Older cubers discussions

@Jason Green, @h2f: Jason, Grzegorz, congrats on your new comp results and PBs. It's been a busy weekend with not much time to be on the forums or to cube, except for some Mega solves that left me frustrated because I still can't get a sub-3 single and my progress seems to have come to an abrupt stop at like 3:40 average. Once or twice the thought of throwing my SS Mega against the wall crossed my mind :p It locks up a lot when I try to push TPS.

Now I have to get to work. Will try to keep an eye on the forum in the evening.
 
Hey guys! Just a quick question. I received today my last order and the CB G4 is super-nice out of the box already but, at times an inner layer will catch and won't want to turn in one direction (but it turns in the other), even with a lot of force. Is that something that will go away with breaking in or is it defective?

Other than that the stickerless shades are great and I'm liking it already more than either my Aosu or Guansu. Also no problems with the smaller size, I think it's even a plus.

EDIT: Wow! 1st (and only) timed solve with it out of the box and, even with one of those big catches and with double parity I got a 1:34. If the catches go away I already have a new main. One of my main issues with going stickerless was with my recognition, even with nice shades, I always thought that the black border around stickers that visually separates one sticker from the other was helping me with solving but I've had no problems at all with that now with the G4. Oh, please, don't tell me that another stickerless guy was just born and now I have to buy everything in stickerless as you guys. At least I already have the Dayan Mega in stickerless as well, but didn't have time to try it out yet. If I can get used to it too then I think I will try more stickerless puzzles. Already starting to regret having ordered the Aofu in black stickered.
 
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mafergut said:
Hey guys! Just a quick question. I received today my last order and the CB G4 is super-nice out of the box already but, at times an inner layer will catch and won't want to turn in one direction (but it turns in the other), even with a lot of force. Is that something that will go away with breaking in or is it defective?

Other than that the stickerless shades are great and I'm liking it already more than either my Aosu or Guansu. Also no problems with the smaller size, I think it's even a plus.

EDIT: Wow! 1st (and only) timed solve with it out of the box and, even with one of those big catches and with double parity I got a 1:34. If the catches go away I already have a new main. One of my main issues with going stickerless was with my recognition, even with nice shades, I always thought that the black border around stickers that visually separates one sticker from the other was helping me with solving but I've had no problems at all with that now with the G4. Oh, please, don't tell me that another stickerless guy was just born and now I have to buy everything in stickerless as you guys. At least I already have the Dayan Mega in stickerless as well, but didn't have time to try it out yet. If I can get used to it too then I think I will try more stickerless puzzles. Already starting to regret having ordered the Aofu in black stickered.
Click to expand...
It's a great puzzle isn't it. The catches do start to go away after some breaking in.
 
I have the original CB 4x4 which is OK, but used my friend's G4 at the comp and it was great!

@efattah great solves, interesting method. When did you work on that, in the 80s or now? How long have you been back into cubing?

@Logiqx good job with Petrus! What are your goals and/or purpose of practicing it? Like new main method, or just to understand the cube better, etc?
 
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newtonbase said:
It's a great puzzle isn't it. The catches do start to go away after some breaking in.
Click to expand...
So you think the inner layer catches are normal? That's a relief, I wouldn't want to have to return it to Lightake and wait another month for a new one :) And yes, the 3x3 stage is awesome and the shades are easily the best I've seen in any stickerless puzzle.

EDIT: @Logiqx: Michael, nice solves. It looks like it can be really low movecount but quite difficult to lookahead / plan the blockbuilding part.
 
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newtonbase said:
A freediving cuber! The unofficial record for cubes solved in a single breath stands at 16. What do you think you could do?
Click to expand...

To answer a few questions posted:
- I posted in another thread that I am training to break the record for underwater 3x3 solving, I have held my breath up to 8:50 before and I also trained the world record holder (12:11), but while cubing 7 minutes is the max as it takes more energy than floating motionless (my plan is to do 20-22 3x3 cubes hopefully later this year...)
- Right now my 'official' average ability sucks, because I still don't know EG2 and my one-look of the corners takes longer than 15 seconds, so until I can resolve those I don't think I will attend any competitions (my goal is to land a sub-10 official 3x3 average using my LMCF method at some point though!)


Eric Fattah
Vancouver, BC
 
Here are my big cube questions I've been putting off asking... mainly because I haven't even tried to research much. But asking here is one of the best ways to research so... @evilgnome are you there? :)

4x4 doing 3-2-3 for edge pairing. After the first 3 dedges, if my next two are 4 pieces that need to pair should I just use flip alg for that? That's what I do now and it seems fine. I used to get confused and go insert a new dedge to pair by slice, slice back.

4x4 PLL parity. How do I recognize the case? I'm lost. I do some alg, see what I get, do some other alg, until I can spot what's going on. Some are not as bad as others.

5x5 last two centers. Same as 4x4 PLL I'm pretty clueless. You can ask @DavidWoner who judged my attempt in KC and taught me how to do a two layer sune for one case. Thanks David! I can build the 2x3 ok but that last row I don't know. Maybe I should know algs before I finish 2x3 even?
 
Jason,

With 4x4 PLL Parity, I try to visualize it as: "If I swap 2 opposite sides, what PLL case will that give me?" (sometimes it's an adjacent swap using [x R2 F'] [PLL Parity] [F R2 x'] instead.)

Something that helped me with this was doing the PLL Parity as soon as I noticed it wasn't a regular PLL. Even if I did the Parity from the incorrect position I ultimately learned from this anyway; and often it resolves into another PLL case. Essentially it's another bunch of pattern recognition. Eventually I got to the stage where I can spot the cases. It's my dedge-pairing that lets me down on 4x4.

Will leave the real gurus to answer the rest, or give better suggestions! Cheers.
 
I logged my 10,000th timed 3x3 solve about an hour ago, nearly 9 months after completing my first solve on 1st August 2015 (which took 6 hours, but I'm not that clever ;))

Time for some self-reflection...

I'm still hovering just under the 30 second mark as an average and am probably plateauing but now I'm past this 10,000 solve milestone I'm planning to do a few things I've been putting off:
1. Improve my cross. This is probably my biggest weakness, particularly when I compare myself to videos of other people solving. My cross is almost never optimal and takes me 8+ moves about 50% of the time. Also I occasionally do an unintentional double-insert of cross-pieces and lose time scanning for the remaining cross-piece when it's already there
2. Reduce cube rotations and also use rear-inserts more
3. Learn some F2L algorithms for awkward cases. All the F2L I use is intuitive except for picking up the Triple-Sexy case (case 32)
4. Learn some more 1-look OLL

I'm hoping that by concentrating my effort on specific aspects rather than just spamming mindless solves I should be able to improve my overall technique. My plan is to just do the various forum competitions for timed solves for a while but every now and then do an Ao25's to check on progress.

For any stats-freaks interested in my rate of progress, I've exported some notes below (I've excluded the early 1m+ solves, although bad mistakes lead me to still get one about once every 150 solves):

Personal Bests
Solve # / Time
431 / 52s
577 / 48s
754 / 43s
778 / 42s
1030 / 41s
1057 / 35s
1098 / 33s
1297 / 29s
1431 / 27s
2251 / 25s
2379 / 23s
2940 / 21s
5425 / 20s
7450 / 19s

Ao5
Solve # / Time
576-580 / 58s
577-581 / 54s
764-768 / 53s
797-801 / 51s
936-940 / 49s
938-942 / 47s
1053-1057 / 46s
1090-1094 / 45s
1106-1110 / 44s
1175-1179 / 43s
1178-1182 / 39s
1401-1405 / 38s
1348-1352 / 37s
1630-1634 / 35s
2244-2248 / 34s
2309-2313 / 33s
2333-2337 / 32s
2337-2341 / 31s
2415-2419 / 30s
2821-2825 / 29s
3268-3272 / 28s
4055-4059 / 27s
5715-5719 / 26s
6276-6280 / 25s
7449-7453 / 24s
9356-9360 / 23s

Ao12
Solve # / Time
684-695 / 58s
739-750 / 57s
763-774 / 56s
797-808 / 55s
825-836 / 54s
934-945 / 53s
935-946 / 52s
936-947 / 51s
988-999 / 50s
1051-1062 / 48s
1099-1110 / 47s
1100-1111 / 46s
1171-1182 / 45s
1205-1216 / 44s
1277-1288 / 43s
1357-1368 / 42s
1376-1387 / 40s
1622-1633 / 39s
1754-1763 / 38s
1757-1768 / 37s
2242-2253 / 36s
2324-2335 / 35s
2330-2341 / 34s
2408-2419 / 33s
2786-2797 / 32s
3265-3276 / 31s
3269-3280 / 30s
3918-3929 / 29s
5296-5307 / 28s
6276-6287 / 27s
7186-7197 / 26s
9348-9359 / 25s

Ao25
Solve # / Time
735-759 / 59s
740-764 / 58s
745-769 / 57s
814-838 / 56s
930-954 / 55s
938-962 / 54s
1045-1069 / 53s
1050-1074 / 52s
1051-1075 / 51s
1080-1104 / 50s
1083-1107 / 49s
1089-1113 / 48s
1097-1121 / 47s
1172-1196 / 46s
1264-1288 / 45s
1273-1297 / 44s
1354-1378 / 43s
1614-1638 / 42s
1748-1772 / 41s
1754-1778 / 40s
1896-1920 / 39s
2260-2284 / 38s
2273-2297 / 37s
2311-2335 / 36s
2319-2343 / 35s
2512-2536 / 34s
2780-2804 / 33s
2786-2810 / 32s
3913-3937 / 31s
4741-4765 / 30s
5293-5317 / 29s
6482-6506 / 28s
7184-7208 / 27s
9333-9357 / 26s

Ao100
Solve # / Time
733-832 / 59s
739-838 / 58s
915-1014 / 57s
984-1083 / 56s
1005-1104 / 55s
1011-1110 / 54s
1020-1119 / 53s
1033-1132 / 52s
1050-1149 / 51s
1076-1175 / 50s
1097-1196 / 49s
1139-1238 / 48s
1170-1269 / 47s
1236-1335 / 46s
1265-1364 / 45s
1321-1420 / 44s
1729-1828 / 43s
1298-1397 / 42s
1889-1988 / 41s
2201-2300 / 40s
2228-2327 / 39s
2236-2335 / 38s
2260-2359 / 37s
2292-2391 / 36s
2701-2800 / 35s
2741-2840 / 34s
3658-3757 / 33s
3876-3975 / 32s
3929-4028 / 31s
5258-5357 / 30s
6713-6812 / 29s
9251-9350 / 28s
9326-9425 / 27s

Number of solves
19.xx / 2 times
20.xx / 4 times
21.xx / 12 times
22.xx / 42 times
23.xx / 76 times
24.xx / 140 times
25.xx / 229 times
26.xx / 329 times
27.xx / 501 times
28.xx / 615 times
29.xx / 669 times
30.xx / 741 times
31.xx / 764 times
32.xx / 617 times
33.xx / 603 times
34.xx / 503 times
35.xx / 455 times
36.xx / 371 times
37.xx / 310 times
38.xx / 247 times
39.xx / 210 times
40.xx / 167 times
41.xx / 136 times
42.xx / 136 times
43.xx / 118 times
44.xx / 115 times
45.xx / 100 times
46.xx / 101 times
47.xx / 79 times
48.xx / 70 times
49.xx / 75 times
50.xx / 68 times
51.xx / 76 times
52.xx / 65 times
53.xx / 51 times
54.xx / 62 times
55.xx / 36 times
56.xx / 41 times
57.xx / 47 times
58.xx / 36 times
59.xx / 38 times
1m+ / 943 times

Sub-xx
All-time sub-30s: 2,619
All-time sub-25s: 276
All-time sub-20s: 2

Last 1,000 solves sub-30s: 554
Last 1,000 solves sub-25s: 94
Last 1,000 solves sub-20s: 0
 
Shaky Hands said:
I logged my 10,000th timed 3x3 solve about an hour ago, nearly 9 months after completing my first solve on 1st August 2015 (which took 6 hours, but I'm not that clever ;))
Time for some self-reflection...
I'm still hovering just under the 30 second mark as an average and am probably plateauing but now I'm past this 10,000 solve milestone I'm planning to do a few things I've been putting off:
[/spoiler]
Click to expand...

I went from 80s to sub-20 in 3 months and all I can say is that timed solves are the least valuable of all possible activities, this was my experience and also shared by many others. Slow untimed solves focusing on lookahead (including closing your eyes at random points and seeing how far you can continue), as well as cue drills like 'OLL trainer' or similar software that keep track of your average recog/execute time for each case, working on finger tricks, and other things as you already mentioned. I know a few top solvers and most spend less than 10% of their time doing timed solves. While I don't use CFOP, I did try it, and my own inexperienced opinion would be to learn algs for the 42 F2L cases, so you can ID the case, close your eyes, and solve it; then once your muscle memory can solve the F2L, you can forget about it and instead watch the pieces and find the next pair while solving the current one... but I'm sure better CFOP solvers can pitch in their suggestions.

Eric Fattah
Vancouver, BC
 
Jason Green said:
4x4 doing 3-2-3 for edge pairing. After the first 3 dedges, if my next two are 4 pieces that need to pair should I just use flip alg for that? That's what I do now and it seems fine. I used to get confused and go insert a new dedge to pair by slice, slice back.
Click to expand...

If the final four dedges are 2 pairs of matching pieces then the best approach is to solve one dedge with a regular slice move, replace it with one of the remaining dedges from U, slice back twice then place the final dedge such that a slice in the original direction solves all of them. It takes literally half the number of moves than two slice and flip algs. In answer to your original question you have little to loose using this approach after the first 3 dedges when you see 2 dedges in the E-layer(s) where you can create the first pair with a simple slice. Worst case you'll end up having to do a slice and flip alg for the final 2 dedges but if you happened to have the case I described above, you'll solve them optimally. :)

Jason Green said:
4x4 PLL parity. How do I recognize the case? I'm lost. I do some alg, see what I get, do some other alg, until I can spot what's going on. Some are not as bad as others.
Click to expand...

It just takes practice. If you see 3 sides which don't make sense together then you have parity. It can basically be one of two PLLs with parity and with experience you can execute your parity alg from the angle that gives the favourable PLL (e.g. T-perm instead of F-perm). In the interim just apply the parity alg and solve the resultant PLL. If you have no idea whether you have parity then solve the corners as if you are going to 2-look the PLL and if the EPLL looks weird then apply the parity alg before you do EPLL. Over time you'll recognise more and more case as having parity. E-perm is probably one of the harder ones to recognise.

Jason Green said:
5x5 last two centers. Same as 4x4 PLL I'm pretty clueless. You can ask @DavidWoner who judged my attempt in KC and taught me how to do a two layer sune for one case. Thanks David! I can build the 2x3 ok but that last row I don't know. Maybe I should know algs before I finish 2x3 even?
Click to expand...

TBH the L2C become pretty intuitive but there are websites and videos listing all of the cases. Have a look at some of the easier algs to see how they work and from there you should start building up some intuition.
 
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