[Member Intro] Hello from Belgium

[tristof]

Hello,
I live in Liege, Belgium (20 minutes from Netherland, 40 minutes from Germany, 1h15 from Luxembourg and 1h30 from France).
I've been interested (obsessed?) in Rubik's Cubes since about the year 2000. I accumulated quite a large collection of puzzles over the years but always came back to the 3x3.
For this one, I was until about a year ago happy with the beginner method averaging about 1'25", never really trying to reduce it, thinking it would be too much work. But then, about a year ago, I decided to give it a try with a goal of reducing my average below 1 minute. I first focused on 2-look OLL and PLL but doing so, quickly realized that I absolutely needed to learn F2L too. After a couple of months, I reached my goal.
Recently, I learned full PLL and now have a 3x3 PB=31.155, ao5=37.377, ao12=41.305, ao100=46.754. I know I will soon have a PB below 30" but hopefully, could get an average below 30" if I keep practicing and improve my look-ahead ;-) Any tips would be appreciated.

Finally, I also taught my 8-year old son and he's learning much faster than me. After 5 months of cubing, he's averaging 1'10", regularly solving under 50" and even has a (luck) PB of 31", barely 0.5"slower than me.
Looking forward to nice discussions.
Christophe

 

[BenChristman1]

Welcome! Can you solve any other puzzles?

 

[WarriorCatCuber]

Bienvenue/Welkom/Willkommen

Also, if you want to get better times, you can start learning more advanced F2L techniques. Here is a list of optimal F2L solutions. I'd recommend learning most or all of them (you don't have to memorize the algorithms, if you look at what the moves do to the pieces you can probably learn how they work to understand them a little better and make them easier to learn)

 

[PetrusQuber]

Hello,
I live in Liege, Belgium (20 minutes from Netherland, 40 minutes from Germany, 1h15 from Luxembourg and 1h30 from France).
I've been interested (obsessed?) in Rubik's Cubes since about the year 2000. I accumulated quite a large collection of puzzles over the years but always came back to the 3x3.
For this one, I was until about a year ago happy with the beginner method averaging about 1'25", never really trying to reduce it, thinking it would be too much work. But then, about a year ago, I decided to give it a try with a goal of reducing my average below 1 minute. I first focused on 2-look OLL and PLL but doing so, quickly realized that I absolutely needed to learn F2L too. After a couple of months, I reached my goal.
Recently, I learned full PLL and now have a 3x3 PB=31.155, ao5=37.377, ao12=41.305, ao100=46.754. I know I will soon have a PB below 30" but hopefully, could get an average below 30" if I keep practicing and improve my look-ahead ;-) Any tips would be appreciated.

Finally, I also taught my 8-year old son and he's learning much faster than me. After 5 months of cubing, he's averaging 1'10", regularly solving under 50" and even has a (luck) PB of 31", barely 0.5"slower than me.
Looking forward to nice discussions.
Christophe

Welcome
At this point, just practising should be fine. I would suggest making sure all your algorithms/solutions for F2L are up to date and you know them decently, and then focus maybe trying to see where your cross pieces are in your 15 seconds of inspection, and planning beforehand.

 

[SH03L4C3]

welcome!

 

[the dnf master]

Welcome!

 

[tristof]

Welcome! Can you solve any other puzzles?

Thanks. Yes, I can solve almost all puzzles I own: all cube sizes (2 to 5), pyramid, megaminx, flower cube, X-cube Master,... I still have issues with Clock and Nintendo Barrel but never really took the time to investigate.
What about you?

 

[tristof]

Bienvenue/Welkom/Willkommen

Also, if you want to get better times, you can start learning more advanced F2L techniques. Here is a list of optimal F2L solutions. I'd recommend learning most or all of them (you don't have to memorize the algorithms, if you look at what the moves do to the pieces you can probably learn how they work to understand them a little better and make them easier to learn)

Thanks. I think I know all the F2L but I'll give a more detailed look at the algs from Felix in your list.
However, I loose a lot of time keeping track and searching for pieces, especially if neither the corner nor the edge of a given pair is in the top layer. Then, I usually end up bringing one of the to the top layer, then apply the regular strategy (pair and insert). Any advice on pairing where the 2 pieces are in different slots?

I also sometimes go too fast and end up with one pair with a reversed edge. Fortunately, I now know how to undo this and fixing the cross at the same time, which kind of saves me some of the time I lost.

 

[Llewelys]

Welcome!

Any tips would be appreciated

My biggest advice would be to completely forget about look ahead for now : you won't need it until your F2L is efficient and you're comfortable in your solutions (as in you can solve most cases in 8 moves or less, and you can execute your solutions blindfolded)
My second advice would be to work on cross efficiency (you can always solve it in 8 moves or less)

 

[abunickabhi]

Hello there and welcome to the forums!

You can check out twisty puzzles forum as well, as there is discussion about unofficial puzzles there.

 

[cuber314159]

Welcome

 

[BenChristman1]

Thanks. Yes, I can solve almost all puzzles I own: all cube sizes (2 to 5), pyramid, megaminx, flower cube, X-cube Master,... I still have issues with Clock and Nintendo Barrel but never really took the time to investigate.
What about you?

Nice! I can solve every WCA puzzle (not necessarily blindfolded), along with about 15-20 non-WCA puzzles.

 

[qwr]

Say hi to Lars Vandenburgh for me