I need a wee bit of help with CFOP

[cyoubx]

Hi all!

I don't really like making threads, but I have some questions (really sorry if this shan't have been made)

I now average 17-19 seconds, and I don't really know where to go from here.
Is there something I can do besides brute-force practicing?

What I know:
Cross: 1-3 seconds
F2L: Intuitive (8-10) seconds
OLL: ~2 seconds (51/57), otherwise 4 seconds for the remaining 6 cases
PLL: 2-3 seconds (all)
Misc (pauses/lockups): ~2 seconds

I just shot an average of 5 video (for a challenge, hence the annotation) that might help see my problems.

Times: (16.18), 19.25, 16.89, 18.81, (21.92), AVG: 18.32

Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks in advance, and sorry if this didn't deserve a thread.

 

[jiggy]

Well, you've got a few seconds on me, so I hesitate to offer advice, but I did notice you had a short pause between cross/F2L in most of your solves. Perhaps you could try tracking your first few F2L pieces while you're making the cross, rather than focusing on what you're doing. Perhaps practising the cross blind would be helpful in this?

 

[cyoubx]

Any advice helps. I rewatched it, and I agree, I do have poor transition from cross to F2L. I can do the cross blind, but somehow, I have a terrible pause. Also, are there good X-cross tutorials out there?

 

[FatBoyXPC]

You've got a couple seconds on me as well, but I'll try to throw my two cents in? I've often noticed a lot of times not only do people need help seeing what's wrong, but learning how to fix it. I know a lot of my issues but I don't always know the best way to go about solving them.

Have you timed your PLL executions to see how long they take? I wasn't paying much attention to the time spent on them while watching the video, not to mention with the light I wasn't able to follow your PLLs that close. I also wasn't able to see your OLL cases due to the angle. Next time you take a video try to get more of an above view as well and with more light from the front (the light was behind the cube so everything in front was darker. You need the light behind the camera )

Back to your solves. Your cross seemed to take more than 3 seconds on a few of those solves (it was around 4 seconds on your first one, that might have just been a tough case though). I completely agree with jiggy about tracking the F2L pair during cross. You could also work on tracing out a pair during cross inspection so that way you'll know exactly how to execute pair 1 right after cross (look ahead for this is already done) and you get the whole time of cross + pair 1 to find pair 2. I was doing this for a bit (but it takes me forever to trace out a pair during inspection) and I was able to get an idea of where pair 3 would be at before I even executed pair 2. During pair 2's execution I was able to plan 3 and see 4. My look ahead was much better when I already had my first pair planned out.


I wasn't able to follow your F2L that closely but you seemed to have very few (and of those few, they were short) pauses. When you say F2L takes 8-10 seconds is that including cross? I try to get my cross + F2L in 12 or better and that almost (as long as I don't mess up execution, but recog can take about 1s for oll/pll each longer (than it normally would) this way) guarantees me sub20. You might want to work on multislotting tricks (not real advanced stuff but hiding made pairs, etc), different insertions to not break up pairs, etc. I notice a lot of your pairs have a somewhat lengthy move count (much like mine do, I definitely need to optimize my F2L). Work on finding ways to optimize the F2L. Have a look at the thread Escher (Rowan Kinneavy) made about F2L tips and look ahead.

Which 6 OLL cases do you not know? If they are the dot cases you can just use partial edge control to not need to know them anymore.

Your PLL has a somewhat lengthy pause. Maybe work on 2 side recognition? Stachu made a great pdf tutorial on it. 2 side recognition + all PLLs sub2 would put you close to that 15 mark as it is, much less if you incorporate the rest of my post, I'm hoping it'd be just enough to nudge you into consistent 15-16 averages.

 

[cyoubx]

Next time you take a video try to get more of an above view as well and with more light from the front (the light was behind the cube so everything in front was darker. You need the light behind the camera )

Thanks for that tip, and all the others.

The cross almost never takes more than 3 seconds - I was trying to find my first pair in the first solve, so I slowed down a tad on my execution (to no avail). Actually planning out the first F2L pair is something I haven't tried, so I'll try to utilize it from now on, and see what happens.

My F2L time breakdown does not include cross - this means I definitely still need to work on it, haha

The cases I don't know are some small L cases and a couple dot ones.

I do know 2 side recognition; I think in the video, some of the stuff was AUF.

Thank you for all the references to other sources as well, this really helped me.

 

[bluedasher]

I average what you average (Most of the time) and this is my solve breakdown...

Cross = 1-3 sec.
F2L (with cross) = 8-10 sec.
OLL (2 look) = 3-4 sec.
PLL (Full) = 2-3 sec.

Now on some occasions with F2L my time may spike to ~11 sec. , but it rarely exceeds 10 sec. The only real difference I see is the F2L. Work on F2L and cross to F2L transitions to get your time down to 8-10 sec. (including cross). If I knew full OLL I would probably be close to sub 15 with practice so all I am trying to say is keep up the practice BTW I never did that cross blindfolded crap. It just never seemed to help

 

[Rpotts]

^If your pb avg is 17.52 then your breakdown doesn't really add up. The breakdown ranges from 8+3+2=13 to 10+4+3=17. You probably really average around 20 or just below, the breakdown probably needs an extra second or two for some steps.

 

[Andrew Ricci]

I average what you average (Most of the time) and this is my solve breakdown...

Cross = 1-3 sec.
F2L (with cross) = 8-10 sec.
OLL (2 look) = 3-4 sec.
PLL (Full) = 2-3 sec.Now on some occasions with F2L my time may spike to ~11 sec. , but it rarely exceeds 10 sec. The only real difference I see is the F2L. Work on F2L and cross to F2L transitions to get your time down to 8-10 sec. (including cross). If I knew full OLL I would probably be close to sub 15 with practice so all I am trying to say is keep up the practice BTW I never did that cross blindfolded crap. It just never seemed to help

I doubt it.

Of course it helps. It isn't necessarily throwing on a blindfold and doing the cross, just knowing the moves you will do in order to finish the cross without making sure you are right. This way, you can focus on finding your first and second pairs.

BTW, your breakdown is totally messed up.

 

[hic0057]

http://www.cubefreak.net/speed/cfop/tips.html http://www.cubefreak.net/speed/cfop/index.html
The first links got tips and the second is a breakdown of how fast it need to be for each step.

 

[bluedasher]

I doubt it.

Of course it helps. It isn't necessarily throwing on a blindfold and doing the cross, just knowing the moves you will do in order to finish the cross without making sure you are right. This way, you can focus on finding your first and second pairs.

BTW, your breakdown is totally messed up.

Notice I say, "With practice" I think with practice and knowing full OLL while I'm averaging ~17-19 sec. I could get close to 15 sec. averages.

I just improved my cross by repeated practice. The cross blindfolded never helped me.

And how is my breakdown messed up? My worst solve scenario is 21 sec. counting the ~11 sec. F2L, (including cross). And my best solve would be ~15 sec. non-lucky, based on the numbers I gave.

 

[cyoubx]

Well, looking at your breakdown you would get 13-17 seconds. Nevertheless, your comment about cross/F2L transition was helpful.

 

[bluedasher]

Okay now I see whats missing...
Sorry theanonomouscuber
I probably get OLL and PLL a second slower than what I put. Probably OLL = 3-5 and PLL = 3-4 sec.
I average about 17-19 sec. so blah...
BTW I haven't updated my signature in a while.

 

[Joker]

Turn faster during F2L.
Not much faster, but a little faster.
Naturally, it will be harder at first, but with practice you will get there.

EDIT

Oh and remember to turn as fast as you can for the last F2L pair without locking/popping. UNLESS you want lookahead to OLL, but I'm pretty sure that is more advanced.

 

[cyoubx]

Okay, thanks. I can predict a couple OLL cases, but I suppose I should focus more on F2L, since OLL's are easy to recognize anyway.