Older cubers discussions

Thanks! I decided to do a little 4x4 and 5x5 while I was hot, and that paid off with more PB's. New 5,12 PB's for 4x4 and I cleaned the board with 5x5. New PB Single, 5, 12, 50, and 100 (Though the 50 and 100 include solves from previous sessions).

I didn't expect the 4x4 times, because I've been slow at 4x4 lately. I guess I was just on today.
 
Nice times muchacho! I'm sure you'll reach your goals soon!

For the first time ever I tried solving with timed inspection using cstimer. Wow that is stressful! First solve was a DNF as I got totally thrown off by a voice calling out "8 seconds" and what felt like 1.5 seconds later it said "12 seconds". Took a while to get used to hearing those calls without being disturbed. After some practice I found that I can plan edge orientation pretty well in 15 seconds but about 50% of scrambles I can't completely work out the movements of the EOLine edges and have to track those during edge orientation. And overall I feel a lot more stress during the solves as the start feels kind of rushed. I will need a lot of practice with this if I'm ever going to go to a comp. If I can get used to planning EOLine during inspection, then planning the cross should be a piece of cake, in case I ever switch back to a cross first method.

The scrambles in cstimer feel different to those I'm used to. Some of them have very few B or F moves that aren't 180 degree turns. There was a couple of scrambles where I knew after finishing the scramble, without looking at the cube, exactly how many bad edges there would be. Feels kind of like cheating...
 
Managed a 3x3 PB last night of 10.68 :) Quite lucky in the end with a last layer skip, my first, but I'm taking it anyway :) Almost 2 seconds off my previous PB of 12.44 which I got in November last year, although that one only had a PLL skip.

Did a reconstruction, which I've been doing for all my sub15's these days, and noticed a couple pairs which I clearly did not even see during my inspection as I was focused on my cross. Worked out well in the end.

https://alg.cubing.net/?setup=R2_D_B2_R2_B2_L2_D_U2_F2_L2_D_B-_U_F2_L-_F2_D-_B_D_L_D&alg=z2_//_inspection D-_B-_D-_B-_L-_D_F-_D-_//_cross y_U_R-_U_R_//_1st y_U-_F-_U-_L-_U_L_F_L-_U_L_//_2nd y_U_R_U-_R-_U_R_U-_R-_y_R_U-_R-_//_3rd_&_4th_with_LL_skip //_=_10.68_@_3.1tps

3x3 - PB (2016-07-06).jpg
 
It will take some time to get used to timed inspection. First A050 was a not very impressive 32.79. Some sup-50 solves in there and even one sup-60 to push up the average. But also 26.xx Ao5, some sub-30 Ao12s and a 20.02 single. Especially happy about the single as it wasn't a very "easy" solve. 6 bad edges and no skips.

The nice thing about it is that the solves/hour should go up quite a bit. It's easy to get into the rhythm of scramble, start inspection, solve, scramble again. I'll give it a few hundred solves and hopefully see some improvement.

Does cstimer save all times between sessions? Or should I export my sessions and save them somewhere else?
 
I've seriously considered ordering one of their premium 3x3's a few times. Though, I think I'm pretty good at setting up my 3x3's, so it's become one of those "when I have an extra $10 to burn on a 3x3" things...

I purchased a YueXiao premium back in February. It was a nice nice cube granted but I didnt feel it was better than one I had previously setup with @MarcelP 's mod :)

But this week something has happened, suddenly I have improved lookahead a lot. Monday I did my first sub 20 Mean of 100 (19.75) and yesterday my first sub 18 ao12 (17.90), all of a sudden I can sub 18 Ao5 at will.

Fantastic Raul :D

Strange cases - yesterday I got two PLL skips in a row. Today I got it once again doing my best ao12 so far - 18.31.

Some more awesome mature 3x3 PBs mate :)

I must say one more thing - a lot of people in a recent time asked me why I have a slow tps. These voices came from young and fast cubers like Czapiewski, Tokarski etc. I was so focused on lookahead that I forgot about it. So I decided to speed up my tps cause I think my muscle memory includes almost all of f2l cases.

I have struggled with TPS for years. In comp if I try and turn faster I get much worse solves. take last comp, Exeter Open. Full TPS in round 1 average >18 second average. Slowed right down for round 2 and got <16 second average. One thing that does help is in practice I regularly do full tps sessions to keep my speed up but all my sub 14 second averages have very slow turning up to 3rd F2L pair.

Slow day at the office so as an experiment I just lined up 6 different 3x3's and did 20 solves each. Set new PBs for 5,12,50, and an AO100 of 19.52. Finally a sub-20 AO100!!!

YueXiao (stickered): 20.39
YueXiao (stickerless): 18.92
X-Man Tornado (stickerless): 19.30
Weilong GTS: 20.05
Gans 356: 19.12
Gans 356s V2 Master: 18.15

Nice to see the X-Men Tornado Stickerless getting some exposure there. I am not sure why they are not more popular. Oh, by the way, I am biased. Tornado Stickerless is my main :D
 
So fast all of you!!! And improving greatly. Congrats to the 3 of you on your PBs: @earth2dan, @muchacho, @JohnnyReggae. And @JanW, great that you're getting used to the 15 second inspection. I can't stand that csTimer voice telling me 8 seconds... :(
Thanks :) ... As for the inspection ... I started using it last month leading up to a competition we had towards the end of the month. I've since kept it going and as I'm only focusing on cross during inspection I usually try to get done before 8 seconds anyway.
 
I've had that once before ... 2 PLL skips in a row. What made it even more remarkable was that I had the same OLL to PLL skip in both solves from 2 completely different scrambles ... *mind blown*
Yeah, one of my top 3 Ao5 ever (16.02) also has 2 PLL skips in a row: (14.28), (28.02), 18.07, 15.64[PLL skip], 14.34[PLL skip]. Almost all my good averages seem to have a funny thing or other. My PB Ao5 (15.58) has to identical best times in it: 13.67, (19.57), 18.14, (13.67), 14.95. In this case both full step, which is weird, as I don't get that many 13.xx full step solves, much less so close to one another.
 
Yeah, one of my top 3 Ao5 ever (16.02) also has 2 PLL skips in a row: (14.28), (28.02), 18.07, 15.64[PLL skip], 14.34[PLL skip]. Almost all my good averages seem to have a funny thing or other. My PB Ao5 (15.58) has to identical best times in it: 13.67, (19.57), 18.14, (13.67), 14.95. In this case both full step, which is weird, as I don't get that many 13.xx full step solves, much less so close to one another.
Many of my low teen's have PLL skips in them. In an ao50 I will have around 4 or so, usually within quick succession as well. But I just had this full step 12.08 which if it wasn't for my 10.68 last night would have been a new PB. It is for me more impressive than the 10.68 which had a LL skip and overall TPS was higher with the 12.08. Still uber stoked with my 10.68 though :-)

https://alg.cubing.net/?setup=B2_L2..._R-_U-_//_pll_J&#45;Perm //[email protected]

3x3 - (old)PB Broken (2016-07-07).jpg
 
That is faster than my full step PB (12.89). And the 10.68 is also faster than my overall PB (11.80) which is a PLL skip. I have never had a LL skip in thousands and thousands of solves but I'm sure if I ever get one I will waste it with a bad F2L :)
 
That is faster than my full step PB (12.89). And the 10.68 is also faster than my overall PB (11.80) which is a PLL skip. I have never had a LL skip in thousands and thousands of solves but I'm sure if I ever get one I will waste it with a bad F2L :)

Had 3 pure LL skips in my time cubing. All three in the same year 5 years ago when I was not fast enough to make them count and one of which was on a 4x4 :D

Had a few when drilling Winter Variation but those are forced OLL skip anyway so a LL skip is the same chance as a pure PLL skip.
 
That is faster than my full step PB (12.89). And the 10.68 is also faster than my overall PB (11.80) which is a PLL skip. I have never had a LL skip in thousands and thousands of solves but I'm sure if I ever get one I will waste it with a bad F2L :)
Learn ZZ and they will come. Or, at least every few thousand solves... ;)

I'm considering adding some Winter Variation cases to my arsenal as well. ZZ+WV = 1/72 chance of LL skip. I don't think all of WV is worth learning, at least not at this point, but there's a few easy cases (easy to recognize and easy to execute) that I think could be learned for every corner.
 
Learn ZZ and they will come. Or, at least every few thousand solves... ;)

I'm considering adding some Winter Variation cases to my arsenal as well. ZZ+WV = 1/72 chance of LL skip. I don't think all of WV is worth learning, at least not at this point, but there's a few easy cases (easy to recognize and easy to execute) that I think could be learned for every corner.
You know what? I spent a couple of weeks with Roux and another week or so with ZZ like 1 year ago and I liked both methods a lot. I would certainly consider learning them more seriously but I just don't have the time so, in the end, I prioritized other events like big cubes, etc. But that is on my to do list, for sure.

And regarding WV, which also @Selkie Chris mentions above, I really have a hard time deciding what set of algs I should go for next. There are so many last slot sub-sets VLS, WV, SV, HLS,... not sure that I didn't make on of those up :p and there's also COLL... and summer vacation is too short so I better decide before I start vacation :) Any suggestions? And, no, don't tell me to learn summer variation in August and winter variation in Christmas :p

EDIT: 1st cube order arrived. In fact it's my 2nd order, from zcube, while the 1st one from Lightake with the yuxin 6x6 is still not with me. This includes the SS Aurora Mega, Qiyi skewb stickerless, LanLan 3x3x2 cuboid and LanLan Curvy Copter. Can't wait til weekend but this smells like unboxing video ;)
 
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