Older cubers discussions

[JanW]

It doesnt add extra 3-cycle because you have still 2 corners to swap. Adding 1 target you can do it with 3cycle.

Here's an example:

L' U2 L F2 U2 L' B2 D2 R' U2 L F2 R2 D' L2 R2 B' F2 L2 R F D2
(solve in same direction as scramble)

You use UBL as buffer, so you'd get a cycle break after the first cycle (FDL-FUL) and end up with a total of 5 corner cycles, right?

If you instead don't do any cycle break at that point, but shoot the buffer piece directly to UBR and do cycle break when you arrive at the piece that normally goes into UBR, you can reach the same results in 4 cycles. For example FDL-FUL ; UBR-FUR ; DFR-BDR ; DBL - BDR

In that same scramble, if I'd put UR at the end of edge memo I'd have 7 cycles, but if I instead solve UF directly to UR I get only 6 cycles.

This might be harder to do with corners than with edges though, as there's one more rotation to keep track of.

 

[h2f]

I know what you mean and I do sometimes this. Though taking UBR as a cycle break is not good every time because you may finish with not UBR but RBU or BUR and this means rotation of corners in the end of the solve. So during speedsolve I do my way but it's worth of thinking what you wrote.

 

[newtonbase]

Nice close-up angle. I lately use a "GoPro-style", tied to my head but at times I get dizzy watching my own recordings but I'm too lazy to set-up the tripod and also I don't have to get up every time I want to start and stop the recording but I'll have to try something like this.

What camera is that? I've started a thread asking what people use recently.

 

[JanW]

I know what you mean and I do sometimes this. Though taking UBR as a cycle break is not good every time because you may finish with not UBR but RBU or BUR and this means rotation of corners in the end of the solve.

This shouldn't be a problem at all, as long as you solve the UBL piece correctly rotated into UBR. The UBR piece that goes back to your buffer will act just like the buffer normally would. If you've solved the other corners correctly, the buffer will also be rotated correctly. You can't have only one twisted corner.

But this is what I meant that it's a bit harder with corners, you have to get your buffer piece correctly into UBR. So when you have parity, you memo LBU sticker as the letter for BUR, BUL sticker as the letter for RBU and UBL sticker as the letter for UBR. With edges it's much easier to get it rotated correctly, or let's say it's harder to make mistakes there.

This only makes a difference if there is a cycle break before your memo arrives at the piece that normally goes into UBR. But I believe the memo can never get longer with this system, only shorter, so I use it every time when I have parity, just for consistency.

 

[Jason Green]

What camera is that? I've started a thread asking what people use recently.

My camera is just my Galaxy S5. I have a little tripod with the flexible legs, I wrap it around a chair or something for higher usually (if it's behind me).

 

[h2f]

This shouldn't be a problem at all, as long as you solve the UBL piece correctly rotated into UBR. The UBR piece that goes back to your buffer will act just like the buffer normally would. If you've solved the other corners correctly, the buffer will also be rotated correctly. You can't have only one twisted corner.

Im not sure but not always your buffer is in correct rotation when you do a breaking into new cycle. That's why it causes rotation of buffer and of course UBR. I think your solution makes "to-much-thinking-where-what-is". For me much safer is to make it my way. But of course I will think about what you wrote and add it to my solutions if I feel fine whit this. At the moment my buffer is UF and I switch UBL anf UFR.

 

[JanW]

Im not sure but not always your buffer is in correct rotation when you do a breaking into new cycle. That's why it causes rotation of buffer and of course UBR. I think your solution makes "to-much-thinking-where-what-is". For me much safer is to make it my way. But of course I will think about what you wrote and add it to my solutions if I feel fine whit this. At the moment my buffer is UF and I switch UBL anf UFR.

Normally your buffer wouldn't always be in the correct orientation either when you break into a new cycle. But if it isn't, then when you arrive back at the first piece of the new cycle, you will arrive at another sticker to put the buffer in correct orientation. This works the same way even if you break into new cycle with some other piece.

But of course I understand that it's safer to do the way you're used. Especially if the last extra cycle to UFR is very fast, as you said. You've been doing it for quite a while, so it would probably take some time to get used to new letters for buffer piece.

Another problem with this is that if I do a mistake in corner memo and think I have parity, but when I memo edges I find that there isn't parity, I have to do both corner and edge memo again from the start, because my edge memo can become very different depending on if there is parity or not. This wouldn't be a problem if I just put UR at the end of edges.

 

[h2f]

I'm sure your ideas about it are very intersteing.

 

[Selkie]

My camera is just my Galaxy S5. I have a little tripod with the flexible legs, I wrap it around a chair or something for higher usually (if it's behind me).

Interesting, my most recent filmed solves are done on my work Samsung Galaxy S4. Unfortunately my personal Sony Xperia Z Ultra cuts off due to overheating. We have purchased our son a very nice camera for Christmas I might have to borrow. I seem to be making more and more reasons to buy a Go Pro

Last night I had a 14.97 Ao12. Only my 4th(?) sub 15 Ao12 ever. My new reading glasses are really helping me see better cubing though I do feel I am losing some LL alg speed. Time to drill some algs I think. I could sub 2s all PLLs a couple of years ago and I suspect that has dropped now on some of the longer cases. After all if I want to attain my goal I set many years ago and be sub 15 globally I am going to have to find another 1.2-1.3 seconds from somewhere!

TPS and age have always been talked about together and usually one of the biggest reasons to attribute why sub 40 years aren't sub 10. However I remember starting a thread a few years ago as a study of PLL times compared to age and the results were interesting. There was less correlation than I thought. Have you guys ever times your PLLs? be interested in seeing the results.

I might see if I can do a video of all my PLLs over Christmas. Think there are about 30 I use day to say, for instance 4 U perms etc. Doing that would act as a good basis for me to re-review them myself and look at best times for each etc.

 

[h2f]

Have you guys ever times your PLLs? be interested in seeing the results.

Yes I did, last time month ago. I do sometimes drill my PLLs. Only Nb I do over 3 sec, J, U, A, T, E I do sub2. I also did plls attacks for warmup. These exercieses (PLLs and pll attacks) are very helpfull.

 

[moralsh]

I think I should start ruining my PLLs as I think my last layer is horrible (6-7 seconds on average) I don't think TPS are all my problems but I should definitely check where I am. Will do it once I get home this weekend.

On a side note, I did a 17.35 Ao5 which I think is PB on one if my few days of cubing on my holidays, 5x was a disaster (3 minutes) and 7x too (10 minutes) I need more practice.

 

[MarcelP]

Did you practise sighted solves first? I would recommend writing down your memo, then solving sighted reading from the memo, and study how execution works. Then move on to writing down memo but solving out of sight (like under the table) still reading the memo. Basically, develop skills incrementally. Don't try full blind until you have no problem solving from a written string of letters.

That sounds like a good plan. Thanks, I will try that.

Heh Marcel, thank you sir, it is good to be back. You know how it is, life gets in the way, work gets in the way but I will always return As for fastest, don't think I will ever catch Ron but it is fun trying

Yeah, Ron is hard to catch. But then, he is the co-founder of WCA and been practicing way too long

I think I should start ruining my PLLs as I think my last layer is horrible (6-7 seconds on average) I don't think TPS are all my problems but I should definitely check where I am. Will do it once I get home this weekend.

Yeah, my PLL's are also the weakest part. At competition I compare myself to othe people my age and their LL is much faster and smoother.. I optimized most of my PLL's with the coolest algs but still I suck at it.. It will probably not get much better without drilling algs.. Something I hate doing.

 

[mark49152]

Have you guys ever times your PLLs? be interested in seeing the results.

Not individually, but in groups and attacks. My full PLL attack is around 52 seconds so that's about 2.5 per PLL. I used to practise it frequently and have been at that level for a couple of years, so I regard it as a kind of natural limit on my TPS. Maybe I will shave off a couple more seconds over time but I don't think I'll ever be significantly faster.

 

[mafergut]

I had never done a full PLL timing session but I did right now just because.
I got pretty dismal times that could explain why even when I get decent F2L I cannot easily get any sub-15 solves
For those less common I put the actual alg I use.

H Avg. 2.02 best 1.59 (M2 alg)
Ua Avg. 1.65 best 1.34 (R, U alg, bar in front)
Ub Avg. 1.55 best 1.17 (R, U alg, bar in front)
Ua Avg. 2.05 best 1.76 (M alg, bar in back)
Ub Avg. 2.21 best 1.76 (M alg, bar in back)
Z Avg. 2.55 best 2.00 (R, U alg)
Aa Avg. 1.80 best 1.51
Ab Avg. 1.84 best 1.64
Aa Avg. 2.18 best 1.99 (lefty mirror)
Ab Avg. 2.11 best 2.00 (lefty mirror)
E Avg. 2.93 best 2.51
F Avg. 3.01 best 2.47
Ga Avg. 2.11 best 1.74
Gb Avg. 2.34 best 2.11
Gc --- did not time, I assume similar to Ga
Gd --- did not time, I assume similar to Gb
Ja Avg. 2.45 best 2.20
Jb Avg. 1.93 best 1.55 (T-perm conj.)
Ja Avg. 2.64 best 1.99 (lefty mirror of Jb)
Na Avg. 3.07 best 2.83 (lefty mirror of Nb)
Nb Avg. 2.57 best 2.25 (R' U R U' R' F' U' F R U R' F R' F' R U' R)
Ra Avg. 2.40 best 2.34 (R U2 R' U2 R B' R' U' R U R B R2 U)
Rb Avg. 2.45 best 2.09 (R' U2 R U2 R' F (R U R' U') R' F' R2' U')
T Avg. 1.91 best 1.45
V Avg. 2.80 best 2.41 ((y) r' F R F' r U r' F R' F' r U2 R U2 R')
Y Avg. 2.09 best 1.79

 

[MarcelP]

I had never done a full PLL timing session but I did right now just because.
F Avg. 3.01 best 2.47
Na Avg. 3.07 best 2.83 (lefty mirror of Nb)

Need some work on F and Na Rest is pretty ok.

 

[mafergut]

Need some work on F and Na Rest is pretty ok.

For F-perm I use: R' U R U' R2 (y') R' U' R U (y x) R U R' U' R2 (x')
Maybe the 2 mid-alg rotations are the culprit here.

For OH I have started to use this one: (y) R' U' F' R U R' U' R' F R2 U' R' U' R U R' U R
which has most of a T-perm in between R' U' F' and U R.

This one has no rotations so, maybe I shoud start using it also for 2H

And Na I was just too lazy to learn a specific alg so I just mirrored Nb with my left hand and that's a mistake I have never gotten rid of, as I'm noticeably slower with left than right. So maybe I should look for a new alg this Christmas.

In summary I'm only able to consistently sub-2 the As, Us, T and Jb, while the others are closer (or above) in average to 3 seconds than 2. Anyway, at most there's half a second to be improved in PLL execution. F2L execution and PLL recognition I'm sure are the areas where I should improve, as well as some tricks like some LS and COLL easy cases that I should learn.

 

[h2f]

Nice times. If you use stackmat timer you can make them better cause it's allowed to start with cube in hands. I think my E and A perms are around 1 second (1,3 i think best time). Few days ago I got my Thunderclap and it's awsome - I lowerd my plls around 0,3-0,5 seconds.

 

[mafergut]

Nice times. If you use stackmat timer you can make them better cause it's allowed to start with cube in hands. I think my E and A perms are around 1 second (1,3 i think best time). Few days ago I got my Thunderclap and it's awsome - I lowerd my plls around 0,3-0,5 seconds.

Which E alg do you use? That's much faster than mine, which is:

(x) U R' U' L U R U' r2 U' R U L U' R' U (x)

Edit: I don't have a stackmat. I got the times starting with cube in hands with spacebar pressed with pinky and stopping with spacebar again with some finger or other but I don't think I'm losing more than 0.1 there.

Also, now that I took the time to record all my PLLs and times I will put that in a file and try to keep it up to date and time myself with different cubes. There are cubes which are noticeably faster than my main but I'd just gain 0.2 in PLL and lose more time elsewhere due to instability.

Edit2: Trying to change my Na perm for either of these:
(L U' R U2 L' U R')2 U'
(z) (U R' D R2 U' R D')2 (z')

but both take like high 4 to low 5 seconds now. It's gonna take months before I am at the same level that my "horrible" Na. A year before I'm actually faster And this is just a case that I don't get that much... maybe the reason I didn't care to change before and the reason why I always recommend people to learn good algs from the beginning

 

[h2f]

I use the one made of 2 olls and both are very fast comms.

x' [R U' R', D] and x' [R U R', D].

But I think I've exagerrated my Eperm. At the moment - I've checked - it's between 1.5-1.9.

 

[mafergut]

I use the one made of 2 olls and both are very fast comms.

x' [R U' R', D] and x' [R U R', D].

But I think I've exagerrated my Eperm. At the moment - I've checked - it's between 1.5-1.9.

Maybe this one? (y x') R U' R' D R U R' D' R U R' D R U' R' D' (x)

I will try it.

By the way, I was mindlessly repeating the new Na-perm [I finally chose this one (z) (U R' D R2 U' R D')2 (z')]
and I'm already getting 2.6 times with it. I think I'm gonna stick with it