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[Help Thread] Is it necessary to always have another person scrambling the cube for you?

EmperorZant

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Every single position on the cube can be solved in 20 moves or less, any scramble longer than 25-30 moves are redundant.
That being said, the reason computer scrambles are being recommended to you is that computer scrambles guarantee a certain amount of randomness within a certain amount of moves; so it only takes 20 computer-generated moves to do what might take you 50 hand-scrambling moves, just because you might have to scramble a bit more until you're sure you don't have an advantage.

Because technically, you can insufficiently scramble... but if you use common sense (like you already did in your post!), you know that hand-scrambling is always somewhat unreliable, and should only be done for fun or if you don't have a scramble generator.

Try not to think about it too much... a scramble is a scramble, and if you're in doubt, just use computer-generated scrambles!
 

AlphaSheep

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A couple of days ago, something unfortunate happened which has arisen some unnecessary conflicts and even terrible fights: a friend of mine scrambled a cube which was already scrambled after I encoded it and was about to solve it blindfold. According to what he said, this was to make the problem more "standard", in order to help me to improve, because he believes that by scrambling the cube further, it would take more steps for me to solve it.

After this happened, I started to wander whether in non-cubers' world, the scrambles I made for myself are fake or special cases which I am more confident to deal with, because they think that my scrambles are "non-standard". In the worst case, they do not even believe that I can solve a cube blindfolded, because that I made that problem for myself.

For blindfold solving a 3x3x3 cube, I do not think one person's scramble could be significantly different from another person's scramble. I believe by scrambling a cube even further, it indeed makes the configuration more "disordered" so that it has less 1x1x2 blocks connected. However, it does not really increase the difficulty because "pairs" are not things we look for when solving a cube blindfolded, unlike CFOP. In addition, for both CFOP and blindfold, solving is not a reversed process of scrambling.

For example, I use numbers to memorize the permutation of the eight corners and the twelve edges. The method I use for blindfold solves orientation and permutation separately.

Before my friend alters the configuration, the code could be:
Edges: 0832946A72515
Corners: 283464575

After he changed it, it could be like:
Edges: 32547049A1869
Corners: 24378

The length of the code for solving edges is exactly the same as before. Nevertheless, because the code for corners initially consist of multiple cycles but now becomes one cycle, the length has become shorter than before. The number of steps taken to solve the cube should be close as well.

As you can see, by scrambling a cube which has already been scrambled, it does not necessarily increase the difficulty and make the problem "more challenging".
It's true that doing your own scrambles, you tend to fall into rythms and do the same sorts of moves over and over. But the catch is that non-cubers seem to be even worse at scrambling. Chances are the scramble will be even easier if your friend does it.

Also, an important thing to note is that the scrambling starts from a biased state in terms of orientation (obviously everything is oriented on a solved cube) but a perfectly scrambled cube is just as likely to have all edges unoriented as it is to have them oriented. As you apply moves to the cube, it gets closer and closer to the ideal distribution but never actually reaches it. No matter how many random moves you apply, you're more likely to have a slightly easier scramble in terms of orientation than a difficult one. This is especially important since you use a method that does orientation in a separate step.

That's the reason why computer generated scrambles are so much better, because you're guaranteed a fair scramble with the ideal distribution of orientations, no matter who applies it. In a competition, your cube is scrambled by someone else using a computer generated scramble, and the first time you see it it (for blindfolded solving, at least) is when the timer is already running.
 

xyzzy

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What sort of times do you get with it?

I don't practise much, but usually around 2:30 for memo and 2:30 for execution. (I use ELL for the edges, because 3OP edges would be too silly even by my standards.)
 

newtonbase

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I don't practise much, but usually around 2:30 for memo and 2:30 for execution. (I use ELL for the edges, because 3OP edges would be too silly even by my standards.)
It's an interesting looking method but I imagine there must have been a collective Ohhhhhh when the newer methods were proposed.
 

pglewis

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This reminds me that I think my hand-scrambles deny me quite a few friendly solves. I'll often scramble a bit more if things look too easy at first glance. I'm far more likely to get a 1-3 move cross from generated scrambles.
 
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