[Help Thread] Hoya Discussion

[One Wheel]

What are my chances of making the cut? I was running around 3:00-3:30 with reduction, and I learned Yau 2-3 weeks ago and have done maybe 120-150 Yau solves. The part of me that likes competing is looking for hope, but the part that doesn't like getting up at 3:00 AM and then driving two hours is looking for excuses to skip it.

 

[~Adam~]

What are my chances of making the cut? I was running around 3:00-3:30 with reduction, and I learned Yau 2-3 weeks ago and have done maybe 120-150 Yau solves. The part of me that likes competing is looking for hope, but the part that doesn't like getting up at 3:00 AM and then driving two hours is looking for excuses to skip it.

What is your 3x3 average?
If less than 30 and you practice a lot in then next month then it's possible.
Drill your parity algs to get them as fast as possible.

 

[One Wheel]

That's about what I figured. I typically run ~40 seconds on 3x3, but I've had a handful of sub-30 singles. My plan at this point is to work exclusively on 4x4 until I get an average under 1:30 or I miss the registration deadline, whichever is first. If I'm close by then, and my schedule isn't too bad, I'll give it a shot. Looks like I'm running 8-9 seconds on OLL parity and 5-6 seconds on PLL parity. I hadn't thought of drilling those. It sounds like a good idea.

 

[mark49152]

Remember that for a cutoff you will get two shots at it, and even if you don't make the cutoff to proceed for an average, those two singles count as official results and will surely get you a PB. Why not register and compete anyway?

Regarding progress to 1:30, what are your splits? And after the Yau/Hoya step (first four dedges) what method are you using for edge pairing?

 

[Berkmann18]

I can typically average around 2:45-3:00 on 4x4 with Yau, and there is a competition in a month that I would like to compete at that has a 1:30 cutoff for 4x4. Should I:
a) Give up
b) Work on Yau
c) Learn Hoya

Option c, as it worked pretty well for me except I switched at a later stage when I was averaging using Redux/Yau

 

[Ninja Storm]

so I've been going back to Hoya as of late. Right now I'm doing HoYau again, based on how the centers are, though I lean towards Yau most of the time.

Every time I do Hoya, though, my cross edges are so much nicer than on Yau. I just hate Yau cross edges so much.

 

[One Wheel]

Regarding progress to 1:30, what are your splits? And after the Yau/Hoya step (first four dedges) what method are you using for edge pairing?

I'll try to get around to posting a video of a solve, and list splits for that one, later today or tomorrow. As to edge pairing, I watched this video, and pretty much do that except he does a Uw' slice and I prefer to do a Uw slice, so 3-2-3. Since I'm pretty sure I'm not going to switch to Hoya in the next month this conversation no longer has anything to do with Hoya, so if I get to posting that video it will be in the Yau discussion thread. Thanks!

 

[SpeedCubeReview]

So I just started trying HoYa after a recommendation from Josh Feran at the competition yesterday. Already I like t more than Yau. I feel much more consistent. My Yau Solves ranged from 1:10-1:50 but the first 10 timed solves with HoYa are between 1:27-1:40. I don't feel like I am getting as lucky pairs as with Yau but I don't get as lost when switching steps. It all flows together pretty well.

Any basic tips to watch out for so I don't get into any bad habits? I do white cross and am trying to switch between pairing blue/green and red/orange when starting. Does everyone do that or do a lot of people just stick to the same two colors (blue/green) for the first two centers?

 

[CLL Smooth]

I always either start with green/blue then move on to white/orange, or I start with red/orange and move on to white/blue.
And I always try to remember to keep red or blue on left.

 

[shadowslice e]

So I just started trying HoYa after a recommendation from Josh Feran at the competition yesterday. Already I like t more than Yau. I feel much more consistent. My Yau Solves ranged from 1:10-1:50 but the first 10 timed solves with HoYa are between 1:27-1:40. I don't feel like I am getting as lucky pairs as with Yau but I don't get as lost when switching steps. It all flows together pretty well.

Any basic tips to watch out for so I don't get into any bad habits? I do white cross and am trying to switch between pairing blue/green and red/orange when starting. Does everyone do that or do a lot of people just stick to the same two colors (blue/green) for the first two centers?

It's probably a good idea to be as CN as you are on 3x3 so if you are dual neutral, be dual neutral with Hoya. Also, if you get an already solved pair, you can save it in the BR or BL slots and if you get 2 you can do 3-3 edge pairing which can be very quick.

 

[mark49152]

I start with the easiest of red, orange, green or blue. Then the opposite, put them on L/R, then white centre for cross, then whichever colour is "down" from white on the M slice, and x2 before starting cross edges. If the first centre is easy enough I try to predict the second during inspection.

The advantage is less on 4x4 but on 5x5 it's definitely good to have four colours to choose from to start. IMHO, cross CN is pointless on 4x4+, at least with Hoya.

 

[SpeedCubeReview]

I always either start with green/blue then move on to white/orange, or I start with red/orange and move on to white/blue.
And I always try to remember to keep red or blue on left.

I was mixing up blue and green on the left incase there was a good red pair. Is it faster recognition or sort of like CN where it's better to practice it from the start?

The advantage is less on 4x4 but on 5x5 it's definitely good to have four colours to choose from to start. IMHO, cross CN is pointless on 4x4+, at least with Hoya.

Ya, I wasn't thinking of cross color neutral, just more the left and right colors being changed each solve.

 

[~Adam~]

For 4x4 I always have red on L and orange on R in either order 1st. Try to do blue before 'white' unless it's impractical to do so to give myself a look at what will become D as I finished the 'white' centre.

5x5 I start with anything except 'white' or yellow, do the opposite colour, then try to do what will be the B colour before doing 'white' once again to give myself a look at D.

 

[Berd]

For 4x4 I always have red on L and orange on R in either order 1st. Try to do blue before 'white' unless it's impractical to do so to give myself a look at what will become D as I finished the 'white' centre.

5x5 I start with anything except 'white' or yellow, do the opposite colour, then try to do what will be the B colour before doing 'white' once again to give myself a look at D.

'white'

 

[~Adam~]

'white'

Cos black

 

[CLL Smooth]

I was mixing up blue and green on the left incase there was a good red pair. Is it faster recognition or sort of like CN where it's better to practice it from the start?

Probably better to start out this way to be more CN. My way restricts which centers I do after my first two but helps me not mess up orientation.

 

[Hssandwich]

I average sub 50 with Hoya on 4x4 and sub 1:45 on 5x5. I solve blue/green as my F2C, then white and red. Colour neutrality does not really matter, but it can help (just like 3x3).

 

[Chree]

Probably better to start out this way to be more CN. My way restricts which centers I do after my first two but helps me not mess up orientation.

I think we talked about something kinda like this driving back from the last comp. Restricting yourself and not being CN does mean that you miss out on some easy/lucky cases with your non-starting colors, but it also forces you to figure out some difficult cases. Which can be good for practice. After doing it CN for a while, you get a pretty pretty good at figuring out what your last Center should be.

That all said, Hoya himself doesn't even restrict himself to opposite starting centers, and he's faster than all of us. So I think it's as much about picking a method and sticking to it as anything.

 

[Chree]

So I did a thing... kind of a Hoya v Yau analysis. The other day, I heard someone refer to Hoya as "objectively inferior to Yau" on 4x4, citing inefficiency. I sort of thought that way of thinking was done with by now, so I wanted to test it. The only objective test for efficiency that I could think to easily measure was movecount. So...

I did a Mo12 of movecounts and broke it down by F4C, Hoya Cross, L2C, with Total. This leaves off at L8E, where we merge with Yau. I tried to do what I thought I'd do in an actual solve, not taking too much time to influence better cases. The Results:

F4C: 25, 17, 23, 23, 24, 24, 20, 21, 23, 29, 20, 24 = 22.75
Hoya Cross: 21, 28, 27, 31, 27, 41, 30, 24, 28, 28, 33, 33 = 29.25
L2C: 10, 9, 10, 6, 11, 11, 10, 8, 11, 8, 5, 9 = 9.00
Total: 56, 55, 60, 60, 61, 76, 60, 53, 62, 65, 58, 66 = 61.00

I went to the Reconstruction Database to start comparing. I used World Records set using Yau, figuring those were representative of potential. Singles usually have lucky cases, for instance Feliks' WR single of 21.54 (when combining moves like U' U' into just U2) took 49 STM moves to get to L8E. So I looked at Averages instead. 3 were available:

Mats Valk at German Open 2012: 33.57.
Moves to L8E: 55, 59, 54, 62, 56. Mo5 was 57.2.

Sebastian Weyer at Aachen Summer Open 2012: 30.81.
Moves to L8E: 58, 48, 50, 53, 55. Mo5 was 52.8

Sebastian again at Frankfurt Cube Days 2014. 28.15.
Moves to L8E: 65, 55, 62, 62, 58. Mo5 was 60.4.

So... what I gather from this is that while Yau could be more efficient than Hoya, the gap is not nearly as wide as people make it out to be. Sebastian's 28.15 average especially showed this.

Obviously there's a lot more to each method than just movecount. There are different movesets being used at different steps. There's different uses of rotations. There's differences in recognition, lookahead, algs, just to name a few. So this is not the definitive way to judge the methods. It is food for thought, though.

Edit: the person who I quoted at the beginning has since retracted the word "objectively" after reading this post :-D

 

[~Adam~]

I just had a look to see how Jong-Ho and Rob have done compared to each other in their 3 most recent common competitions (World's, ABhC and Notts (I hope I didn't miss any between those)).

Hoya is up 5-4

I'm not implying that that means anything, I was just curious.