How do I get sub 20?

[J-B]

I've been cubing since two or three months, and i learned the 4 look CFOP, that i still use. I am about to finish PLL, (i have to study only R and G perms.), but i am stuck at 27 seconds, with some good scrambles at 22.
I am able to plan the entire cross in most of the cases, and i do it in about 5-6 seconds, i usually do F2L in about 15 seconds. Then the LL in 7. I am trying to get faster, but i seem stuck. Some tips to get better?

 

[Ryann15778]

哇，我真的很佩服你！我玩魔術方塊兩三年了，成績一直徘徊在40秒左右。最近我在學習ROUX解法，平均成績剛過50秒，但我還是無法彈性運用F2L。

 

[ACubingDude]

finish learning PLL, and prob watch Jperm’s advanced f2l tutorial. It brought me from sub-30 to sub-25

 

[J-B]

Thank you both and good luck for the ROUX method to Ryann15778

 

[Michael Wimberly]

Try to work on lookahead during F2L, it is very important for sub 20. Also finish learning PLL. And for cross, don't just try to plan the whole cross in inspection, but also try to get it in 8 moves or less every time.

 

[J-B]

I also plan to pass to ZZ, will this be helpful in time to get fast times?

 

[Neil Mohacsi]

I've been cubing since two or three months, and i learned the 4 look CFOP, that i still use. I am about to finish PLL, (i have to study only R and G perms.), but i am stuck at 27 seconds, with some good scrambles at 22.
I am able to plan the entire cross in most of the cases, and i do it in about 5-6 seconds, i usually do F2L in about 15 seconds. Then the LL in 7. I am trying to get faster, but i seem stuck. Some tips to get better?

so true!!! I got a good scramble and got 23 secs, but I can never seem to reach sub 20. I need help too!

 

[Neil Mohacsi]

I also plan to pass to ZZ, will this be helpful in time to get fast times?

YES it will!

 

[blenser4]

Finishing full PLL and doing slow, deliberate F2L practice made the biggest difference for me. Once lookahead improves, the times tend to drop without forcing faster turning.

 

[BVCuber13]

YES it will!

no it won’t. ZZ is, in my opinion, one of the worst speedsolving methods. (Sorry Phil) you would have to plan out EOLine or EOCross in 15 seconds of inspection when you could be planning so much more with regular CFOP (cross+1, cross+2 and beyond if you’re really good). I understand that having all edges oriented will help during last layer but it won’t save much time, and in my case it actually loses time. So, my thoughts? Go with CFOP, not ZZ.

 

[cubemastery321]

You're closer than you think — your splits tell the story. Cross 5-6s, F2L 15s, last layer 7s adds up to about 27s, so the biggest single leak is actually your cross, not your last layer.

I'd attack it in this order:

1. Cross first. If you can already plan the whole cross, the next step is executing it in 2 seconds or under without watching the pieces. What worked for me was 10 minutes of cross-only practice at the start of a session: take the scramble, plan the cross in inspection, close my eyes and execute it, then check. Do that 10 times before any timed solves. Within a couple of weeks my cross dropped from 4-5s to around 2s, and that alone was worth several seconds off my average.

2. Finish PLL, but don't grind the algs in a vacuum. Learn the R and G perms one at a time and then force yourself to use them in timed solves the same day, even if recognition is slow at first — otherwise they'll never actually show up in your real solves.

3. For F2L, the slow-practice advice above is right, but make it specific: do an Ao12 where you cap your turning speed and your only goal is zero pauses between pairs. Don't look at the times, look at whether you paused. My slow-TPS Ao12s were ugly at first, but after a week of that my normal-speed solves stopped having those 1-2 second dead spots.

And on the ZZ question — I'd hold off. Switching methods now, when your F2L is 15 seconds, just resets the clock on the thing you most need to practice. Get sub-20 on CFOP first and you'll know your F2L well enough to make a real decision about ZZ later.