, but missing an R' through a slip up.
Though on the plus side, this was the only DNF in 5 attempts, worst time was low 3 minutes, with a 2:23~ solve (pb).

Spoiler

BLD is getting more fun, I want to catch up to Pappas

 

[Mike Hughey]

I think this is my most epic fail BLD solve ever.

Classic story, Chris. I thoroughly enjoyed this post.

Ok, now to the DNF state. I was off by 6 oblique edges, 3 lefts and 3 rights. Now, what was weird was that the same 3 letters were DNF'd in both edge orbits. I found this particularly strange, and began my usual DNF post mortem stuff. All of a sudden I realized, as I went through what I had executed, that while executing on the left obliques, I did exactly one of the cycles accidently on the right oblique pieces :fp Other than this small mistake, everything else was solved.

This is actually a quite common thing for me on really big cubes BLD. I've probably done it at least 10 times. It's such an easy mistake to make. I usually feel pretty good about a solve when I realize this is the only thing I've done wrong.

... spilled some of my drink when I hit the cup without remembering exactly where it was on my desk?

Okay, so this is something I would definitely avoid. I always make sure drinks aren't around when I do a solve; I'm too afraid of exactly this happening. If I did spill something, I'd probably actually give up in that case. So congratulations - you're even more insane than I am!

... drank all of the rest of my drink, carefully searching around my mouth with my tongue with each sip in case the piece had fallen into my drink?

LOL

... set the cube down at one point so that I could search with both hands, but then quickly realized that this was going to take too long, so I resorted to laying down on the floor and using my legs/arms/stomach/face to search more floor area at the same time?

I've never resorted to this. I do set my cube down when it gets bad like this. I have a system for covering the floor systematically; I do a wedge-shaped search with my two hands out a certain number of inches, trying to make a circle around myself as I go, then expand farther out when the closer circle doesn't find anything. It's not completely perfect, but I've always eventually found the missing pieces.

The biggest problem with setting the cube down is that the 7x7x7 might spin (because it's pillowed) if the table gets jostled, and you'll pick it back up misoriented. I'm always really paranoid about that. So I rarely ever put a 7x7x7 down to look for pieces - I usually just hold it. Fortunately, pieces fall out on 7x7x7 BLD solves much less often than they do on 6x6x6 BLD solves, for me.

The 7x7x7 spinning thing also really worries me on 7x7x7 multiBLD.

... just wanted this solve to be over and done with, but I was determined that if Mike put up with a solve that went this horribly wrong, that I should probably try to do the same?

Sorry - I guess I'm a bad influence. Thanks, Chris - it's a real honor that you did this.

 

[Mike Hughey]

My first megaminx BLD attempt in what - about two years?

DNF [57:26.87, 38:50] (first scramble in the weekly competition)

Off by just 4 corners twisted.

I used a nearly pure 3OP method. I really like it!!! It's much easier to memorize, and once all of the pieces are in a known orientation, it's really easy to set up for a full 3 cycle, solving 2 pieces at a time. I only solved a total of 4 corners Pochmann-style (one piece at a time) because the setups seemed hard to figure out; the rest were done 2 at a time.

The time wasn't so good primarily because I kept messing up trying to memorize the corner orientation. I had to go through it about 4 times, and it still turned out that was what I messed up. Corner orientation is easy to figure out for the 10 pieces that go to the top or bottom faces, but the 10 around the middle are really hard to figure out. The four I messed up were all in the middle ring. I think I spent about 15 minutes just memorizing the corner orientation.

If I can get the corner orientation down, I really think I can be sub-30 with this method. And my accuracy should be better than it was with the old way, too.

 

[riffz]

The 7x7x7 spinning thing also really worries me on 7x7x7 multiBLD.

I doubt I'll ever try a 7x7 multiBLD anyway, but if I did I would definitely place the cubes on something soft so that they'd sink in a bit and be unable to spin. I'd never even thought about that before, though.

Also, Chris, I find it hilarious that even after spilling your drink you found a towel to clean it up and continued the solve. That definitely would have been the point where I'd call it quits!

 

[Kynit]

Chris, I have no doubt in my mind that you are my absolute favourite cuber!

 

[JonnyWhoopes]

Chris, you made an otherwise bad day into a relatively good one. If for nothing else, it's good for laughs!

"Any practice is good practice"

 

[Keroma12]

That made my day Chris

 

[toastman]

My first megaminx BLD attempt in what - about two years?

DNF [57:26.87, 38:50] (first scramble in the weekly competition)

Off by just 4 corners twisted.

I used a nearly pure 3OP method. I really like it!!!

Hey Mike,

How do you "label" your pieces / stickers on a Megaminx? I've been thinking about it recently and all I come up with was "letter-pairs", as in a pair of letters per sticker.

Also, any tips on not "mis-orienting" the darn thing while you're solving it?

I'd love to do this some day, to me this is even more impressive than a 7x7.

 

[cmhardw]

My first megaminx BLD attempt in what - about two years?

DNF [57:26.87, 38:50] (first scramble in the weekly competition)

Off by just 4 corners twisted.

Mike, I know I've said this before but Megaminx BLD is seriously impressive to me. I'm sorry that it was such a close DNF (or I suppose I should be happy for you, since it WAS so close). Either way, congrats on the attempt! Crazy impressive!

I used a nearly pure 3OP method. I really like it!!! It's much easier to memorize, and once all of the pieces are in a known orientation, it's really easy to set up for a full 3 cycle, solving 2 pieces at a time.

I remember you talking about using this approach, glad that it seems to work better than your old way!

The time wasn't so good primarily because I kept messing up trying to memorize the corner orientation. I had to go through it about 4 times, and it still turned out that was what I messed up. Corner orientation is easy to figure out for the 10 pieces that go to the top or bottom faces, but the 10 around the middle are really hard to figure out. The four I messed up were all in the middle ring. I think I spent about 15 minutes just memorizing the corner orientation.

I'm not familiar enough with the Megaminx to offer any tips here, but I can certainly understand the problem. Perhaps only setup corners for cycles by doing clockwise turns on the lower 5 faces (the lower R, L, F, D, etc.) and only do counterclockwise turns on the upper 5 faces (upper U, D, L, R, etc.). This gives the middle 10 faces a sort of "gear turning" dynamic that would be easy to visualize. Based on this turning restriction try to figure out what the required orientation rules would be for corners/twisted corners.

Again, I'm not really very familiar with megaminx, so that idea may be stupid, but trying to offer some help here.

 

[Mike Hughey]

How do you "label" your pieces / stickers on a Megaminx? I've been thinking about it recently and all I come up with was "letter-pairs", as in a pair of letters per sticker.

That's exactly how I did it with my first method. I used the first letter to label the face, and the second letter to label the sticker per face. That was part of the problem with the old method - because there are 60 stickers, you need 60 "letters" to represent one sticker with one letter. By switching to orient-permute, suddenly you only need 30 "letters" for edges, and 20 letters for corners. Much better! For edges, I use A-Y plus 0-4, coming up with images for number-letter pairings on the fly (eventually I might come up with some prepared ones, if I get serious about it). This is definitely one of the (several) big wins about doing orient-permute!

Also, any tips on not "mis-orienting" the darn thing while you're solving it?

Practice. Seriously, it bothers me a lot too. I orient the puzzle the same way you would to apply an official scramble. Then I try to keep a finger on the top front corner and the one just below it and to the right. That's sort of my "neutral stance" for it. When doing orient algs, I would always try to pick two lettered locations and keep my fingers on them, remembering what they are. Then I can just put those two letters back to their correct locations when I'm done to get back to my "neutral stance". I hope that description makes sense.

I want to post a description of my new method, because I think I finally have a decent method now. But it could take me a while to get it written up, simply because it's so hard to talk about megaminx solving. I'll probably have to come up with a way to add some good diagrams, because it just doesn't work well to type about megaminx.

 

[porkynator]

4BLD DNF 23:11 (7:40) by "only" 7 edges; it was my second try, and as I said before, I've never read a guide or tried solving edges/centers separately before... maybe next time will be the good one!

 

[Jaysammey777]

Dairly queen w/ friends. I was solving it blindfolded and then someone askes what are you doing? I said wait im alomst done. I'm done, slam the cube on the table, A piece flys out and lands in my drink

 

[Kynit]

...but was it solved?

 

[Jaysammey777]

yes but when I took my blindfold off the cube was dnfed from the pop

 

[Xishem]

@Mike: Did you ever have any successes with your old Pochmann-like Megaminx BLD method? If so, what was your best single/what did you average?

 

[Mike Hughey]

@Mike: Did you ever have any successes with your old Pochmann-like Megaminx BLD method? If so, what was your best single/what did you average?

I'm not sure how many, but I had two or three successes, anyway; one of them is on my YouTube channel. I think my best was around 50 minutes or so, but I really don't remember. The worst part about it was that it was so painful to do - memorization was agonizing, and execution was equally agonizing. That's what I like about the new method - it's no more painful than a 7x7x7 BLD, which is a dramatic improvement.

 

[RyanReese09]

This is depressing. First multi with my letter pair list.

1/3 in 24:22.88

Kept blanking on memo, like it's hard to describe, but there would be long pauses of my brain just giving out. This wasn't even hard to memo, like I know I can do more.

One cube was off by 3 cycle edges, other off by 2 edges (parity) and 2 corners I cycled wrongly, and a 3rd corner is twisted.

.
And a 3bld, DNF by 2 twisted corners, did the pure twist wrong, I did chameleon orientation, needed headlights <_<

 

[Zane_C]

Ugh, this has got to be one of the most painful BLD failures I've had:

DNF(9:01.24), 3 MIDGES!!!!!!!!!!!!! :fp

d F' l' B u' f d f2 u' b2 f' R2 u' b U' l f2 d2 D U2 L2 b2 U B R' F U' u' d R B b l' L2 d' B b2 F d2 l2 u' R' f' r' d' F2 B' D r D B2 d l' r' f U f l2 F r'

8 xcenters and 4 +centers solved if I scrambled correctly.

 

[cmhardw]

This is depressing. First multi with my letter pair list.

1/3 in 24:22.88

Kept blanking on memo, like it's hard to describe, but there would be long pauses of my brain just giving out. This wasn't even hard to memo, like I know I can do more.

Hey Ryan, no worries man, it happens. Also, yes we all know exactly what you mean about those long pauses. These kinds of recall delays happen during longer solves from time to time. It generally means you memo'd too quickly, or not clearly enough for that image/location.

If you haven't already, you really should learn how to pickup cycle. It's incredibly useful for allowing you to continue solving other stuff, even though you are recall delaying on a certain image, or location. I use pickup cycles any time I have a recall delay, and it does wonders for not allowing the delay to negatively affect your time as much.

Ugh, this has got to be one of the most painful BLD failures I've had:

DNF(9:01.24), 3 MIDGES!!!!!!!!!!!!! :fp

d F' l' B u' f d f2 u' b2 f' R2 u' b U' l f2 d2 D U2 L2 b2 U B R' F U' u' d R B b l' L2 d' B b2 F d2 l2 u' R' f' r' d' F2 B' D r D B2 d l' r' f U f l2 F r'

8 xcenters and 4 +centers solved if I scrambled correctly.

Zane! O_O Wow! This was 5x5x5BLD right? I'm sorry it was a DNF, but holy cow! Sub-9 soon? O_O You gotta teach me how to do that haha

P.S. Did you try reconstructing the DNF? For pieces like midges you can use my post-mortem reconstruction method and it will literally show you where your error was, you don't have to try and figure out what happened.

 

[Zane_C]

Zane! O_O Wow! This was 5x5x5BLD right? I'm sorry it was a DNF, but holy cow! Sub-9 soon? O_O You gotta teach me how to do that haha

P.S. Did you try reconstructing the DNF? For pieces like midges you can use my post-mortem reconstruction method and it will literally show you where your error was, you don't have to try and figure out what happened.

Thanks Chris, some day in the distant future, maybe I'll teach you something for a change
This is was a lucky scramble, and my first sub-10 attempt.
When you first posted the post-mortem method I got lost while reading it, I'll have a good read through it later.
I rushed the midges, so I can understand why I made whatever mistake I did.

I re-scrambled and undid, it appears that I scrambled wrong. I assume you need the scramble for the post-mortem to work lol.

EDIT: DNF(9:28), off by 3 +centers and 2 xcenters. This scramble wasn't that great, other than the midges being easy.