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Older cubers discussions

pglewis

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This is the frustration... even after a few hundred solves a week for a couple months I’m still getting 25s in comp and just as likely to get a 30-something as I am to get 21 or faster...

What I do at home and what I do at comp... lol

On the plus side of this "problem" all I need is a sub 30 average to PB handily next time out.

Note to Old Tom: wanting to be faster before your next comp is a zero end-game, only the numbers change :)
 

Selkie

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I've heard so many people talk about how not practicing 3x3x3 makes them better. It makes me so jealous. That never happens for me. If I practice like crazy on 3x3x3, I'll start to get very slightly better - it will make a difference - but a couple of weeks off and it's as if I never improved at all. What I find so very frustrating about 3x3x3 speedsolving is that it seems to take so much constant, steady practice, and I'm just not interested in doing that, even if I had the time. I'll do it for some weeks at a time and improve occasionally, but then I always seem to regress again when I slack off with the practicing. So I never really improve anymore.

Mate, I can relate so much to this. You may recall my race to sub 20 7(?) years ago when you ran that thread. I have been sat on some huge plateaus over the years since. My progressions to ~18s was quite consistent but very quickly my progression stopped.

What I firmly do believe now is that repeating complete solves alone may work for some but for others it may not. Solving, especially if you have for years, becomes such a sub conscious task. Have you ever said to yourself before a solve "I'll do X here" and the solve is over and you never did?

For me progression comes from challenging what is automatic, what is norm and doing various forms of practice that breaks that subconscious thought. Whilst this may sound like overthinking, sometimes that is needed.

Rowan Kinneavy ( @Escher ) did a post many years ago about practice where can be found here https://www.speedsolving.com/forum/threads/how-to-practice.27870/. This is such a great starting point and was the basis for how I have practiced in recent years.

If I was to give specifics for the more mature cuber I would say do some sessions of the highest TPS you can, the times will be bad but in time it will help, we older folk have a natural tenancy to turn slower and this is on top of being told to slow down and lookahead. We really do turn slower than we can. If you have not done anything on X --> 1st Pair that will net you loads of improvement. I do some casual solves where I may inspect for >1m even if just trying to predict where one corner will end up. Loads of exploratory solves where time is not important looking for where you might rotate where you don't need to. Explore some COLL and WV even if you don't learn the all the algs.

It may not work for you Mike but for me anything that breaks that subconscious repetition works for me.

I have just hit globally sub 14.5 now, some good improvement recently but I am now racing Ron to sub 12 in comp. I still need to find a lot more improvement :)

Always happy to help in any way I can, there is life in our old hands yet...
 

pglewis

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6 cube attempt: 2/6, 52.23 (37:15 / 15:08). Corners were 6/6, all mistakes were on the edges.

One dumb mistake on cube 1 (2nd one solved) where I continued doing edge execution even when switching to corner memo. I tried to undo it but got centers off, surprisingly corners were all still correct for the orientation, if not matching the centers. The other 3: off by a 3 cycle of edges, one flipped edge, and another with a bunch of edge mistakes.

Time was fine, obviously, I was comfortably right at 5 mins / cube memoing the first 5. A little mental fatigue arrived late in memo and slowed the execution quite a bit but it wasn't too bad. Memo only briefly failed on the final cube and came back to me without too much trouble. I guess go for 7 next.
 
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JohnnyReggae

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Managed to smashed my OH PB last night with a 15.57
1f642.png
Super stoked. Got a lucky pll-skip but even if I didn't have a skip it would have been sub-20 which is really good for me. I've been spending a fair amount of time practicing OH as I have been enjoying it, but am still averaging in the mid to high 20's so to smash my previous PB by 3 seconds is huge.

D2 R D F R2 B' L' U2 R2 F2 U R2 D2 F' U2 F R2 F2 D2 F2

https://alg.cubing.net/?setup=D2_R_...//_oll_(pll-skip)_38 //_=_15.57_@_2.4tps
 

Logiqx

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Managed to smashed my OH PB last night with a 15.57
1f642.png
Super stoked. Got a lucky pll-skip but even if I didn't have a skip it would have been sub-20 which is really good for me. I've been spending a fair amount of time practicing OH as I have been enjoying it, but am still averaging in the mid to high 20's so to smash my previous PB by 3 seconds is huge.

D2 R D F R2 B' L' U2 R2 F2 U R2 D2 F' U2 F R2 F2 D2 F2

https://alg.cubing.net/?setup=D2_R_D_F_R2_B-_L-_U2_R2_F2_U_R2_D2_F-_U2_F_R2_F2_D2_F2&alg=z2_x-_//_inspection R2_U-_L-_x_R-_F2_//_cross_5 U2-_y-_R_U-_R-_//_1st_9 y_U2-_R_U-_R-_U-_y_R-_U_R_//_2nd_17 U_R_U-_R-_//_3rd_20 U_z_U-_R_U_R2_z-_y-_R_U_R-_//_4th_28 r_U_R-_U-_r-_R_U_R_U-_R-_//_oll_(pll-skip)_38 //_=_15.57_@_2.4tps

Very nice! We're within 0.03 of each other for OH single.

Generally speaking my OH times have probably regressed though... almost no practice since my last competition.

My TPS has dropped a lot (left hand has become sluggish) but I'm hoping to rebuild it over coming weeks.
 

openseas

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Wait. The R and L layers (outside) for 4BLD wings use the same setups as the outside edges for M2? Bonus!!

Yes, M2 in 3BLD is almost the same as r2 in 4BLD. Things are not compatible include UF-DB related algs (M Uw2 M' Uw2, D2 M D2 M', etc), UF-UB alg (U2 M' U2 M or similar). You can tell easily whenever 3BLD algs swapping M/M', it may not be translated into r2 automatically due to "l" layer.
But advanced M2 like FU + other target combination, BD + other target combination works. Also, BU M2 alg using B' R B works exactly. If you look carefully, Ubl alg is the basic of Fl, Dl, and Dbl. The rest is just setting up to Bul and using the same Bul alg.
 
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h2f

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Yes, M2 in 3BLD is almost the same as r2 in 4BLD. Things are not compatible include UF-DB related algs (M Uw2 M' Uw2, D2 M D2 M', etc), UF-UB alg (U2 M' U2 M or similar). You can tell easily whenever 3BLD algs swapping M/M', it may not be translated into r2 automatically due to "l" layer.
But advanced M2 like FU + other target combination, BD + other target combination works. Also, BU M2 alg using B R B' works exactly. If you look carefully, Bul alg is the basic of Ufl, Fdl, and Dbl. The rest is just setting up to Bul and using the same Bul alg.

It's easy to makes setups for targets on "l" layer and make 2 targets with pure r2 to avoid setups to BU and doing this long alg.
 

SpartanSailor

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Yes, M2 in 3BLD is almost the same as r2 in 4BLD. Things are not compatible include UF-DB related algs (M Uw2 M' Uw2, D2 M D2 M', etc), UF-UB alg (U2 M' U2 M or similar). You can tell easily whenever 3BLD algs swapping M/M', it may not be translated into r2 automatically due to "l" layer.
But advanced M2 like FU + other target combination, BD + other target combination works. Also, BU M2 alg using B R B' works exactly. If you look carefully, Bul alg is the basic of Ufl, Fdl, and Dbl. The rest is just setting up to Bul and using the same Bul alg.
I remember you telling me that before, but I don’t think I was fully understanding. Now that I’ve spent time learning M2 edges, it makes sense right away.

I remember hearing (and tried it to see for myself) that the Uw moves for “H” and “M” (aka LB and RB) were not Center safe... using the other setups is just as easy anyway for 4BLD wings.

I’m still not in a hurry... I like having 4BLD be a more low key endeavour to just keep me learning more stuff. There are a LOT more letter pairs to keep in my head too... I’ll cross that bridge when I’m ready to go for a full 4BLD solve. But I don’t see that happening in the next couple weeks.
 

openseas

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I remember you telling me that before, but I don’t think I was fully understanding. Now that I’ve spent time learning M2 edges, it makes sense right away.

I remember hearing (and tried it to see for myself) that the Uw moves for “H” and “M” (aka LB and RB) were not Center safe... using the other setups is just as easy anyway for 4BLD wings.

I’m still not in a hurry... I like having 4BLD be a more low key endeavour to just keep me learning more stuff. There are a LOT more letter pairs to keep in my head too... I’ll cross that bridge when I’m ready to go for a full 4BLD solve. But I don’t see that happening in the next couple weeks.

Yes, no need to rush.

Since you're taking slow, please note that 4BLD (x) center is the best or easiest case to learn 3 style. You just need to learn one basic 3 style alg (or set) and then apply to almost all center targets. (Just setting up the rest). It is much easier to understand, to follow how pieces are moving. Daniel Shepard(?)'s 4BLD tutorial covers this - very easy for a beginner. Or, Tim Goh's tutorial covers this as well.
 

Mike Hughey

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I thought it might be worthwhile to mention here that I actually had a lot of trouble originally understanding how M2 worked. But once I learned r2, suddenly M2 made more sense. I found r2 much easier to understand than M2, because the special cases make more sense to me.
 

SpartanSailor

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I keep getting this.... that’s my buffer and it’s neighbor (white top, Green Front, orientation).

That doesn’t look like the parity... and the parity Alg does not solve it. It’s just a flipped edge. All other “edges” are fine. I did sighted wings and got this twice in a row.

Separately... when doing wings, do you need to do the FU/BD or UF/DB swap like with M2?
 

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newtonbase

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I keep getting this.... that’s my buffer and it’s neighbor (white top, Green Front, orientation).

That doesn’t look like the parity... and the parity Alg does not solve it. It’s just a flipped edge. All other “edges” are fine. I did sighted wings and got this twice in a row.

Separately... when doing wings, do you need to do the FU/BD or UF/DB swap like with M2?
It looks like you just need to solve the K sticker then do parity.
The swap is the same for FU BD but the other one isn't on the r slice so no swap.
 

SpartanSailor

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It looks like you just need to solve the K sticker then do parity.
The swap is the same for FU BD but the other one isn't on the r slice so no swap.
I forgot about “k” because that never happens with M2... tried it. It worked.

I tried a “practice” and wrote everything down and used my cheat sheets for tricky algs.... that’s a LOT of information to keep in your head. I made a mistake even writing it down trying to determine if I had all the wings....

I’m mentally tired from just that. I can’t imagine doing a full attempt at this point.
 
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