Older cubers discussions

Ok... I'm back to 3x3 practice after some time off.

Nothing special to report for my lunchtime solves, except a LL skip... no AUF. The solve was fairly typical until I accidentally inserted my 3rd pair into the wrong slot. I solved the 4th pair into the correct slot then re-inserted the "3rd pair" where it should have gone originally. Cube solved!

I've now had 2 LL skips and 3 cross skips during my time cubing. :)
 
MarcelP said:
I have had many cross skips... Never a LL skip though... :) I had a 16 on this one today F2 D' U' L2 B2 U L2 D F2 R2 B' U L' F2 R F' U2 R F R2
Click to expand...

Being colour neutral, cross skips are twice as likely as a LL skip.

The probability of a cross pre-aligned with centres is ~1/31704. It'd be ~4 times more likely when allowing for misalignment with centres.

The probability of a LL skip (without needing an AUF) is 1/62208. It's 4 times more likely... 1/15552 if you allow for an AUF.

I've had a good number of 1 move crosses as well but they are a lot more likely. :)
 
mark49152 said:
No, I went yellow and sledgehammered that corner in...
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Ah. I've only really used sledgehammer for certain F2L cases, avoiding dot OLLs or during OLL itself... oh yeah... and on Pyraminx!

It's cool to see what it does to the LL corners in your case. I will try to remember it as an option on the 2x2. :)

p.s. You seem to have got into 2x2! I plan to start doing it again fairly soon...
 
Logiqx said:
Ah. I've only really used sledgehammer for certain F2L cases, avoiding dot OLLs or during OLL itself... oh yeah... and on Pyraminx!

It's cool to see what it does to the LL corners in your case. I will try to remember it as an option on the 2x2. :)

p.s. You seem to have got into 2x2! I plan to start doing it again fairly soon...
Click to expand...
It sometimes just feels better than a regular insert. I did not predict what it would do to the corners, that was a surprise.

I picked up 2x2 after our recent conversation about different puzzles. Probably I'll get bored of it in a few days - it is quite repetitive. It makes a change though.
 
mark49152 said:
It sometimes just feels better than a regular insert. I did not predict what it would do to the corners, that was a surprise.

I picked up 2x2 after our recent conversation about different puzzles. Probably I'll get bored of it in a few days - it is quite repetitive. It makes a change though.
Click to expand...

I thought you predicted it... nice surprise for you! When I get back to the 2x2, I want to spend time predicting the OLL during more solves so that I can plan everything up to PBL. I find the inspection / planning part of 2x2 one of the most enjoyable aspects. I also like the feel of the PBL algs.

I did a bit more pyra tonight... planning as much of the start as possible feels very similar to the 2x2. Sub-14 Ao50. :cool:

I didn't do any solves on Sunday but I did some slow solving last night and I was pretty surprised by my times tonight. I'm going to keep at it for a while longer before I put it down and work on 2x2.

Edit: What are your 2x2 PBs now?
 
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Logiqx said:
I find the inspection / planning part of 2x2 one of the most enjoyable aspects. I also like the feel of the PBL algs.
Click to expand...
Yeah I have gone through and checked my algs for OLL and PBL and changed some. Also learned extra PBLs to avoid x2/z2 rotations, e.g. swaps on the bottom only, diagonal top adjacent bottom as well as adjacent top diagonal bottom, etc.

I'm also interested in efficiency of the first face, and have catalogued all the cases and best solutions. Even if I can't predict OLL, I want to be able to solve first face in <0.5.

OLL recognition is pretty much instantaneous for me on 2x2 anyway so I'm not that concerned with predicting it. I'd rather work on predicting PBL, because PBL recognition definitely slows me down.
 
mark49152 said:
Yeah I have gone through and checked my algs for OLL and PBL and changed some. Also learned extra PBLs to avoid x2/z2 rotations, e.g. swaps on the bottom only, diagonal top adjacent bottom as well as adjacent top diagonal bottom, etc.

I'm also interested in efficiency of the first face, and have catalogued all the cases and best solutions. Even if I can't predict OLL, I want to be able to solve first face in <0.5.

OLL recognition is pretty much instantaneous for me on 2x2 anyway so I'm not that concerned with predicting it. I'd rather work on predicting PBL, because PBL recognition definitely slows me down.
Click to expand...

I'm also interested in first layer efficiency but they are all in my head. I've documented my OLL + PBL algs but it sounds like you've already got some good ones - http://mikeg.me.uk/cubing/Ortega.pdf

PBL recognition is pretty decent for me. I just remember the bottom case during inspection and 2-sided recognition of the top is pretty quick. I know the final AUF a lot of the time but I want to learn that 100%. I've also considered predicting the PBL during OLL (i.e. how my OLLs affect the various CLL cases) and looked how I might force better PBL cases but I don't think I will practice that yet.

1-look mid-solve is where I want to get myself in the medium term; OBL (orient both layers - made up acronym)... look... PBL (including AUF). This approach doesn't require any new recognition skills such as CLL recognition although I may decide to learn that eventually. Another benefit of predicting the OLL is that I can plan cancellations during inspection. I'm pretty sure I can drop my average to sub-6 and maybe towards 5s using this approach but I need to put in some practice.
 
Logiqx said:
I'm also interested in first layer efficiency but they are all in my head. I've documented my OLL + PBL algs but it sounds like you've already got some good ones - http://mikeg.me.uk/cubing/Ortega.pdf
Click to expand...
That's really good - you have obviously done some searching and found some great algs - thanks. I will take a couple of those.

Here are the ones I use that you don't have listed:-
R' F R2 U' R2 F R (Pi OLL)
R2 U R2 U' R2 U R2 U' R2 (adjacent bottom, diagonal top - very easy to learn but frantic on the wrist)
R' U R' F2 R F' U R' F2 R F' R (diagonal top - a variant of the adjacent top that flows nicely for me)
R2 U' R' U R' F2 R F' R' F2 (adjacent bottom - another variant of the nice adjacent top alg)

Logiqx said:
1-look mid-solve is where I want to get myself in the medium term; OBL (orient both layers - made up acronym)... look... PBL (including AUF). This approach doesn't require any new recognition skills such as CLL recognition although I may decide to learn that eventually. Another benefit of predicting the OLL is that I can plan cancellations during inspection. I'm pretty sure I can drop my average to sub-6 and maybe towards 5s using this approach but I need to put in some practice.
Click to expand...
That's about my target too, sub-6. Beyond that I'm not sure it's worth continuing with Ortega, and I don't quite care about 2x2 enough to learn full CLL/EG. I'm not sure CLL is worthwhile without intent to also learn EG, given the extra effort to build a layer rather than a face.
 
Thanks for the algs. I'll take a look at them when I get back to 2x2.

It is one week since I started pyra so I thought I'd do a timed session in front of the TV. New PBs but this streak can't last for much longer... 3.19/9.49/10.87/12.19/12.50 :)
 
You just know when a topic is going to die. It's when they start rambling about 2X2 and pyraminx.. LOL Next thing you know we are talking about feet techniques.. Ha ha ha.. Nothjing to report other than that I have had no practice this week. Working 13 hours the last two days..
 
There's a lot of things we might talk about on here, but I can guarantee I won't ever be talking about feet. That's one event I have no interest in whatsoever!

Anyone for clock? :)
 
mark49152 said:
There's a lot of things we might talk about on here, but I can guarantee I won't ever be talking about feet. That's one event I have no interest in whatsoever!

Anyone for clock? :)
Click to expand...

Nope... I am toying with the idea of a practice schedule to cover 6 events.

I'm probably going to try this cycle for the next 2-3 months:

Week 1: 3x3 + Pyra + 2x2
Week 2: Pyra + 2x2 + OH
Week 3: 2x2 + OH + 4x4
Week 4: OH + 4x4 + 5x5
Week 5: 4x4 + 5x5 + 3x3
Week 6: 5x5 + 3x3 + Pyra

Weeks 1 and 2 include Pyra AND 2x2. Bad luck Marcel... :)

On a positive note I don't have any plans to do feet. I have literally no interest in trying it!
 
Logiqx said:
I'm probably going to try this cycle for the next 2-3 months...
Click to expand...

Change of plan!

I'll switch 2x2 and 4x4. Each week will include a 3x3 event (OH or 2H), smaller puzzle (2x2 or Pyra) and bigger cube (4x4 or 5x5).

Each puzzle has 3 consecutive weeks in which I can get back up to speed and then try to improve. One puzzle changes each week...

Week 1: 3x3 + Pyra + 4x4
Week 2: Pyra + 4x4 + OH
Week 3: 4x4 + OH + 2x2
Week 4: OH + 2x2 + 5x5
Week 5: 2x2 + 5x5 + 3x3
Week 6: 5x5 + 3x3 + Pyra
 
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That's very organised, Mike.

I got a bit fed up today with lack of 3x3 progress. After posting a few weeks back about how a plot of times against solves suggested I had never really plateaued, it seems I have plateaued good and proper.

Looking at a similar plot now, there is a clear leveling off over the last 3500 solves. Over the last 2000 solves the trend is flat, around low-18/high-17. Today I did an ao100 of F2L pairs only, to see if that has improved, and my best ao50 was 8.52. I last set a PB bao50 of 8.65 back in November 2014 and I expected to be significantly faster now. Since that last PB I have done 2000 pairs solves and 5000 timed full solves. So I've solved F2L at least 7000 times, but only got 1.5% faster at it. That's not great.

Not sure what to do to improve, but doing lots of solves isn't proving effective any more. I may go back to doing some targeted practice for a while - certainly some F2L practice, maybe also some PLL attacks to improve finger speed.
 
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