Older cubers discussions

Already full OLL? Next COLL, EPLL, WV and OLLCP, right?[emoji14]

In April? don't worry, sure you can, I've done less than 150 solves and I'm almost at 2:30 using simple reduction and building 1 edge pair at a time.
I don't know what's next for 3x3, just learning to look ahead more I think. :)

That's encouraging, I probably did as many solves today as I did in the first six months I had the cube, which is only 7 or 8.
 
Hey, that sounds interesting. I have no cube on me to test this... but I did not use M2 because those annoying algs in de M layer targets. Do you also have a trick like this for BD? I might actually start doing
Of course. For BD BU do B or B' and you got easy case BL BR. But its worth to learn all those algs. For BD i often do setup B or B' but its up of Next target.

patataj patataj patataj
 
@Mike: Nice Ao5! I'm sure in a couple years I will film one myself ;)
I'm waiting for my YueXiao (and other stuff) to arrive after the Chinese New Year. The package in on its way now. Hope to have it in a couple weeks.

@Ruy86, please, buy them one by one or at most two at a time or you will spoil all those "new cube" moments! hehehe

@Jason: Congrats on your full OLL achievement! Regarding the average it will go down with practice, I'm sure you will be racing for sub-20 before the summer starts. Well, every one of us has their walls at different points, mine is clearly at around 19.5 average more or less and it's being difficult to overcome, the more so now that I'm practising too many new things at the same time, and not progressing much at any of those because time gets so spread... Some events I just do the WC solves in the whole week, like with pyra, skewb and 5x5. By the way, I'm glad to hear that you're also practising 2x2 and 4x4. With 4x4 I think you can easily get under 2:30. I'm using Yau with 6-2 pairing (I haven't been able to force myself to seriously try 3-2-3 yet) and, without much practise I am now confortably under 2:30 like in 80% of the solves, barely sub 2:00 on the best ones, so you can do it as well. And the secret is not feeling embarrased by your initial times. Hey, I started to compete in 5x5 two weeks ago with just 3 timed solves under my sleeve and got 10 minute solves, so what? Now I shaved off 3 minutes in the next 5 solves :) My 1st timed solve at 4x4 was much worse than yours, by the way.

Regarding what's next in 3x3 I wouldn't waste too much time learning things like WV. COLL only some cases or if you are gonna take OH seriously. I would focus on cross-to-F2L transition and lookahead in general and fast LL.
 
Hey, that sounds interesting. I have no cube on me to test this... but I did not use M2 because those annoying algs in de M layer targets. Do you also have a trick like this for BD? I might actually start doing M2 then :)
Yeah, as Grzegorz said, you can set up to BR or BL, but there's a better trick to handling those BD and FU targets.

Usually, to solve some non-M-slice piece, you do (s) M2 (s') where s is the setup for that piece. Now suppose the piece before it is BD. Instead of solving as above, do M2 (s) M' (s') M'. That way you solve BD at the same time as the following piece, only adding two moves - yay! When first learning M2, those stickers look like the hardest ones, but actually they're the easiest :).

If you swap the M targets during memo as I suggest, the above trick works regardless of whether you're on an odd or even target. So using Speffz for BD-FL for me would be "SL" and I'd solve as above. Now suppose I got UL-FU-FL-UR. Memo would be "DS LB" because FU occurs as an even target so I would memo as S, not I. Here, during exec, I could use exactly the same trick to solve "SL" together even though it spans two letter pairs. No need to worry about odd/even at exec time, and better chance of solving the M target efficiently because you can combine with the piece on either side of it.

See my M2 guide for more details: https://www.speedsolving.com/forum/showthread.php?56076-Advanced-M2-guide

Having said that, you still need to know those M slice algs for the rare occasions you can't solve the targets more efficiently. They really are not that bad - they have simple patterns that are easy to remember.

I know I say this a lot, but it really is a myth that M2 is significantly harder than OP edges! :)
 
Yeah, as Grzegorz said, you can set up to BR or BL, but there's a better trick to handling those BD and FU targets.

Usually, to solve some non-M-slice piece, you do (s) M2 (s') where s is the setup for that piece. Now suppose the piece before it is BD. Instead of solving as above, do M2 (s) M' (s') M'. That way you solve BD at the same time as the following piece, only adding two moves - yay! When first learning M2, those stickers look like the hardest ones, but actually they're the easiest :).

I was hoping you will mention it. I do that trick very seldom and I'm not good in it. It has a great potential. I must add it.

On the other hand Marcel, mind the other trick for FU-BD - you do the alg without M2 but whit rotation x. That's why it's worth to know it and it's inverse. These algs have both potential.
 
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Soft Cutoff:

You have two attempts to beat the soft cutoff. If you beat it, you are permitted to take the remaining 3 attempts for your average of 5.
For 6x6 and 7x7, you only have 1 attempt to beat the soft cutoff before you can complete your mean of 3.

Hard Cutoff:

If you don't complete the solve before the hard cutoff, the judge will stop you and record your solve as a DNF.

I'm curious how consistently Hard Cutoffs are enforced. There seems to be several results on the WCA site where times are recorded that are greater than the Hard Cutoff listed for an event on cubecomps.

Is it the case that you may be allowed to go beyond the Hard Cutoff but that if you do, you're just liable to be DNF'd. i.e. They might count it anyway if there isn't an excessive time pressure?
 
I'm curious how consistently Hard Cutoffs are enforced. There seems to be several results on the WCA site where times are recorded that are greater than the Hard Cutoff listed for an event on cubecomps.

Is it the case that you may be allowed to go beyond the Hard Cutoff but that if you do, you're just liable to be DNF'd. i.e. They might count it anyway if there isn't an excessive time pressure?

If there are incidents where a time greater than the cutoff is recorded, it's probably human error. It's also possible they raised the limit but I think all competitors should be held to the same cutoff times.
 
I'm curious how consistently Hard Cutoffs are enforced. There seems to be several results on the WCA site where times are recorded that are greater than the Hard Cutoff listed for an event on cubecomps.

Is it the case that you may be allowed to go beyond the Hard Cutoff but that if you do, you're just liable to be DNF'd. i.e. They might count it anyway if there isn't an excessive time pressure?
Cut offs differ between comps so there's no global inconsistency, but within a comp, it should be handled consistently. It would be unfair for one competitor to be stopped when another is allowed to complete the solve and record an official time above the cut off in the same comp. Judges can understandably be reluctant to stop someone, but the delegate ought to check when they enter the times; if they choose to record a time over the cut off then they should make sure nobody else was DNFed in that round for going over.
 
They could maybe save more time in a comp if they allowed someone to go beyond the Hard Cutoff in a first solve in exchange for a DNF in the second.

e.g.: instead of a 5x5 comp with a strict Hard Cut of 5 minutes, allow someone to register a 6 minute first solve but then not attempt a second solve. If 6 minutes is their usual average time anyway, that would mean 6 minutes total solving and 1 registered score rather than 10 minutes total solving and no registered score. They'd miss the Average Cut either way, so no change there.

Anyway, I'm just "thinking out loud" here. I agree any rules need to be applied consistently within each competition.
 
Cutoffs change sometimes due to number of competitors. In 2 weeks I got a comp with a very easy cutoffs and I think organizers gonna change it due to small number of comptetitors (40 of 80).
 
In 5x5 I got 2 solves just over hard cut-off at the UK Championships and both were recorded. I think if someone is about to finish you may as well let them and a time is as easy to record as a DNF. But, at Manchester I finished 3 secs over and the judge DNF'd it.
 
It took 3 days of trying to catch a sub-16 Ao5 on camera but I got it eventually. lol

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dy1XFOf8klU

Two days running with an 11.x PLL skip but that's just lucky. ;)

Congratulations, nice average and I can completely relate to pressure of getting good averages on film!! :)

I finally finished learning full OLL. Still have a 2 or 3 that are slow because I have to think too much, but they are there. .

Great stuff, always great getting that task complete as it always looks so daunting at the beginning.



Well we are away on leave and getting a bit of cubing practice in between hot tub sessions. Have just placed a big order for the following so looking forward to receiving that and may even do an unboxing video.

1 x Cong's Design MeiYing () =
Color Black
1 x QiYi Thunderclap 3x3 () =
Color Black
1 x Replacement Battery for SpeedStacks Pro Timer () =
1 x QiYi Bullfight 3x3 () =
Color Stickerless
1 x GuoGuan YueXiao () =
Color Stickerless
1 x MoYu AoFu 7x7 () =
Color Black
5 x Cubicle Bag (Size 6) () =
Color Purple
1 x MoYu AoLong GT () =
Color Black
1 x X-Man Tornado () =
Color Black
1 x Cubicle T-Shirt () =
Size XL
1 x Gans 356 Center Caps V2 () =
Color Black
1 x Gans 356 Weights Set () =
1 x Cubicle YueXiao () =
Color Black
1 x Cyclone Boys 4x4 G4 () =
Color Stickerless (Bright)
 
Well, I have zero bragging rights about the orders I placed today (seeing what Selkie posted). I've settled on six 3x3s for now: the cheap but supposedly pretty good anyway (YuXin Fire, YJ GuanLong), the highly rated (QiYi Thunderclap), and my first three DaYan puzzles (ZhanChi, GuHong v1, LunHui). My two criteria were price and making orders from as few stores as possible. My list would look somewhat more impressive if I listed all the other puzzles, but I won't. I can expect shipments from Cubezz, FastTech, and The Cubicle.

I've never made an unboxing video before, but I love watching other people's (will definitely watch Selkie's too), so maybe I'll give it a shot. I have only a cheap webcam and no tripod, but you have to start somewhere.
 
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