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Older cubers discussions

newtonbase

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Advice needed for my Multi attempt coming up this Saturday.

I'm having a hard time deciding how many cubes I should attempt.

over the last month or so ive increased my attempts to try to gauge where my sub hour limit might be. My last 5 attempts have been in this order.

6/8 - 55 min
6/10 - 1 hour 15 min
9/12 - 1 hour 15 min
6/8 - 47 min
8/10 - 1 hour 1 min (Im sure I would have been sub hour but I messed up cube 1 memo and had to redo it, put me over)

Most of my mistakes have been memoing wrong letters. forgetting to memo a letter on a cycle break. I don't think I've made a single execution error in those 5 attempts. I struggle with tracing and making sure I cover all the pieces. mostly during edges and sometimes during corners.

I feel like I could comfortably finish 10 cubes in sub hour but this last attempt shook my confidence on that since I messed up the first cube which added a lot of time. Also the fact that I haven't had a 100% accuracy yet makes me think that I should go with a smaller number like 8 or 9 and add review time.

Thoughts or advice appreciated!
8 or 9 sounds good. You can beat @Mike Hughey next time :)
I turned 39 today. Despite it being just another day, these numbers are starting to make me feel old. I still cube
Happy birthday.
 

kbrune

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@kbrune: My experience is that memo takes longer in comp than it does at home. I'm not sure why. I just know that what feels like 6 minutes based on home experience turns out to be 7 when I look at the stopwatch in comp. My suggestion would be to play it safe and not add pressure on yourself if you're shooting for a first official result. Maybe go for 8 or even a super safe 6 or 7.

Nothing in particular comes to mind that could throw you off. Time management is important and perhaps the way time flies might surprise you (see above). Keep an eye on the stopwatch and pace yourself by setting some milestones and knowing what target time you should meet for each one.

(Mark is conspiring with me) :)

Now I have to do 17!
 

kbrune

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Someone mentioned a while back that to calculate your ao100 you take off best 10 and worst 10. Do I remember that right?

If so would ao50 be less best 5 and worst 5?
 

SpartanSailor

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Someone mentioned a while back that to calculate your ao100 you take off best 10 and worst 10. Do I remember that right?

If so would ao50 be less best 5 and worst 5?
I thought they said for Ao100 remove top/bottom 5.

The scramble app I use only removes fastest and slowest single.... I don’t care to be that accurate to hand-jam the Ao100. It’s more a point of reference for me and I don’t “track” it per se.
 

kbrune

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I thought they said for Ao100 remove top/bottom 5.

The scramble app I use only removes fastest and slowest single.... I don’t care to be that accurate to hand-jam the Ao100. It’s more a point of reference for me and I don’t “track” it per se.

I don't follow it closely either. I got curious about what the difference would be if it was calculated with the actual ao50 rules.

I got my first sub 17 oa50 at 16.92. I wondered if eliminating the top and bottom solves would push me over 17 or not.
 

kbrune

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@mark49152

In the BLD group on facebook you mentioned a good way of practicing comms. I didn't understand it.

You said "Do your drill then read the memo for what is left. That memo can be executed on a sovled cube for your scramble. That way you can remember the scrambles"


I tried to figure out what this meant but it's way over my head.
 

SpartanSailor

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Yeah... I’m sure it would change a little if you change how to calculate the average. However, it’s not as though it’s a WCA official time. I use the Ao100 as more of a reference. Right now, I’m tracking a session of 850 that has a session average of 24.xx and the current ao100 is close to the same. That’s slightly better than my current Ao5 official. I just read that to be slow improvement. With any luck, that bears out in my next competition.
 

SpartanSailor

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@mark49152

In the BLD group on facebook you mentioned a good way of practicing comms. I didn't understand it.

You said "Do your drill then read the memo for what is left. That memo can be executed on a sovled cube for your scramble. That way you can remember the scrambles"


I tried to figure out what this meant but it's way over my head.
There’s a BLD group on Facebook?
 

mark49152

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@mark49152

In the BLD group on facebook you mentioned a good way of practicing comms. I didn't understand it.

You said "Do your drill then read the memo for what is left. That memo can be executed on a sovled cube for your scramble. That way you can remember the scrambles"


I tried to figure out what this meant but it's way over my head.

By drill, Bertie meant practising a whole sequence of comms in succession. Like a PLL attack. For example for B set, I do BC, BD, BF ... BX. 18 comms. It's great practice.

The question is, how do I find a scramble that will set up the cube so that my drill solves it?

Bertie suggested genning a scramble using Cube Explorer or similar. That's OK if you want minimum moves but I'm too lazy.

The way I prefer to do it is using comms for the scramble. If you do the drill (correctly) then memo what's left of the cube, that memo gives you the scramble. So after B set corners, if I memo what's left I get WB MK DU XH. Now if I get a solved cube and execute the comms for WB MK DU XH, then do my drill, hey presto, as if by magic, it solves the cube!

It's good for lazy people because I can just remember my scrambles instead of having to look them up :).
 

kbrune

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By drill, Bertie meant practising a whole sequence of comms in succession. Like a PLL attack. For example for B set, I do BC, BD, BF ... BX. 18 comms. It's great practice.

The question is, how do I find a scramble that will set up the cube so that my drill solves it?

Bertie suggested genning a scramble using Cube Explorer or similar. That's OK if you want minimum moves but I'm too lazy.

The way I prefer to do it is using comms for the scramble. If you do the drill (correctly) then memo what's left of the cube, that memo gives you the scramble. So after B set corners, if I memo what's left I get WB MK DU XH. Now if I get a solved cube and execute the comms for WB MK DU XH, then do my drill, hey presto, as if by magic, it solves the cube!

It's good for lazy people because I can just remember my scrambles instead of having to look them up :).

Ah ok! I get it now. So you just have those "memo" scrambles written down somewhere?

I tried it once. I have no idea if my mistake was in the first drill to get to the memo, or if the 2nd drill after scramble had a mistakes. Seems like it would take a while to compile an accurate list of memo scrambles!
 
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mark49152

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Ah ok! I get it now. So you just have those "memo" scrambles written down somewhere?
I have them written down but when I'm practising I generally only need to check once and then I remember for the session. Or I do the drill on a solved cube and the end state reminds me what the memo was.

For anybody wondering how it works: for any sequence of moves that doesn't change the cube (identity), you can split it and swap the parts and the result is also identity. So if A B = I, B A = I. In this case A is the drill and B the memo execution.
 
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h2f

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The way I prefer to do it is using comms for the scramble. If you do the drill (correctly) then memo what's left of the cube, that memo gives you the scramble. So after B set corners, if I memo what's left I get WB MK DU XH. Now if I get a solved cube and execute the comms for WB MK DU XH, then do my drill, hey presto, as if by magic, it solves the cube!

It's good for lazy people because I can just remember my scrambles instead of having to look them up :).

Thats awsome trick. I didnt know it.

I think not drilling comms was my biggest mistake in my everyday 3bld practice.

Drilling algs in every form is very important in 3bld. That's why I wrote there are around 50 OP algs and for corners there are 21. Of course theres only 3 (both Jperms and Yperm) plus setups. When I was drilling them I've strated to think about solving every corner as a sequence of continous alg, not as a sequence setup (pause) + alg (pause) + undo setup, to eliminate pauses.
 
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mitja

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Thats awsome trick. I didnt know it.

I think not drilling comms was my biggest mistake in my everyday 3bld practice.

Drilling algs in every form is very important in 3bld. That's why I wrote there are around 50 OP algs and for corners there are 21. Of course theres only 3 (both Jperms and Yperm) plus setups. When I was drilling them I've strated to think about solving every corner as a sequence of continous alg, not as a sequence setup (pause) + alg (pause) + undo setup, to eliminate pauses.
I also drill by letters sometimes. Just take solved cube and go all over my letterscheme and when i reach the last, I go backward, and if the cube is solved, that was ok.
 
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