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[Help Thread] Hoya Discussion

Chree

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Jong-ho is crazy. It is him, Aaron, and yourself that are faster than me in 4x4, and just Jong-ho and Aaron on 5x5. But I do not know for sure, Thats Why I want to figure out the rankings.

I've only been to one competition, Mid-Columbia, which was this past September, and I was using Yau for 4x4 and redux for 5x5 at the time.

I'll be using Hoya4 for the Seattle comp in February. I'll be sure to beat my official average, but I might not be able to beat my single. It was a lucky solve, and actually stood as my overall PB for months. I can't consistently sub1:10 yet. Hell... I don't even have a sub1 yet.

I'm working on the switch to Hoya5, but it needs a LOT of work to beat my redux times. The work I've been doing on 4x4 helps, but it's still a long road ahead. Plus my Shengshou 5x5 is pretty *****ty and I'm afraid to modify it.

Aaron won both 4x4 and 5x5 at Mid-Columbia. 4x4 was kinda close, but his 5x5 times were pretty far ahead of the competition. It's the main reason I haven't completely given up on Hoya5.
 

Joey VOV

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I'm not sure about hoya on 5x5. I feel like it is the small benefit of having the cross done at the cost of awkward last two centres and far too many moves. I'm interested to see how fast it will get on 5x5 by someone other than Jeong himself.

Last 2 centers really is not awkward at all, for me at least, all you have to do is move away cross edges which is only 4 moves total maximum. Plus you don't have to do any Z2 rotations during last 8 edges, and no rotations during the hoya cross. I think it works out well despite a high move-count. Also, Aaron has a 1:29.69 hoya5 average in comp, Followed by my 1:56.21 average. I think it still needs time to progress and can be a very fast method If we and other people practice it enough.
 

Gordon

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Sali :)

In general, I think most that you can do now is just practice solves without timing yourself. Just take it easy, "study" the cube, learn what moves do what, get comfortable with pattern recognition.

Merci :)

I'll try to do that. My problem is that I'm too impatient and when I have time to cube, I like to time myself. But you're right, I definitely should do this.
 

MarcelP

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Merci :)

I'll try to do that. My problem is that I'm too impatient and when I have time to cube, I like to time myself. But you're right, I definitely should do this.

I time about 5 solves per week on the 4X4. The ones for the weekly competition ;) I just did an Ao12 but outside of that I only slow solve 4X4 just because it is a fun puzzle (not to mic up with Funs puzzle ;) )
 

mark49152

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Yes, I will never go back. I think Hoya is easier.
It's growing on me although I'm still undecided. I like the idea of a structured phase for building cross edges much better than the freeform approach of Yau, where I always seem to do lots of rotations. However, initially I seemed to be using an awful lot of moves to do Hoya, although that's improving with practice. The tips and tricks videos in this thread are really helpful.

One trick I started using that seems to make it more efficient for me is to do a pseudo 3x3 cross phase. So after F4C, I put one cross edge piece in its correct position on each side, 3x3 style. No center slices needed so all sides can be turned freely. That's ~6 moves to do half the cross edge work. Then I use the Hoya inserts to go round and finish off.
 

Chree

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One trick I started using that seems to make it more efficient for me is to do a pseudo 3x3 cross phase. So after F4C, I put one cross edge piece in its correct position on each side, 3x3 style. No center slices needed so all sides can be turned freely. That's ~6 moves to do half the cross edge work. Then I use the Hoya inserts to go round and finish off.

^This...

Well... almost this. I've been doing that a lot lately. I was even thinking of mentioning it in the 2nd video I made, but figured it could wait. But if I see my cross color, I place it in the D layer immediately.

Also, I don't always do my Cross in exact clockwise of counter clockwise order either. For example: If I have just finished the Green pieces and see both the blues right in from of me, I'll D2 and do blue.

Nilsibert - I was practicing last night and built some edges in the U Layer! It was very exciting. I like how your Rw U Rw' Move for pieces in the U layer works for a LOT of different cases. I'm gonna play around some more and see if I stumble across anything else. If I find anything cool I'll show you on the youtubes.
 

Nilsibert

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^This...

Well... almost this. I've been doing that a lot lately. I was even thinking of mentioning it in the 2nd video I made, but figured it could wait. But if I see my cross color, I place it in the D layer immediately.

Also, I don't always do my Cross in exact clockwise of counter clockwise order either. For example: If I have just finished the Green pieces and see both the blues right in from of me, I'll D2 and do blue.

Nilsibert - I was practicing last night and built some edges in the U Layer! It was very exciting. I like how your Rw U Rw' Move for pieces in the U layer works for a LOT of different cases. I'm gonna play around some more and see if I stumble across anything else. If I find anything cool I'll show you on the youtubes.

I made a video about exactly this, because I discovered a lot of shortcuts using this technique, you can avoid a lot of bad cases with it. However the video turned out kinda embaressing :/ Maybe I'll redo it, but you're right, there's a lot of different cases where it works.
 

Chree

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One trick I started using that seems to make it more efficient for me is to do a pseudo 3x3 cross phase. So after F4C, I put one cross edge piece in its correct position on each side, 3x3 style. No center slices needed so all sides can be turned freely. That's ~6 moves to do half the cross edge work. Then I use the Hoya inserts to go round and finish off.

One other note about this... This is a very helpful technique because as you place the pieces you DO see, you might uncover the pieces you didn't. Meanwhile you're still doing something constructive, placing all the pieces you see, rather than just hunting around cube doing nothing.

It's most helpful on 5x5, since there more cross pieces to place and keep track of. But decision making gets a bit tricky because it's that much more likely you'll have cross pieces not-of-the-same-color wind up on the same dedge. Usually I'll just go with whatever I see first, and what would take less work to fix.
 

mark49152

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One other note about this... This is a very helpful technique because as you place the pieces you DO see, you might uncover the pieces you didn't. Meanwhile you're still doing something constructive, placing all the pieces you see, rather than just hunting around cube doing nothing.
I find it helps in two main ways. First, it's a much more efficient way of placing the first edge on each side, and the tricks are well known and practised from 3x3. It's actually easier than 3x3 because you usually have two choices for each edge. Secondly, it makes it more fluid to complete the dedges later because you only need one piece to complete each, so lookahead is easier. So if I'm inserting the second white/orange edge and I happen to see the white/red, it's a quick D2 and slam that piece straight in. No need to think about where the second edge is, or whether I can see both pieces for the next dedge.

Sometimes I will just do three edges rather than the full cross, if I can't find the fourth piece immediately, or if there are several wrong edges joined together. I've only done about 50-60 solves this way and so far I only once got in a situation where I had all remaining edges stuck in the cross in the wrong positions.

It's most helpful on 5x5, since there more cross pieces to place and keep track of. But decision making gets a bit tricky because it's that much more likely you'll have cross pieces not-of-the-same-color wind up on the same dedge. Usually I'll just go with whatever I see first, and what would take less work to fix.
Yeah I was thinking that on 5x5 I'd place the midges 3x3 style then use Hoya inserts for the wing edges, but I haven't tried it yet. I'm awful and 5x5 and don't practise it much.
 

Nilsibert

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One other note about this... This is a very helpful technique because as you place the pieces you DO see, you might uncover the pieces you didn't. Meanwhile you're still doing something constructive, placing all the pieces you see, rather than just hunting around cube doing nothing.

It's most helpful on 5x5, since there more cross pieces to place and keep track of. But decision making gets a bit tricky because it's that much more likely you'll have cross pieces not-of-the-same-color wind up on the same dedge. Usually I'll just go with whatever I see first, and what would take less work to fix.


On 4x4, I have to disagree. I think it's a bad idea to adopt the habit of placing whatever edge piece you find. You miss out on many awesome short ways of pairing/inserting and many times you will actually get yourself a pretty bad case when doing that. Sure, it's really hard to be fast and efficient if you don't do it, because there's more of a chaos and seemingly randomly placed edge pieces. In the end, however, I think it will pay off and the step can be done really fast. It takes much longer to get good at, but it's worth it I'd say.
 

Chree

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On 4x4, I have to disagree. I think it's a bad idea to adopt the habit of placing whatever edge piece you find. You miss out on many awesome short ways of pairing/inserting and many times you will actually get yourself a pretty bad case when doing that. Sure, it's really hard to be fast and efficient if you don't do it, because there's more of a chaos and seemingly randomly placed edge pieces. In the end, however, I think it will pay off and the step can be done really fast. It takes much longer to get good at, but it's worth it I'd say.

True. But if I don't immediately see anything I can take advantage of, this at least helps me know that SOME of the pieces are in the right place. I won't do this as often as "all 4 cross slots every solve", but I do use it.

For instance, say I finish F4C and I immediately see 1 orange cross piece, 1 blue, and 1 green piece.... and no partner pieces. It's very easy to place these, and you still have 1 free slot to play around with. Meanwhile, as you discover the partner pieces, you already know where the others are and don't have to go looking for them.

Obviously, I'd rather TRY to keep my attention on solving my first Cross Edge before moving on to the next, if I can. It's better to use your lookahead to find the partner pieces to the Cross dedges you've already got in place. But if I haven't found the 2nd orange piece by the time I spot both Greens, I'll place the orange, solve the greens, and I won't have to track that orange piece and can put my attention elsewhere.
 
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Chree

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Yeah I was thinking that on 5x5 I'd place the midges 3x3 style then use Hoya inserts for the wing edges, but I haven't tried it yet. I'm awful and 5x5 and don't practise it much.

I did some 5x5 solves last night. I am also terrible. I feel like I need a lot of help with Hoya5. A lot of my 4x4 techniques don't apply, and at the same time there's a lot more freedom with triple wide turns, like placing a flipped cross edge by doing 3R U2 3R'... makes me happy.

A lot of those tricks I've been using on 4x4 DO still work in very cool ways. I just have a lot of trouble with utilizing Look Ahead. When I get home tonight I might make a video soliciting advice from you all.
 

TDM

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I don't think I've ever seen a separate set of steps for 5x5 than 4x4
Well I was thinking of something different for 5x5. It kind of went in a circle really, starting with an idea from Hoya, away from it, and then back to Hoya.
I liked the idea of Hoya for 4x4, and thought that if you solved a 3x3x4 on the back, then paired the edges and solved the centres or something, and then solved, it could be an efficient method. Unfortunately, that didn't work at all, because you can only pair edges up to the point where the back pieces are solved before you have to solve the centres. So I thought of a method for 5x5 (I thought that, like Yau, it would be too inefficient on 4x4) in which you start the same as with Hoya, except you don't solve the front cross edge. Instead, you solve the two back F2L edges. You then AUF to make sure the corresponding corner isn't in UFL/UFR, and do an F2 to bring the edge into the U layer, and then solve it into the back. You do that for both F2L slots. Then you solve the centres, and then continue with reduction as you would do if you were doing 3-2-3 edge pairing on a 4x4, without the first 3.
Would it be any good? I'm not experienced at all with anything bigger than a 4x4, and have only recently switched to Hoya, so I don't know how fast something like this would be.
(EDIT: yes, I'm aware that it's very similar to Yau5, but I didn't actually think of that until after I'd thought of all this. I thought it'd be interesting to post anyway as no one has said anything like this yet)
 
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AyhanCubix

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I'm now using the Hoya method on the 4x4 and 5x5.I appreciate this method.I was using Yau for 4x4 and my average was 1:40-1:50 ,now with the Hoya method I average 1:05-1:15.My 5x5 time was 3:30 with 'first centers method' and now I average 2:45 :)
 
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