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Older cubers discussions

I see lot of us registered to worlds, and I've been told some of us are also registered as staff, Do you guys have everything booked? I'm planning to get plane tickets this week and the hotel soon enough, can't wait to meet some of you!

I've booked my trains and accommodation. I'm also on the staff list for Thursday and Sunday.

All of the U.K. oldies are booked into the Novotel just a few minutes walk from the venue.
 
A concrete example of one that sometimes gives me fits is F2L 15 (and the mirror, 16; this applies to both since I lump them together as "the same case" mentally but I'll use 15 as the example for the specifics).

My first instinct for the general case is to flip the corner's orientation by going over the top of the edge. To do the quickest flip and insert I can execute, I end up with a rotation then a rotation back.

The above approach is more palatable to me when the edge is misoriented: split over the top, then rotate to orient for the insert. Edge was misoriented and I did exactly one 90 degree rotation, perfectly acceptable. But when I see the edge is already oriented I'd really, really like to be able to invoke a general "don't rotate" rule and this violates it. The first intuitive stab at addressing that problem is 100% equivalent: flip the corner orientation with F layer turns rather than a rotation and L layer turns. Move efficient and rotationless but a little awkward and unflowing for me. Might just be a matter of practice.

An R turn is slot-safe with the slot's orientation so a different approach would be to flip the corner's orientation that way, bringing the bottom layer sticker to the top and resulting in a rotationless, regripless, R/U 2-gen approach. Less move efficient but maybe trigger/finger-trick loaded enough to compensate.

After deconstructing, the one I think I'm sold on isn't as obvious. With the pair opposite the slot, a sledgehammer will flip the corner's orientation without touching the edge, leaving a quick AUF and insert. Rotationless and I always welcome new members to the Department of Sledgehammer Abuse. Remains to be seen if this works as well while solving in anger as it does in theory. I do still think it's worth considering different ways of handling this case based on the edge orientation at the time, regardless.

Another popular solution for case 15 is r' R U r U' r' U' M'. The r' R is just an alternative execution of M.

I don't often use the M slice during F2L but this one is a nice alg and can be mirrored to the back slots.

If the BR slot is empty then you can obviously use U' (R' U R) U' (R U R') for case 15.
 
Another popular solution for case 15 is r' R U r U' r' U' M'. The r' R is just an alternative execution of M.

I would recommend using l U r U' r' U' l' instead which is the same idea but easier to fingertrick in my opinion.
Probably one of the fastest F2L cases, however, I don't use it because it destroys my look-ahead (pref 2-gen RU).
 
I would recommend using l U r U' r' U' l' instead which is the same idea but easier to fingertrick in my opinion.
Probably one of the fastest F2L cases, however, I don't use it because it destroys my look-ahead (pref 2-gen RU).

I still use RU but I was reminded of the RUM alg when watching Feliks' F2L algs video on cubeskills.com

The lrU alg seems worse for lookahead imho.
 
Looks like it's time for the task I've been putting off: spamming OLLs and PLLs for TPS. Up until now I've just let them develop naturally since I've had double digits of time to cut. Today I spent the time to do a full reconstruction of my recorded :25 solve and was shocked when my first few attempts were slower than the one I did on the fly... solving the same, but knowing what was coming and without the last layer hiccups and U3. It took multiple attempts before I got one sub 20 and I was generally in the 18s after several repeated solves, even with total omniscience. Best was a 17.81 until a final, completely smooth one that also normalized the R turns between the end of Pi and Ab landed a 16.14. If my lookahead were ideal today I'd be dragged down by my last layer speed.
 
I've realized I have to spam my OLLs and PLLs too. My TPS sucks during LL.

I got Valk3 M in stickered version few days ago. It's magnetized my old and broken in Valk. It feels great and it looks like it fits to my habits in 3bld.

And I got first signs of 5 solves per day in squan: first ao5 sub 1 minute.
 
I've realized I have to spam my OLLs and PLLs too. My TPS sucks during LL.

I got Valk3 M in stickered version few days ago. It's magnetized my old and broken in Valk. It feels great and it looks like it fits to my habits in 3bld.

And I got first signs of 5 solves per day in squan: first ao5 sub 1 minute.

Just today, I received a dispatch email from the cubicle for a black Valk M + stickerless Valk M.

I ordered them some time ago so I'm looking forward to receiving them next week. :)
 
Just today, I received a dispatch email from the cubicle for a black Valk M + stickerless Valk M.

I ordered them some time ago so I'm looking forward to receiving them next week. :)

:) I wonder how it differs to main which was made by one of my friends - he's a very good moder of cubes and he asked me about strenght of magnets I wish. He also showed me so many ways of adding magnets and showed few ideas about adding magnets. I didnt know there's so many ways of doing it.
 
Long time no post, sucks not having tapatalk, but I need to try this /forum URL and see if it works. Also, going back to work after 6 months off, so I have little or no cubing time these days!

Anyway, CSTimer just gave me this STUPID scramble. Should've been massive PB (sub-11?), but I lost my grip on the cube during my regrip for A perm, and nearly dropped it:

Generated By csTimer on 2017-3-30
single: 13.74

Time List:
1. 13.74 R D F2 D' U2 B2 L2 R' D U' L B' F D R' L' U B' U R L' B2 F2 D' U'

Have fun, pretty sure it'll be sub-10able for many of you.
 
Long time no post, sucks not having tapatalk, but I need to try this /forum URL and see if it works. Also, going back to work after 6 months off, so I have little or no cubing time these days!

Anyway, CSTimer just gave me this STUPID scramble. Should've been massive PB (sub-11?), but I lost my grip on the cube during my regrip for A perm, and nearly dropped it:

Generated By csTimer on 2017-3-30
single: 13.74

Time List:
1. 13.74 R D F2 D' U2 B2 L2 R' D U' L B' F D R' L' U B' U R L' B2 F2 D' U'

Have fun, pretty sure it'll be sub-10able for many of you.

I didn't time it but I got a PLL skip with 2-look OLL:

z2 // inspection
F // cross
L U' L' U' R U R' // 1st pair
y R' U R U L U2 L' R U' R' // 2nd pair
U' R' U R // 3rd pair
U' L U' L' U2 L U' L' // 4th pair
U F R U R' U' F' U r U R' U' r' F R F' // OLL
U' // AUF
 
Got a 24.78 single PB! (I did jump out of my chair a bit when that happened). Also 34.92 ao5 and 36.44 ao12

Is that your first sub-25s single? Congratulations.

Feel free to take part in the weekly Race to Sub-30 in the Forum Competitions. That helped me focus on reducing my average during 2016 to the extent I ended up taking over running the thread.
 
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