Caleb Joshua Thomas Road to Sub 7 on 3x3 official average

[Thomas.Caleb]

So I have had some pretty bad offical results recently so I have decided I have had enough I'm going to put my head down and Grind until I'm sub 7.


Here is my plan
Step 1 finish learning full oll and Pll
Step 2 learn U T and L ZB alg sets
Step 3 Practice lookahead
Step 4 practice TPS
Step 5 Practice planning 2 pairs in inspection.


I hope to achieve a sub 7 average officially by March Next year.

My current 3x3 PBs

Single 4.56
Average of 5 6.32
Average of 12 6.97



If someone can help me reach this goal please reach out to me.


My Upcoming Comps

Poole Autumn 2026
Cardiff November 2026
Maybe Leicestershire Autumn 2026
Wiltshire Winter 2026


Sub 10 16th June 2024
Sub 9 March 8th 2026
Sub 8 September 27th 2026
Sub 7 Coming soon

 

[CrossPetrus]

Okay, so looking at that list, it’s a lot of algs. For pll, it should be simple to learn, I recommend using the j perm trainer. Depending on how much you know, it should take a few days. For oll, I recommend watching Cubehead’s videos and using a trainer like the one on best site ever (which can also work for ZBLL). Learning 25 ZBs isn’t hard, you could watch Max Siauw’s (I don’t know how his name’s spelled) videos on T cases. The first 2 will go through 2gll and diag, which are 24 cases total (I know those if you need help learning any specific algs). Again, make sure to use a trainer like Tao Yu or bestsiteever. For turning, Caiden Lee has a great video with advice and practice drills. For planning… just practice it and you’ll get better. Just do deliberate practice and make a schedule for what you’ll be practicing each day. Good luck!

 

[Thomas.Caleb]

Well bad news my V11 snapped in half while I was doing a swag u perm . So I'm going to buy the Gan 16 Maglev Max and that will be my new main.

 

[That0newe1rdo]

Well bad news my V11 snapped in half while I was doing a swag u perm . So I'm going to buy the Gan 16 Maglev Max and that will be my new main.

Well at least this means it werent my fault mine broke.
Rip wrm v11 you should glue it together with superglue so u can have the 2nd version of my creation the accidentally superglued together wrm v11.

Also although i am not very good at 3x3 at any means rather then learning 25 ez zbs id say it may be better to learn 1 set of zbs (i think H has the least) since if you only learn 25 of 1 set or just 25 randos youll pause to recog when you may not know the alg.
Or learn a few 2GLL sets.

 

[AJT17]

Well at least this means it werent my fault mine broke.
Rip wrm v11 you should glue it together with superglue so u can have the 2nd version of my creation the accidentally superglued together wrm v11.

Also although i am not very good at 3x3 at any means rather then learning 25 ez zbs id say it may be better to learn 1 set of zbs (i think H has the least) since if you only learn 25 of 1 set or just 25 randos youll pause to recog when you may not know the alg.
Or learn a few 2GLL sets.

Yeah, somewhat along these lines, but H isn't a great set to learn in its entirety, even though it has the least algs. It would be the best to learn no ZBLL, all of one OCLL, with U, T, and L being the best 3 to learn first, or learn all 2GLL minus sune, anti-sune if you don't want to learn them. Since 2GLL has easy recog and most algs are RU with some being RUS or RUF/RUD since sometimes the RU algs aren't great. But learning some algs isn't that good since you will be pausing to recognise if it's one of the few algs you know, so at least learn all 12 algs for each CP set if you're going to learn any ZB so you're not pausing to recognise if you even know the case since that will be way slower.
Though at your level learning ZB won't be a great use of time for the amount of benefit you'll get. Since it seems like you're around low 10 based on your PB ao100 only being 9.89, so just working on your F2L will give you the most benefit based on the effort put in. There are many places you can look at to improve your F2L, and many videos you can watch. So you should probably work on getting cross+1 down and knowing efficient solutions for any F2L cases that you think are slow.

 

[bluecubing]

wait you didn’t know full pll

 

[eeeeeeeee]

HOW DO U NOT KNOW PLL

 

[Puzzle Maniac]

So I have had some pretty bad offical results recently so I have decided I have had enough I'm going to put my head down and Grind until I'm sub 7.


Here is my plan
Step 1 finish learning full oll and Pll
Step 2 learn at least 25 ZBs
Step 3 Practice lookahead
Step 4 practice TPS
Step 5 Practice planning 2 pairs in inspection.


I hope to achieve a sub 7 average officially by March Next year.

My current 3x3 PBs

Single 5.50
Average of 5 7.35
Average of 12 8.67
Average of 100 9.89



If someone can help me reach this goal please reach out to me.

I was stuck at mid 9 for a long time until a couple weeks ago (unfortunately the day after a comp). I had been focusing on look ahead probably a bit too much, practicing tons of 7x7 and maining roux and using slow turning which has made my look ahead extremely good. I decided to come back to CFOP though I was still averaging around mid to low 9. It was when I realised that I was legally allowed to turn faster than 2 tps, and by turning at 90-95% of my max speed and having the look ahead to support it, I instantly began averaging sub 8. As others have said, improving your F2L will benefit you more than beginning ZB, thought do finish OLL/PLL ofc, but I would also recommend you to improve your look ahead by practicing events such as larger NxNs.

 

[salmoncubes]

Learn vls, wv and cls after Coll

 

[Cuber2s]

Learn vls, wv and cls after Coll

None of these are very helpful at all

i learned full coll and it was a huge waste of time, about half of them ill just do oll pll because its just faster.

Step 1 finish learning full oll and Pll

How did you get so far without full pll ? even oll is a little late but pll is crazy. What algs do you not know yet?

 

[salmoncubes]

None of these are very helpful at all

i learned full coll and it was a huge waste of time, about half of them ill just do oll pll because its just faster.


How did you get so far without full pll ? even oll is a little late but pll is crazy. What algs do you not know yet?

Foe me coll is one of the best alg sets I learned cuz it makes my pll faster I'm best with u,h,z perms

 

[Nitrophenol]

Like the others are saying, how the flip did you get this far without full pll or oll? Were these records on handscrambles or are you just insane

 

[Thomas.Caleb]

Like the others are saying, how the flip did you get this far without full pll or oll? Were these records on handscrambles or are you just insane

at my peak i have 12tps

 

[Thomas.Caleb]

at my peak i have 12tps

my avergae tps is 8

 

[Thomas.Caleb]

Joshua da costa emailed me his ZB spreedsheet at stevenage october im planning on using that and using cube heads tutorial for oll and pll

 

[AJT17]

my avergae tps is 8

I don't think you average nearly 80 moves, so either you don't have 8 TPS on average or you are one of the most inefficient solvers, though you don't know OLL or PLL so that might make it slightly more likely I still don't think you average 8 TPS. I'm not saying it's impossible but you're very similar to my level, at least for ao5, and I'd say I average around 6-7 TPS which usually gets me mid to high 8 solves. And from what I found its high 60 to low 80 moves for 4LLL, which would give you around 7 to 8 TPS, but I think you'd know most of PLL, hopefully, which would lower that, but even then 8 TPS is for the upper move count I found, so unless you are super inefficient I doubt you're reaching 8TPS on most solves.

at my peak i have 12tps

Also is this your fastest TPS you've gotten in a solve, excluding down-solves?

Joshua da costa emailed me his ZB spreedsheet at stevenage october im planning on using that and using cube heads tutorial for oll and pll

Also, also, I would recommend to leave ZB alone and learn full PLL then full OLL. Then work on your F2L, recognition of cases, look ahead, TPS, optimal algs, planning ability in inspection, good cross/xcross/cross+1 solutions. All before you should even consider ZB, since it will only slow you down. Now if you didn't want to get such an ambitious goal of sub 7 you could learn it if you wanted, like many solvers including myself, but since you want sub 7 it will only be a waste of time and effort.

 

[Thomas.Caleb]

I don't think you average nearly 80 moves, so either you don't have 8 TPS on average or you are one of the most inefficient solvers, though you don't know OLL or PLL so that might make it slightly more likely I still don't think you average 8 TPS. I'm not saying it's impossible but you're very similar to my level, at least for ao5, and I'd say I average around 6-7 TPS which usually gets me mid to high 8 solves. And from what I found its high 60 to low 80 moves for 4LLL, which would give you around 7 to 8 TPS, but I think you'd know most of PLL, hopefully, which would lower that, but even then 8 TPS is for the upper move count I found, so unless you are super inefficient I doubt you're reaching 8TPS on most solves.

Also is this your fastest TPS you've gotten in a solve, excluding down-solves?

Also, also, I would recommend to leave ZB alone and learn full PLL then full OLL. Then work on your F2L, recognition of cases, look ahead, TPS, optimal algs, planning ability in inspection, good cross/xcross/cross+1 solutions. All before you should even consider ZB, since it will only slow you down. Now if you didn't want to get such an ambitious goal of sub 7 you could learn it if you wanted, like many solvers including myself, but since you want sub 7 it will only be a waste of time and effort.

I have been told by James Alonso that my solves have TPS around 8 and my move count is between 75-80 on average my PB single was 51 moves

 

[Thomas.Caleb]

Joshua Da Costa’s ZBLL algorithms

docs.google.com

 

[Thomas.Caleb]

I don't think you average nearly 80 moves, so either you don't have 8 TPS on average or you are one of the most inefficient solvers, though you don't know OLL or PLL so that might make it slightly more likely I still don't think you average 8 TPS. I'm not saying it's impossible but you're very similar to my level, at least for ao5, and I'd say I average around 6-7 TPS which usually gets me mid to high 8 solves. And from what I found its high 60 to low 80 moves for 4LLL, which would give you around 7 to 8 TPS, but I think you'd know most of PLL, hopefully, which would lower that, but even then 8 TPS is for the upper move count I found, so unless you are super inefficient I doubt you're reaching 8TPS on most solves.

Also is this your fastest TPS you've gotten in a solve, excluding down-solves?

Also, also, I would recommend to leave ZB alone and learn full PLL then full OLL. Then work on your F2L, recognition of cases, look ahead, TPS, optimal algs, planning ability in inspection, good cross/xcross/cross+1 solutions. All before you should even consider ZB, since it will only slow you down. Now if you didn't want to get such an ambitious goal of sub 7 you could learn it if you wanted, like many solvers including myself, but since you want sub 7 it will only be a waste of time and effort.

My fastest TPS solve was a 5.96 with 12.16 TPS

 

[Thomas.Caleb]

Yeah, somewhat along these lines, but H isn't a great set to learn in its entirety, even though it has the least algs. It would be the best to learn no ZBLL, all of one OCLL, with U, T, and L being the best 3 to learn first, or learn all 2GLL minus sune, anti-sune if you don't want to learn them. Since 2GLL has easy recog and most algs are RU with some being RUS or RUF/RUD since sometimes the RU algs aren't great. But learning some algs isn't that good since you will be pausing to recognise if it's one of the few algs you know, so at least learn all 12 algs for each CP set if you're going to learn any ZB so you're not pausing to recognise if you even know the case since that will be way slower.
Though at your level learning ZB won't be a great use of time for the amount of benefit you'll get. Since it seems like you're around low 10 based on your PB ao100 only being 9.89, so just working on your F2L will give you the most benefit based on the effort put in. There are many places you can look at to improve your F2L, and many videos you can watch. So you should probably work on getting cross+1 down and knowing efficient solutions for any F2L cases that you think are slow.

My average more like 8.8 - 9.3 on 3x3 I just have not done a ao100 in a while