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How to improve at square-1

ArcticxWolf

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Here is the alg I use for Kite/Square

/(-1,0)/(2,0)/(-2,0)/(2,0)/(-1,0)/(-3,0)/
& mirrored
/(0,1)/(0,-2)/(0,2)/(0,-2)/(0,1)/(0,3)/

Thanks! That's actually much better than the one I use.

I find it a bit hard to believe that you can easily be as fast at sq-1 as you are at 3x3. Like, I avg 4x as much on sq-1.

Nice, site, though. :tu If I get more serious about sq-1, I'll know where to go.

I learned all 57 olls, 21 plls, and several F2L cases, and I'm averaging about 17. I've also been solving the 3x3 for a long time. For the square-1, I know about 20 algs in total, and I'm averaging about 20. I've only been practicing square-1 for a short amount of time. Perhaps its just me, but give it a try anyway, you never know!
 

ArcticxWolf

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Sorry about double post. I made some minor corrections, fixed the formatting, and added a link to vcuber's parity site, which is found here:

square1parity.webs.com

Go on it if you want to learn more about parity.

I also imported all of the EPs from the spreadsheet I'm using.

EDIT: I removed the EPs because the formatting screwed up when I saved it. When I figure out how to do it, I'll repost them.

You made a whole website devoted to square-1, cool, but hopefully you didn't spend money on it. How do you cut corners on a square-1, my pieces all fall out when i try (i have a cubetwist).

Umm, well, I use an MF8. In the hardware section of the website, i mention this:

Recently, there has been a lot of controversy over the Cubetwist square-1 and the MF8 square-1. Personally, I recommend the MF8 square-1 because

a) it will improve your accuracy

b) it will get better as you do

and c) it doesn't pop.

As for how to make cubetwist stop popping, I'm really not sure. There simply isn't enough information on this cube right now because it's so new. The only thing I can tell you right now is just keep playing with it and see what happens. Sorry I couldn't help :(
 
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Neo63

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There's a mod by katchan from mf8 for cubetwist square-1s. PM me if you want more details, although I highly doubt I'll take time to translate the entire document though.

And why is every Torontonian square-1`solver making websites now? lol I'm working on mine right now, and it will *hopefully* be done in a few weeks (yeah I know, I'm slow at stuff).
 

TMOY

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I find it a bit hard to believe that you can easily be as fast at sq-1 as you are at 3x3. Like, I avg 4x as much on sq-1.
My times at sq-1 and 3^3 are roughly the same. And I've already gotten sub-20 avgs of 5 at sq-1, at 3^3 my best are in the high 22s.
I've practiced sq-1 more than 3^3 recently, though.
 

Mike Hughey

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I thought I'd mention: the only 4 edge perm algs I actually use in speedsolves are adj-adj, opp-opp, adj on top (my only parity algorithm), and U on top (well, okay, I know the U both directions - but only on top). I'm basically sub-40 with that, despite turning slow and being fairly bad at cubeshape. I'm pretty sure Dan Cohen set the WR average on square-1 (a long time ago, but still - 16 seconds isn't bad) with little more than that. So while it certainly helps to know lots of edge perm algs, you can get surprisingly fast without it. Which is helpful if you don't practice that much. :)

Also, I see you said the following: "Rule of thumb: If it's more than 5 moves and not opposite fist or kite-square, you did something wrong." According to my list, there are quite a few 6 move cases - 17 total. Are these just non-optimal? I took these cases from the old lists, so I didn't generate them myself - maybe they aren't optimal? Or maybe you were just generalizing, and it's not actually true?

But sorry for my nitpicking - it is a really nice website.
 

vcuber13

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i agree with you mike 100%, i average about 20 and only know adj-adj opp-opp adj-opp opp-adj 2 parities one parity cp and h and z perms (not even u perms). and also as far as i know your cubeshapes are optimal in twist metric
 

mmitchev

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I've just recently started square-1 and I've learned a beginner method that's a mix of kungfumanchoo and SinaC's tutorials, but the only thing I can't get is parity. I just want to learn the adjacent edge parity because then I would just do another Permutation afterwards like in kungfumachoos tutorial. Are there any easy parity algs or tricks or trigger to memorize or do I have to just grit my teeth and memorize it?
 

MTGjumper

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All of my comp averages have been done with ~15 EP algs :p

@ mmitchev: have you looked at this tutorial? I learnt from that video. I still use the O perm (parity) alg he uses, and it can be sub-2.5'ed. It's an easy alg to remember (get to a point with 6 corners on U, do a (2,0) then reverse the moves and solve corner separation) and quite versatile.
 

Thunderbolt

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You should made shape using muffin- kait
learn all EO
learn all CO
learn all EP algs for top side and :
adj-adj parity
epp adj
epp- epp
and eventually learn those one sides algs for bottom layer
 

MTGjumper

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You should made shape using scallop-kite
Do not learn all EO, but instead learn the single swap, opp-opp swap and adj-adj swaps
learn all CO (Not many algs, and all easy to learn
Do not learn all EP algs. Instead learn adj parity, O perm (both cw and ccw), adj-adj, opp-opp, adj-opp, opp-adj, and H, Z and O-opp on top and bottom (all effectively MU algs). These are all easy algs and you can easily sub-20.
too short
 

ArcticxWolf

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I'm just going to clear a couple of things up:

@Mike (and Simon partly):
Yea, I know what you mean about only using a couple of algs for square-1. I actually only use about 10 EPs in total (including mirrors).

The reason why I recommend learning so many algs when the times are so high is because of recognition issues. If you can learn all EOs at 50s, when 3s recognition isn't THAT bad, then in the future, your recognition with those algs will be much better than someone who used only the 1-1swap and 2adj-2adj swap untill 20s, then suddenly having to learn a whole bunch of new cases, when even 1s of recognition is a lot. I just don't see the disadvantage of learning algs earlier other than the fact that it'll take longer for your times to improve.

This is especially true for myself because I use the alternate EO set that allows me to inspect CP while I inspect EO. This means that I want to be as familiar with the algs as possible so I can think ahead about the rest of the solve (namely CP) while I do the algs. While this may not be completely true for everybody because they may choose to learn other EO algs, "thinking"(looking) ahead is useful in general. This means lots of practice - I actually switched over to this alternate set at ~25s, and my times immediately rose to ~30s just because of recognition issues. I'm sure it's the same with lots of people - they don't learn algs, then when they do learn them, recog is the biggest obstacle - not the actual alg, but just knowing to do the alg, and how to hold the case. This is particularly important for sq-1 because sq-1 is quite "alg-recog-alg-recog-alg" based compared to other puzzles after cubeshape. I recommended learning a lot of algs early to eliminate (or at least reduce) the recognition problems. This is an attempt to improve slowly (timewise, i mean) at first, but then later on, they don't have to experience the recognition problems from new algs that plague many cubers (including me, i still can't recog a lot of EPs that I know fast). This allows them to have a much more "linear" timecurve instead of the logarithmic curve that most square-1 solvers have (this includes me too).

As for the second half, that's a mistake on my part. I'll fix that.

@jokerman:
I use this one, personally:

http://www.alchemistmatt.com/cube/square1list.html

I do see the usefulness of that link over this one though, I'll probably add both to the cubeshape section after I finish updating that (I have a really long section that I'm writing right now actually).

I actually have a lot of stuff to change / add atm, and webs.com's sitebuilder is really laggy for me, but this is what I plan to do in the future with this site:
a) Add a more advanced section (it's going to replace the sub20 page, which is currently useless)
b) Improve cubeshape section, including a detailed explanation of cubeshape theory and how it applies. This section will also answer why I made that (bad) generalization that mike caught a little while ago)
c) Clean up the rest of the site to match the "road to sub20" section.

Unfortunately, school is starting soon and I have homework already (QQ), so this might not happen for a while.
 
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vcuber13

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This is particularly important for sq-1 because sq-1 is quite "alg-recog-alg-recog-alg" based compared to other puzzles after cubeshape.
i dont agree with this, for the people of us who only know the basic eps, which is almost everyone, ep is kind of like cubeshape, you have to intuitively reduce the case to something like adj-adj which then leads to solved.
 

BC1997

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i dont agree with this, for the people of us who only know the basic eps, which is almost everyone, ep is kind of like cubeshape, you have to intuitively reduce the case to something like adj-adj which then leads to solved.

Agreed, you utilise the algs as you please and in any order you like.
 

MTGjumper

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i dont agree with this, for the people of us who only know the basic eps, which is almost everyone, ep is kind of like cubeshape, you have to intuitively reduce the case to something like adj-adj which then leads to solved.

Except it's got to the point for me that despite not knowing many EPs, I know how I would do any EP case with what I do know. It's basically one-look, but between 1 and 3 algs normally.
 
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