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Intuitively Solved 4x4 Rubik Cube Video

Joined
May 10, 2020
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11
Hi guys,

After 3 months of twisting and turning and breaking 3 cubes without knowing how to assemble them back together, I finally solved the 4x4 intuitively!

I solved the 3x3 intuitively in my teens so I thought I would challenge my patience again during quarantine and surprisingly I was able to figure out the 4x4 on my own. I didn't use known algorithms, methods or YouTube tutorials just because I have a tendency to make my life harder with difficulty and frustration.

anyway, I just wanted to share my solve here. It's kinda shameful in comparison to the one minute solves on this sub but I'm working on lowering my time!

Here's the link:

I really don't know any methods so I'm wondering if you guys can tell me if my solve is similar to the methods out there.
 

SenorJuan

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Sep 26, 2014
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That's definitely different to most people's intuitive solves, including my own. Generally, armed with the skills to solve a 3x3x3, it's natural to try and solve the Revenge in a way that favours 3x3x3 methods. This would mean completing the 4 centre-pieces on each face, as you did, then making every 'pair of edge pieces' somehow, which would then simplify the puzzle significantly.
You make the central-4's like I did, randomly ... it turns out it's simpler to be more methodical, and create two opposite 'central-4' groups. Then all the remaining 4 colours lie on the one 'belt' , and completing them is easier.
Do you always complete the solve with your method, or do you get a situation where 50% ( or 75% ) of the time it's 'unsolvable' and you have to re-solve a stage differently to achieve a solution ?
 
Joined
May 10, 2020
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I would say I can only solve it 75% of the time. It's odd because I don't have an exact way of doing it every time. I do the basics of the centers, the edges then the individual wing pieces but it could always end with a few pieces in parity or in random positions. How I solve it at the end stage is highly intuitive, it sounds odd but I solve it by "that looks right to me or feels right" it's almost instinctive when I twist and turn that I know if that's the right move or not. So there are certainly times when I get to unsolvable stages and I track backwards and try to fix it.
 

SenorJuan

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The inability to solve the puzzle 100% of the time is one of the worst features of the 4x4. (Back in the 80's when I was attempting to solve it, the worst thing was the terrible turning of the tight, unadjustable, 'Sebesteny' ball-cored mechanism, of course.)
I spent ages trying to get round my 1 in 4 success rate. I thought the identical centre-pieces held the secret, and I added extra stickers to them to identify each one, thinking that by solving them in 'correct sequence' I would benefit from it. I didn't. It was several years later when a college friend turned out to be a cuber, and he had a book containing the special algorithms that ended my solution problems. Until I eventually lost the bit of paper I wrote them on, of course. Thankfully someone subsequently invented the Internet, and I can now find hundreds of 'parity algorithms'....
 

Christopher Mowla

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It was several years later when a college friend turned out to be a cuber, and he had a book containing the special algorithms that ended my solution problems. Until I eventually lost the bit of paper I wrote them on, of course.
That book didn't happen to have a page like this at the end of it, did it?

And how long were the parity solutions (in half turns) in the book about? 15 moves? 50 moves?
 

SenorJuan

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That's tricky to recall, the actual algs were relatively short, but they messed up a lot of the puzzle so to actually use them took lots of turns. I think the 'OLL' alg was 5 or 6 moves, but it messed up 3 ( ? ) centres, and I had notes on the 'best' way to re-solve the centres without messing too much else up. And I solved the last layer 'edges then corners' , so I only discovered whether I needed the 'PLL' parity alg when I was left with two unsolvable corners. After using the alg, I had to re-solve the edges, then the corners again. Pretty tedious, I rarely bothered, if I had 'double parity' I would 'solve' it so the flipped dedge and the swapped corners were all in a neatly oriented line, that's close enough, eh?
I still have my original Revenge, and it wasn't called a Revenge, it was a Master Cube. I eventually obtained two more, with the intention of using one of them for spare parts. I'd used my engineering skills to repair at least three broken centre-pieces, using tiny steel 'Spirol' pins I got from work. With 24 centres, it seemed inevitable more would break, hopefully not the 'magic' two-piece one.
 

SenorJuan

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My intuitive solve also left the unsolved parts on the last layer. Making the final edge pairs was usually done with:

b' F R U R' U' F' b
or
f F R U R' U' F' f'

which solve 3 pairs on the last layer. I always struggled when there was only two degdes needed solving, I never found a neat way of only solving two, I had to make it 3 or 4, then retry ...
 

Christopher Mowla

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My intuitive solve also left the unsolved parts on the last layer. Making the final edge pairs was usually done with:

b' F R U R' U' F' b
or
f F R U R' U' F' f'

which solve 3 pairs on the last layer. I always struggled when there was only two degdes needed solving, I never found a neat way of only solving two, I had to make it 3 or 4, then retry ...
Oh, if you only knew back then that your sequence could easily be modified to be able to handle the two edge pairs!
 

SenorJuan

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I did try a few things out, I'm sure. I was pretty competent at 3x3 at the time ( low 30 sec solves... not bad for a 90 move solution, etc ), and knew that F R U R' U' F' could combine well with it's mirrors/inverses to solve a variety of 3x3 last layer cases, so I'm sure I tried the same principle out on those 4x4 algs, but clearly failed.
However ..... 35 years later, it's only taken me 5 minutes to come up with a solution, inelegantly described here:

b' F R U R' U' F' b ........ f' F' U' L' U L F f

which seems perfectly useable. Hmmm.
 

SenorJuan

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I don't know if Ms Cute is interested in other people's solutions strategies, but this is Chris Hardwick's way of making the six centres on a 4x4. He makes two opposite centres, leaving the 4 remaining ones on a central belt. Solving these last 4 can be done by holding the puzzle so the completed centres are on the L and R faces. This makes solving the remainder more ergonomic ( opinions vary etc )
http://www.speedcubing.com/chris/4-step1.html
http://www.speedcubing.com/chris/4-movelist1.html

I think it's OK to work around the belt in sequence, though this 'opposite pair , opposite pair' strategy is more algorithmic and potentially quicker.
 
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