Older cubers discussions

[40yearstosolve]

When it comes to the last slot, my advice from yesterday very much applies. Don't bring the corner piece to the slot you are about to solve into, like the guy says in the video. If you do, there's no way you can rearrange pieces in the U layer without disturbing a solved slot. If you are solving into FR, put corner into BR and you can hide it with a R move. Or, if the edge is attached to your corner so that it would get hidden with the same move, rotate cube 90 degrees counterclockwise so that your slot is in BR, then put corner in FR and hide it with a R' move.

I think this is what I do.

So I use the empty slot for the hide, I mean realistically that’s all you can do unless your brain can do some wild moves to fix things.

So I think what I like is that essentially my instinct - or what I picked up on the video - is correct in that: the rules apply until you hit a slot that is used, in which case ‘change the problem’ : use the remaining empty slot and force another scenario that will work. And another option is to learn an algo for the last remaining scenarios.

If I’ve understood correct I am happy that I am not doing something wrong that will cause me problems later on.

Thanks Jan.

 

[40yearstosolve]

I will mention again what I think of as sliding a completed block along the bottom, then sliding it back after a U turn. This is how I do intuitive sequences without permanently ruining any of the three completed slots.

Hard to explain without a video or a cube diagram. But, let's try: Suppose the only remaining slot shares the R and F faces. Now, visualize the F face. You will notice that there is an easily seen completed "block" at the F and L corner at the bottom.

My point is that you can make an F' turn, and this block sort of slides (actually rotates, and actually, just part of the block) over to the RF corner. BUT, it is still on the bottom. SO, you are free to make any desired U turn. THEN, slide (rotate) it back with the opposite F turn.

When you start the sequence, you make a U move to either put a U corner piece you want to drop directly on top of that LF block, or a U edge piece you want to drop in the upper middle of the F face. Now, make that F' (or whatever) sliding turn.

Then make a U move so that when you slide back, you have created one of the two Simple Cases. Viola!

It gets really easy to see, believe me: U-move, Slide, U-move, Slide Back. Four moves and you are at a Simple Case. Four moves at most, sometime only three.

Doesn't have to be the LF block or the F face, of course. Actually, the nice thing is that any of the three completed blocks can be chosen. This slows you down at first, but should not be for long. It helps to realize you will NOT be dropping your target piece into the target slot, rather, down into where the block was before you slid it.

(Different and longer of course when your target piece(s) are not already up on U. So, bring them up and take it from there. Or, do it another way.)

Hope you can understand all that! And good luck.

Ha thanks Tom it’s going to take quite a few re-reads but I will recreate the scenario and follow it through step-by-step thanks so much for that.

I still have a worry that my recognition of the correct edge piece is vvvery slow. Starting to seriously wonder if I have some kind of dyslexia - I have sometimes stared at the cube for a minute looking for the correct piece!

 

[JanW]

I still have a worry that my recognition of the correct edge piece is vvvery slow. Starting to seriously wonder if I have some kind of dyslexia - I have sometimes stared at the cube for a minute looking for the correct piece!

Are you timing yourself? Sounds like you lock up while stressing over times. I'd suggest forgetting about the timer for a long time. If you do focused F2L practice, you don't need a timer to know that your times are getting faster.

Just look at the corner, say out loud the two colors on the corner piece that are not white (assuming you do white cross), then systematically look around the cube for the edge piece with those two colors. Can't take more than a couple of seconds if you are relaxed and focused. There are only 8 spots to check, as your cross should solved be on the bottom. If you see a yellow face on an edge piece, you can immediately forget about that one. If you see any of the two colors that are not on your corner piece, you can forget about that one. Also, there are only 4 edge pieces with each color. One should be in the cross, so there are only three left. If you are looking for example for blue/red edge piece and you can see blue/yellow and blue/orange, then if you see a blue color on any piece in one of the back slots, you know it is that one. No need to even look at the other side.

 

[Old Tom]

Ha thanks Tom it’s going to take quite a few re-reads but I will recreate the scenario and follow it through step-by-step thanks so much for that.

I still have a worry that my recognition of the correct edge piece is vvvery slow. Starting to seriously wonder if I have some kind of dyslexia - I have sometimes stared at the cube for a minute looking for the correct piece!

Yeah. Hard to understand when it's all text. Really wish we could sit across a table and I could show you. Not likely. Polish on!

 

[openseas]

3x3 was an absolute disaster. But 3BLD went well... 4:11 official solve.

A mixed bag of results at comp. Had 5 PBs, which was more than I hoped for, but didn't hit any of my specific targets. Highlights were an 11:14 4BLD which was lucky enough to get 1st place, and a 7.13 clock single.

Congrats to both of you @SpartanSailor @chtiger ! Awesome results & podium!


My comp did not go well from my person result point of view, but I'm glad we're able to complete a relative huge competition (115 competitors, 13 hrs in schedule), everything was on-time, no incident, many many new cubers. I woke up kinda late, hurried up to the venue, after that, just non time to think but run the competition here and there. What was worse, didn't have coffee until evening which made my brain almost dead. While I was doing 4 & 5 BLD, there were a couple seating right infront of me, kept talking (quietly but big enough for me to hear all the conversation) - I'm gonna use that & lack of caffeine as my excuse for 7 DNF day :-(

 

[Old Tom]

Just so you all know: I gave a brief reply to @40yearstosolve, but it showed up as a much longer reply, signed "Jan". Most of the comments were not mine.

 

[JanW]

Just so you all know: I gave a brief reply to @40yearstosolve, but it showed up as a much longer reply, signed "Jan". Most of the comments were not mine.

Your post is right after mine.

Btw. the technique you described is actually exactly what you'd normally do, except that you use the F face instead of R or L. So instead of doing something like R' U2 R, you do F' U2 F. Personally I don't use much F turns during F2L. I rather rotate the cube, or do a wide Dw move to set it up to be a RU case. For example, if you want to do a F' U2 F using your technique, you could just rotate the cube 90 degrees counterclockwise and do it as R' U2 R, which usually is much faster. Possibly still faster, depending on what you want to achieve, is to do the wide Dw move, meaning hold the upper layer and flick both bottom and mid layer clockwise, then you can hide the same corner with a R' move.

 

[40yearstosolve]

Are you timing yourself? Sounds like you lock up while stressing over times. I'd suggest forgetting about the timer for a long time. If you do focused F2L practice, you don't need a timer to know that your times are getting faster.

Just look at the corner, say out loud the two colors on the corner piece that are not white (assuming you do white cross), then systematically look around the cube for the edge piece with those two colors. Can't take more than a couple of seconds if you are relaxed and focused. There are only 8 spots to check, as your cross should solved be on the bottom. If you see a yellow face on an edge piece, you can immediately forget about that one. If you see any of the two colors that are not on your corner piece, you can forget about that one. Also, there are only 4 edge pieces with each color. One should be in the cross, so there are only three left. If you are looking for example for blue/red edge piece and you can see blue/yellow and blue/orange, then if you see a blue color on any piece in one of the back slots, you know it is that one. No need to even look at the other side.

Admittedly yes I am timing myself. And I think you are right that it’s making me rush. A new week, a new approach using logic, time and patience. Thanks as always Jan.

 

[AbsoRuud]

Thanks for the invite Mike. I just beat my PB on the single 3x3x3 a few times this weekend and I also picked up the 2x2x2 yesterday. Gonna work on these two before Christmas hits and I'm hoping to get some more cube like things.

 

[Old Tom]

Your post is right after mine.

Btw. the technique you described is actually exactly what you'd normally do, except that you use the F face instead of R or L. So instead of doing something like R' U2 R, you do F' U2 F. Personally I don't use much F turns during F2L. I rather rotate the cube, or do a wide Dw move to set it up to be a RU case. For example, if you want to do a F' U2 F using your technique, you could just rotate the cube 90 degrees counterclockwise and do it as R' U2 R, which usually is much faster. Possibly still faster, depending on what you want to achieve, is to do the wide Dw move, meaning hold the upper layer and flick both bottom and mid layer clockwise, then you can hide the same corner with a R' move.

Thanks Jan. Yes, I do use the F face a lot, a habit I developed all the way back since 1981. Until this year I was never thinking much about speed, just looking for a minimum number of short and easy to understand algorithms, and the F face is the one I'm staring directly at! Then this year I stumbled on this site and all you guys, took up F2L, started thinking about speed, etc.

I understand your description of the cube rotation to change FUs to RUs, though, being lefty, I'd go the other way to generate LUs.. The Dw move is also clear, though I might have trouble remembering what I'm doing.

Fingertricks are tricky for creaky hands and cranky heads, but it's fun trying.

 

[newtonbase]

Welcome @AbsoRuud

 

[JanW]

Thanks Jan. Yes, I do use the F face a lot, a habit I developed all the way back since 1981. Until this year I was never thinking much about speed, just looking for a minimum number of short and easy to understand algorithms, and the F face is the one I'm staring directly at! Then this year I stumbled on this site and all you guys, took up F2L, started thinking about speed, etc.

I understand your description of the cube rotation to change FUs to RUs, though, being lefty, I'd go the other way to generate LUs.. The Dw move is also clear, though I might have trouble remembering what I'm doing.

Fingertricks are tricky for creaky hands and cranky heads, but it's fun trying.

Yeah, no need to worry about speed and finger tricks and fancy moves like wide moves. I would still recommend rotating the cube so that you mainly use RUL during F2L. It's faster and should make it easier.

Speaking of F2L, does anyone here actively use keyholes? I find I might use them a lot in untimed solves, when I go quite slowly, but never ever in timed solves. Would it be worth getting into the habit of using more?

 

[One Wheel]

Speaking of F2L, does anyone here actively use keyholes? I find I might use them a lot in untimed solves, when I go quite slowly, but never ever in timed solves. Would it be worth getting into the habit of using more?

I use them when I run into an easy cross that I can plan misaligned, insert an edge, and then fix the cross to get an x-cross. Otherwise standard f2l is more efficient, in my observation.

 

[h2f]

Speaking of F2L, does anyone here actively use keyholes?

I used it in my 30 FMC in Warsaw to insert an edge an prepair next f2l pair.

 

[xyzzy]

Speaking of F2L, does anyone here actively use keyholes? I find I might use them a lot in untimed solves, when I go quite slowly, but never ever in timed solves. Would it be worth getting into the habit of using more?

I used it in my 30 FMC in Warsaw to insert an edge an prepair next f2l pair.

Keyhole is pretty useful in FMC when you get to use it—from one point of view, it's the same as using D premoves; from another point of view, it's the same as doing D moves on the inverse scramble; from yet another point of view, it's the same as inserting a corner commutator that cancels 6 moves (e.g. [D, R U R'] with everything other than the D and D' cancelling).

For normal speedsolving, however, keyhole is one of those "nice to know but almost useless" tricks (like most F2L tricks, really). Like One Wheel already said, deliberately forcing cases where you can use keyhole is less efficient than just solving F2L normally. A keyhole insert takes 5 moves, while most F2L cases can be done in 7-8 moves; forcing keyhole means you spend 3 moves to insert a corner or an edge, so that bumps up the move count of forced keyhole to 5+3=8 moves.

 

[40yearstosolve]

Admittedly yes I am timing myself. And I think you are right that it’s making me rush. A new week, a new approach using logic, time and patience. Thanks as always Jan.

Well @JanW thank you again, the reading out loud idea is a boon! And not timing. But I did tim a few tests just to see where I am at. But reading it out ensures I don’t forget what I am looking for! Onwards and upwards

Anger level 3/10

 

[pglewis]

Speaking of F2L, does anyone here actively use keyholes? I find I might use them a lot in untimed solves, when I go quite slowly, but never ever in timed solves. Would it be worth getting into the habit of using more?

I use two special cases with D face moves that I think are keyhole-inspired:

Corner solved, edge in place flipped, at least one other unsolved slot: move an unsolved bottom corner to the slot, do the common edge flip from 4x4, restore the corner.

This misjoined case when you want to preserve EO

 

[Logiqx]

I use two special cases with D face moves that I think are keyhole-inspired:

Corner solved, edge in place flipped, at least one other unsolved slot: move an unsolved bottom corner to the slot, do the common edge flip from 4x4, restore the corner.

This misjoined case when you want to preserve EO

For the second case, I'd probably just do the 2-gen alg since it is so fast... R U R' U2 R U' R' U R U' R'

You might like this when you see it... target slot is FR with edge already in place but the corner is in FL.

D R U R' D' R U' R'

 

[pglewis]

For the second case, I'd probably just do the 2-gen alg since it is so fast... R U R' U2 R U' R' U R U' R'

That's still my go-to for a back slot. I haven't practiced the RUD solution there and not sure if it flows as well for back slots but it's currently a toss-up for me, for FR at least; both are reasonably quick for me with practice.

You might like this when you see it... target slot is FR with edge already in place but the corner is in FL.

D R U R' D' R U' R'

That's a clever but easy one! The biggest problem for me is spotting the situation before I disturb the other slot. Kind of the same problem for the corner solved / edge flipped case, Murphy's Law and bad habits lead me to only realizing it when it's the final slot.

 

[mark49152]

For the second case, I'd probably just do the 2-gen alg since it is so fast... R U R' U2 R U' R' U R U' R'

That's one where I like to use a sledgehammer. (U) R' F R F' and insert wherever desired.