elrog
Veteran
Sorry. This is long.
Hello. I've just recently started to get back into cubing after taking a 6+ year break. I quit when I had satisfied my curiosity for how it was done and solved many different types of cubes on my own. This go around I would like to see how quick I can get at 3x3. My goal is to average under 15 seconds, 12 would be nice. Currently I do 30. Glad to see that puzzle hardware has improved quite a bit.
Utilizing inspection is by far my weakest point... to the extent that my average without any inspection at all.. is still 30 seconds. And my personal best was set with no inspection. And when I did the test using inspection, It wasn't 15 seconds of it. It was 30+. So make of that what you will. The combination of scenarios that lead to this event are as follows: I use mainly CFOP. I almost exclusively do the same color cross. I often scramble so that there are no pairs of pieces formed on the cube (including a lined up center+edge).
First off, I would like to know what a breakdown of an inspection looks like. For all of you color neutral solvers out there, how much time is spent looking at cross options before deciding on one? How many do you typically check? Are you looking at multiple cross options at a time or assessing them individually? Assuming its done individually, how far into a cross do you look before deciding its good enough or whether to look for the next? Is there a phase after deciding a cross and the moves where you assess doing the finger tricks from different angles or is assessment of finger tricks done as you go and has an influence on the cross picked? (Roux users feel free to step in to. I'd be interested in learning inspection for a 1x2x3 as well.) And if say, you were limited in inspection to 5 seconds rather than 15, would you do it differently? Would you assess less options, not go as deep, or some combination of the two? If you knew scrambles were not going to leave easy blocks on the cube, would you go deeper with one option rather than assess multiple? Assuming you will have inspection time and hard scrambles, would you instead opt to solve with ZZ since it wouldn't really be effected as much by harder scrambles?
I can look at a piece or a few and easily know what moves will put them into place. Tracking multiple pieces around the cube as I turn the cube is harder (especially corner orientation if trying to do a 1x2x3 block), but with enough time, I can do it. Where I really fail is when it comes to the execution step where I try to do the moves I planned out. Its not the finger tricks. I can come up with half decent ones at least on the spot. Even if I take the extra time during inspection to plan out finger tricks for a cross, I still often end up executing it poorly (as evidence by my unchanged average). The sequence of moves isn't in muscle memory and so I have to think about which move to do next. And when trying to go fast, I often accidently do a move out of order which leads to pausing and second guessing the order as I'm doing them and I end up just thinking through the remainder of the cross on the spot as if there never was any inspection. I'm sure practice will help, but is there anyone else that has experience this issue before and would you have any additional tips for how to best practice? I know for F2L pairing, slow solving is a thing that people do. Is 'slow crossing' also a thing? Would that help to make sure I am getting the move order correct and then try to speed it up gradually? Or is the right way to practice just to imagine doing the turns and finger tricks repeatedly before actually doing them on the cube?
As for practicing color neutrality, when doing a single color I still have to pause and think about it when planning the cross which color goes clockwise or counter clockwise to another. When going straight in for a solve without inspection, I rarely have to deal with that. I often solve part of the cross and if the other cross parts don't come out into view, then I have to turn the cube to see them. Would that make learning color neutrality easier for me than is typical for people who have learned a color scheme? Or is it typical of those same people to also not know their color scheme in that way? The hardest part of the switch I think would be identify the edges for F2L. Is inspection usually the hard part for people trying to switch or is it typically the F2L? And should I practice learning which colors go where in relation to each other during inspection as they come up or should I look away, rotate the cube around, then look back while covering one side (of the three that would be visible in an isometric view) so I only see 2 centers and essentially quiz myself on what the covered center is?
And one last thing. Assuming I do not opt for ZZ whenever I decide to plan inspection out, would I be better off practicing inspection and color neutrality at the same time or practicing one before the other?
Hello. I've just recently started to get back into cubing after taking a 6+ year break. I quit when I had satisfied my curiosity for how it was done and solved many different types of cubes on my own. This go around I would like to see how quick I can get at 3x3. My goal is to average under 15 seconds, 12 would be nice. Currently I do 30. Glad to see that puzzle hardware has improved quite a bit.
Utilizing inspection is by far my weakest point... to the extent that my average without any inspection at all.. is still 30 seconds. And my personal best was set with no inspection. And when I did the test using inspection, It wasn't 15 seconds of it. It was 30+. So make of that what you will. The combination of scenarios that lead to this event are as follows: I use mainly CFOP. I almost exclusively do the same color cross. I often scramble so that there are no pairs of pieces formed on the cube (including a lined up center+edge).
First off, I would like to know what a breakdown of an inspection looks like. For all of you color neutral solvers out there, how much time is spent looking at cross options before deciding on one? How many do you typically check? Are you looking at multiple cross options at a time or assessing them individually? Assuming its done individually, how far into a cross do you look before deciding its good enough or whether to look for the next? Is there a phase after deciding a cross and the moves where you assess doing the finger tricks from different angles or is assessment of finger tricks done as you go and has an influence on the cross picked? (Roux users feel free to step in to. I'd be interested in learning inspection for a 1x2x3 as well.) And if say, you were limited in inspection to 5 seconds rather than 15, would you do it differently? Would you assess less options, not go as deep, or some combination of the two? If you knew scrambles were not going to leave easy blocks on the cube, would you go deeper with one option rather than assess multiple? Assuming you will have inspection time and hard scrambles, would you instead opt to solve with ZZ since it wouldn't really be effected as much by harder scrambles?
I can look at a piece or a few and easily know what moves will put them into place. Tracking multiple pieces around the cube as I turn the cube is harder (especially corner orientation if trying to do a 1x2x3 block), but with enough time, I can do it. Where I really fail is when it comes to the execution step where I try to do the moves I planned out. Its not the finger tricks. I can come up with half decent ones at least on the spot. Even if I take the extra time during inspection to plan out finger tricks for a cross, I still often end up executing it poorly (as evidence by my unchanged average). The sequence of moves isn't in muscle memory and so I have to think about which move to do next. And when trying to go fast, I often accidently do a move out of order which leads to pausing and second guessing the order as I'm doing them and I end up just thinking through the remainder of the cross on the spot as if there never was any inspection. I'm sure practice will help, but is there anyone else that has experience this issue before and would you have any additional tips for how to best practice? I know for F2L pairing, slow solving is a thing that people do. Is 'slow crossing' also a thing? Would that help to make sure I am getting the move order correct and then try to speed it up gradually? Or is the right way to practice just to imagine doing the turns and finger tricks repeatedly before actually doing them on the cube?
As for practicing color neutrality, when doing a single color I still have to pause and think about it when planning the cross which color goes clockwise or counter clockwise to another. When going straight in for a solve without inspection, I rarely have to deal with that. I often solve part of the cross and if the other cross parts don't come out into view, then I have to turn the cube to see them. Would that make learning color neutrality easier for me than is typical for people who have learned a color scheme? Or is it typical of those same people to also not know their color scheme in that way? The hardest part of the switch I think would be identify the edges for F2L. Is inspection usually the hard part for people trying to switch or is it typically the F2L? And should I practice learning which colors go where in relation to each other during inspection as they come up or should I look away, rotate the cube around, then look back while covering one side (of the three that would be visible in an isometric view) so I only see 2 centers and essentially quiz myself on what the covered center is?
And one last thing. Assuming I do not opt for ZZ whenever I decide to plan inspection out, would I be better off practicing inspection and color neutrality at the same time or practicing one before the other?
