• Welcome to the Speedsolving.com, home of the web's largest puzzle community!
    You are currently viewing our forum as a guest which gives you limited access to join discussions and access our other features.

    Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free so please, join our community of 40,000+ people from around the world today!

    If you are already a member, simply login to hide this message and begin participating in the community!

Have I Reached my Limit?!

hisoka

Member
Joined
Aug 15, 2008
Messages
12
Here's my story:

I was cubing in the Library using MobileCube Scrambler installed in my cellphone, when I encountered an amazing scramble and solved it in 26.xx, considering that I am an inconsistent sub30 cuber, it was a pretty good solve for me, but i was not satisfied, i want a sub20 solve! So out of my curiosity if i can reach a sub20 solve, i repeated the scramble and solved it again, and of course my time improved, i solved the scramble and got a time of 24.xx secs, but after solving it a couple of times I never got a sub20 solve, my best time was 23.xx secs, I was so dissappointed.

And now I ask my self, Can I still be a sub20 solver? Because even if I repeatedly solve this scramble I cannot obtain a sub20 solve, how can i break that barrier if even this single scramble prevents me from obtaining that elusive sub20 solve...educate me.

Here's the scramble:
U L' D B2 R' L' D' R2 U F2 R2 B' L' F2 R' D2 L2 R U2 R L2 D2 B F' D
And here's my solution:
Cross: R L2 F D L U' R
1st Pair: d R' U2 R U2 R' U R
2nd Pair: y' R' U R
3rd Pair: U2 R U2 R' d' L U' L'
4th Pair: y' R U' R' d R' U R
OLL: U (R U R' U R' F R F' U2 R' F R F')
PLL: y' (M'2 U M'2 U M' U2 M'2 U2 M' U2)


Can you give me your thoughts on this one?
You can also post your own solution to the scramble... Thank you!
 

Mike Hughey

Administrator
Staff member
Joined
Jun 7, 2007
Messages
11,304
Location
Indianapolis
WCA
2007HUGH01
SS Competition Results
YouTube
Visit Channel
That's not a bad solve in terms of number of moves. You can probably still get much faster with that solve, but it might take a lot of practice.

I tried what you're doing for a while on several solves, and I remember one particular scramble where I wasn't able to get under 23 seconds after 50 attempts! But I am now convinced that a large part of the problem is that I needed (and still need) to work on my fingertricks (in particular, how I hold the cube while doing them), and there will be room for me to improve. I'm still hoping to average sub-20 someday, and I still think that's possible, despite having exactly the same experience as you.

I'm averaging just under 30 right now, so I'm probably about the same level as you.

Edit: Also, to give yourself confidence, try another scramble. I had another scramble the same day I hit that one where I was able to get sub-18 on it, and sub-20 almost consistently. So this one is probably a particularly bad one for you, in terms of how you're executing it.
 

shelley

chang
Joined
Apr 23, 2006
Messages
1,683
WCA
2004CHAN04
If you've done the solve over and over, I guess you already know it pretty well and don't have to spend any time looking ahead. Any issues slowing you down would then be execution issues. Practice fingertricks, practice your OLL/PLL algorithms. Some people may recommend PLL time attacks, in which you do all 21 PLLs in succession just to practice algorithm execution. The same can be done with OLLs. This is advice I have yet to take myself (I only do PLL attacks semi-regularly and I've never done an OLL time attack), but Lucas Garron says it'll help me with my ridiculously slow last layer.
 

Skrato

Member
Joined
Nov 25, 2007
Messages
29
From what I see, the only good thing about this scramble is the pretty easy cross solve. Apart from that, the slove is actually a bit clumsy in my opinion. I would try and do a cross that doesnt give you a f2l pair with a flipped edge. I got 26 secs on my first try, which is pretty bad for a warm up for me, with avg about 22.
 

Vulosity

Member
Joined
Jul 14, 2008
Messages
962
Location
FL, USA
YouTube
Visit Channel
You need help on the cross. And the 3rd and 4th F2L case. There was a pair already there but you went and solved the other pair. PLL was great. And for OLL, that was a horrible case. I would've done partial egde control and gotten a better case. Hope this helps.
 

hisoka

Member
Joined
Aug 15, 2008
Messages
12
Thank you guys.
Since most of you pointed out that ,my solution isn't actually the best one, this makes me realize that there is still room for improvement, and I can still improve my times.

@Vulosity: I saw what you pointed out regarding the 3rd and 4th pairs, i tried it but ended up the same OLL, hahaha... i really have to learn partial last layer control...
 

hisoka

Member
Joined
Aug 15, 2008
Messages
12
so its not at awesome scramble scramble afterall, maybe i'll find the right scramble someday that will give me my much awaited sub20 solve. LOL
 

hisoka

Member
Joined
Aug 15, 2008
Messages
12
My gratitude to those who spent time posting their ideas in this topic, now my hopes are up in obtaining that most awaited sub20 solve.

Last night while doing an average of 50 solves, i almost got a sub20 on my 38th solve, 20.22! Because of this I am pretty sure I am still far from my limit.

And for the question, "Is There a Limit in Cubing?"

For me, of course there is, one day, each one of us will just stop cubing because we find ourselves not improving anymore, and yes, even nakajima and other great cubers out there will reach their limit. they will grow up, and proceed to other endeavors that they find amusing, where they will find new growth.
 
Top