F2L without cuberotations vs lookahead

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Rudinie

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Hi everyone,
i know that pretty much everywhere here lookahead is given as THE advice to improve ones F2L. However cuberotations are to be avoided as much as possible as well. Here lies my problem. I've been cubing for little over a year now and my average is finally well under 30, somewhere in the low 27's i'd say on average with a PB-non lucky of 20.40. I noticed that i tend to rotate the cube pretty often during F2L. There is a couple of algs that i know that avoid cuberotations but i hardly ever use them when i'm timing my solves. An example: setup: L'U'LU'y' and then to solve: l2'B'R'BR'.
I can execute this very fast with nice fingertricks but i need to regrip the left hand to put my thumb on the center yellow cubie thats on top. This takes some time. The whole execution of this is without a doubt faster than UyL'UL but it does hurt my lookahead pretty much.
So my question is: do i just need to incorporate these moves in my solves and will my brain get used to it more and more or should i just stick with the UyL'UL ?

On a sidenote, when you find a pair during your F2L, do you instantly know if it needs a cuberotation? If so, do you decide to quickly search for another pair or do you start the insertion of that pair nevertheless?

I'm pretty curious to see what you think of all this. Thanks in advance.
 
Lack of cube rotations is one of the reasons I switched to ZZ. No rotations during F2l ftw.
 
I never thought cube rotations were that big of a deal. You should start watching out for them once you get Sub-20. At your speed, it won't make much of a difference.
 
I think you are going on too harsh on cuberotations.
In my opinion, cube rotations are fine as long as you do one or two 90° rotation during the F2L. y2s are obviously completely out of the question.
One or two y-rotations during the F2L are entirely okay just as long as it doesn't ruin your look-ahead. If you completely lose your look-ahead when you do a y you need to continue practicing on your look-ahead. You should be be well comfortable enough with your lookahead that rotating the cube once or twice will not affect your planning.

Oh, and regarding your problem, use F and R's. Put your thumb on the center piece and use F, F', R and R'. You do not need to execute them fast. You can easily go sub-20 by slow-turning and eliminating unneccesary moves. Oh... that and full PLL helps.
 
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a little trick to know if a pair needs a cube rotation is if you can see that the f2l pair is a 2 gen case, as long as you only use LUR to solve any other part of the cube the pair your tracking will still be 2 gen (i.e not needing a cube rotation)
 
Rudinie said:
Hi everyone,
i know that pretty much everywhere here lookahead is given as THE advice to improve ones F2L. However cuberotations are to be avoided as much as possible as well. Here lies my problem. I've been cubing for little over a year now and my average is finally well under 30, somewhere in the low 27's i'd say on average with a PB-non lucky of 20.40. I noticed that i tend to rotate the cube pretty often during F2L. There is a couple of algs that i know that avoid cuberotations but i hardly ever use them when i'm timing my solves. An example: setup: L'U'LU'y' and then to solve: l2'B'R'BR'.
I can execute this very fast with nice fingertricks but i need to regrip the left hand to put my thumb on the center yellow cubie thats on top. This takes some time. The whole execution of this is without a doubt faster than UyL'UL but it does hurt my lookahead pretty much.
So my question is: do i just need to incorporate these moves in my solves and will my brain get used to it more and more or should i just stick with the UyL'UL ?

On a sidenote, when you find a pair during your F2L, do you instantly know if it needs a cuberotation? If so, do you decide to quickly search for another pair or do you start the insertion of that pair nevertheless?

I'm pretty curious to see what you think of all this. Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...


I see you found the l2'B'R'BR' trick. I like it a whole bunch, but it kind of scatters the other cubies in a strange way which affects lookahead. I'll usually eat the cube rotation here unless it's the very last pair. Occasionally I'll use it to preserve or break up a stuck pair--but you need to become familiar with which cubies it trashes and which ones it preserves.
 
Here's a trick I used to find useful when I did Fridrich-

Just do R U R' y' to set up. Instead of rotating, I find it easiest to do f R' f'. I actually figured this out when I realized that this was how I was finishing up one of my G-perms lol.
 
Nice trick, Anon. :) I never though of that. I may start using it.

I also use an alg to insert a pair without cube rotations. Set up with R' F R F'.

To avoid a cube rotation, I like to do r U R' U' M.

It's practically a sexy move and can be done sub .90 with hardly any practice. However, like the OP's alg, it does seem to kill look ahead a little.
 
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lol new jperm (for me atleast)

sledghammer, r U R' U' M, U, Sune

not as good as the RUF/niklas+sune ones but cool nonetheless

EDIT: azn, M is relative to L (stupid, I know) so the M' you put is actually an M
 
Rpotts said:
lol new jperm (for me atleast)

sledghammer, r U R' U' M, U, Sune

not as good as the RUF/niklas+sune ones but cool nonetheless

EDIT: azn, M is relative to L (stupid, I know) so the M' you put is actually an M
Click to expand...
Heh. This lead to me "making" this 2x2 "j" perm:
R' F R F' R U2 R' U R U2 R'

It's really not bad! (I'm guessing that it's already been found, though :( )
 
fatboyxpc said:
Rpotts: Use this J perm, it's RUR'F' T perm until solved (meaning you don't finish out the T perm)

R U R' F' R U R' U' R' F R2 U' R' U'
Click to expand...

lol that's the RUF one I was talking about
I know it, it's my main alg I use for that case

And really it's just tperm except the last four moves are put in front
 
Rpotts: Good call, I'm not sure why I didn't notice that earlier, hah.

TrollingHard: Stachuck mentioned in his post about the finding the J perm how it was for 2x2.
 
fatboyxpc said:
Rpotts: Good call, I'm not sure why I didn't notice that earlier, hah.
Click to expand...

Yea i've had a weird history with the Tperm/Jperm similarities

I used to think the J was the exact same as T except the fourth move(U/F')
then I realized they weren't as similar as I thought.
Then woner told me it was the first four moves/last four moves.
lol
 
thanks everyone for the answers. I'll try to be a little less harsh on the cuberotations and focus more on lookahead. Just one or two cuberotations during f2l won't hurt my lookahead but sometimes i just find myself in a situation where every one of the four pairs i want to insert just comes out wrong and need a cuberotation. That offcourse is not what i want.
One of the things that bugs me a lot is case Dd4 from Dan's cubestation:
http://www.cubestation.co.uk/cs2/index.php?page=3x3x3/cfop/f2l/frdd
I'm using this one: d' L' U L d R U' R' but i think i might have to go with the
R U' R' U' R U' R' U R U R' one but that one for me is not intuitive.
 
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