Older cubers discussions

Sure, it will help, 4 blocks is good, also yellow on bottom is not much difficult... although sometimes I see too many bars done and spend too much of the inspection time deciding which one to use.

Anyway, I'm the worst at first two blocks, they should take like half of the solve, in my case that should be 10 seconds, but it's almost 13.
 
I have to wonder what the increased odds of OLL skip and LL skip are with pre-oriented edges. I actually got a LL skip and back to back OLL skips shortly after last night. I'm sure that was on the extra-lucky side, but still.
 
I have to wonder what the increased odds of OLL skip and LL skip are with pre-oriented edges. I actually got a LL skip and back to back OLL skips shortly after last night. I'm sure that was on the extra-lucky side, but still.

This is discussed at length in the probabilities thread. The shortest answer I saw was 1/27 for OLL skip, 1/1944 for LL skip, but I'm not sure if that's correct.
 
This is discussed at length in the probabilities thread. The shortest answer I saw was 1/27 for OLL skip, 1/1944 for LL skip, but I'm not sure if that's correct.
Yes, that's correct. The chances of an OLL skip when edges are pre-oriented is 8 times more likely than a normal OLL skip (same ratio for a LL skip).
 
Starting to practice for my 1st comp. Signed up in 3x3, OH, and BLD. BLD may be aggressive, in that I may not be able to hit the times, but I threw it in. OH may be also.. but I see making a run at that one. I'm pretty close to the cuts. With work, I may be able to get a few solves in ;).

I've been practicing with my timer set to time inspection a bit just to get used to how long 15s feels.

In the end... It is better to try and fail, than never try.
 
A couple of quick notes:
  1. I've made some small changes to my alg pages...
    1. Changes to layout; case names always shown and a more consistent view across mobile / tablet / desktop
    2. Re-ordered algs for each case to ensure that my first choices are shown on the reduced views (e.g. mobile)
    3. Added Oriented + Sune + Anti-Sune to the COLL page, just for the sake of completeness. I don't actually use them!
    4. Changed the COLL page to use CMLL naming convention - i.e. [A-H][1-6]
    5. Added L2E for 5x5x5
  2. I've updated the oldies rankings on GitHub
Links in my signature.
 
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Absolutely. You should enter everything you can do. It's all good experience and you may get lucky.
I've always done that just for fun. However at the next comp I am not going to do 5x5. I'm nowhere near the cut and if I entered I would want to practice a little more, and I want to focus on 4x4 to qualify for Nationals.

Speaking of which I'm pretty consistently under 1:30 now which is what I need. Tonight I averaged about 1:25. It's funny I was not getting hardly any double parity and I wanted to for practice recognizing it and executing. So I had an idea at the end of my session... I'm going to start executing whatever parities I did not have at the end of each solve before stopping the timer. I know I could just practice timing the parity algs and do the math, but I feel like this is better practice for getting used to doing them in a solve. Anyone ever try that? I will probably only do it right now since my double parity time is questionable to make the cut.
 
I've always done that just for fun. However at the next comp I am not going to do 5x5. I'm nowhere near the cut and if I entered I would want to practice a little more, and I want to focus on 4x4 to qualify for Nationals.

Speaking of which I'm pretty consistently under 1:30 now which is what I need. Tonight I averaged about 1:25. It's funny I was not getting hardly any double parity and I wanted to for practice recognizing it and executing. So I had an idea at the end of my session... I'm going to start executing whatever parities I did not have at the end of each solve before stopping the timer. I know I could just practice timing the parity algs and do the math, but I feel like this is better practice for getting used to doing them in a solve. Anyone ever try that? I will probably only do it right now since my double parity time is questionable to make the cut.
Sounds like a good plan.
 
I'm right now at around sub 1:10 average without parity or maybe a bit below. Counting all solves I'm at sub 1:15. When I have double parity, unless the solve is nice-to-good I can easily go over 1:20. If the solve is bad I still can get over 1:25 or even in disaster cases over 1:30 but that's very rare.

What I mean is... I hate even layered cubes :p No, just kidding, but I hate the difference it can make between a lucky no parity solve and a double parity one.

NOTE: I have timed myself just for the execution of OLL parity followed by PLL parity and I think it's around 8-9 seconds. Maybe I should practice more, in particular OLL parity with U2 flicks alternating between both hands (I do them all with my right).
 
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@mafergut, the way I look at it is this. Over long averages my 4x4 times have proportionally greater StDev than some other puzzles. While double parities can be frustrating, on the other hand 4x4 gives nice singles! :)

In comp it amplifies the feelings. Five solves with double parities is frustrating, but it feels great to get those fast singles, especially when they count.
 
Screenshot_20170407-184200.png
1:26.40 3BLD PB. First in ages. Done on an EasyJet flight.
 
47.26 was my first sub 60 ZZ single (well, technically EO-CFOP). Either 6 or 8 edges to fix up, can't recall which but it wasn't a lol scramble I just managed to see what I needed in time, didn't mess it up, and got a reasonably smooth F2L. I also got a 2:33 single. Mean is ~1:23 on my first timed solves. I'm back to using csTimer's voice alert in inspection, I haven't done that in ages because I'm completely comfortable staying under inspection time for CFOP solves. I can usually evaluate and get a count of misoriented edges during inspection thus far, but only just. No real planning besides how to break them up based on the count.
 
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