Older cubers discussions

[SpartanSailor]

I hear ya... I am about to get slammed for the next few months as well. I tried to milk as much out of this summer practice as possible, but after the next week I’ll be scrambling (no pun intended) just to get a little practice. I DO think that practice will focus on 3BLD when I have time since that is an area that I feel I can still maintain improvements without hours of constant drilling.

 

[Mike Hughey]

I need to hear some personal victories here so I can live vicariously through y'all!

One surprising shocker that came out of nowhere is that I got a new PB single for 7x7x7 speedsolve yesterday (for our online weekly competition, third solve): 5:41.97. It was all due to REALLY fast centers - I had centers finished by about 2:30. My previous PB was 5:51.68, almost 10 seconds slower, which I actually got in an official competition a few months ago. I've been trying to learn to freeslice edges for big cubes for the past year or so, but just a few months ago I started doing them "properly", where the slicing is horizontal (I originally learned to slice vertical because I was doing AvG), and I'm finally starting to get almost as fast that way as I was with vertical slicing. But the centers on this particular solve were just amazing.

 

[Old Tom]

No successes to report. I am stalled on my 3BLD Quest, though working diligently at it. Still doing corner solves and edge solves separately, but nowhere near solid enough on either to try a full solve. Not sure where my mistakes are (doing it blind I rarely know where I messed up). Probably one thing here and another thing there. Usually, I think I've done everything correctly, only to discover a completely scrambled cube at the end when I look. Mostly, I then just laugh.

Not at all discouraged. Everything is getting easier every day, and sighted solves are going just fine. When it happens, I suspect it will come fast.

 

[xyzzy]

I've been trying to learn to freeslice edges for big cubes for the past year or so, but just a few months ago I started doing them "properly", where the slicing is horizontal (I originally learned to slice vertical because I was doing AvG), and I'm finally starting to get almost as fast that way as I was with vertical slicing.

If by vertical you mean edge pairing in M, M-slice edge pairing is pretty rare among the fast solvers, but Anyu Zhang uses it and he's currently WR5 for 777 and WR10 for 666.

(I also use M-slice edge pairing, since wrist turns seem to be more reliable. Thought of seriously trying E-slice a couple of times, but never stuck with it.)

 

[Mike Hughey]

If by vertical you mean edge pairing in M...

Yes, that is what I meant. At the last competition I attended, I judged for a lot of big cubes solves, and I couldn't help noticing how almost no one there used M-slice edge pairing. So I decided I'd try to switch. I'd say I'm still far from comfortable with it, but it is getting much better now, and I think it is likely to work better for me once I really get used to it.

 

[h2f]

I need to hear some personal victories here so I can live vicariously through y'all!

I did 200 3bld solves since Monday to Wednesday with PBs in ao5 and ao12 (1:02.xx). First 30-50 I was remebering how to do it fast.

 

[JohnnyReggae]

I've delved into Megaminx over the last few days. Got the new Galaxy v2 M the other day. Definitely the best Megaminx I've used and so light and small. Within the first 5 solves I had broken my previous PB 4 times. New PB is now at 3:43.79, although I seem to be averaging around the 4:20, 4:30 mark. Using a beginners method for solving the S2L which is really inefficient. Also on the last layer I spam Sune to do CO which again is very inefficient.

Any advice on a good method for S2L, and perhaps a 2Look for last layer CO ?

 

[SpartanSailor]

I did 200 3bld solves since Monday to Wednesday with PBs in ao5 and ao12 (1:02.xx). First 30-50 I was remebering how to do it fast.

200!? Wow.

 

[h2f]

For around 5 months I didnt do 3bld. I felt very hungry of it.

The most imoprtant thing is that I've changed few habits in memo which I've learnt from 5bld and also I've changed plenty words from my memo. I hope 5bld practice pays off in my memo. I've also started drilling some algs because I've changed cube to Weilong GTS3 M (my magnets) and S and E moves seems much easier on it.

 

[SpartanSailor]

I've delved into Megaminx over the last few days. Got the new Galaxy v2 M the other day. Definitely the best Megaminx I've used and so light and small. Within the first 5 solves I had broken my previous PB 4 times. New PB is now at 3:43.79, although I seem to be averaging around the 4:20, 4:30 mark. Using a beginners method for solving the S2L which is really inefficient. Also on the last layer I spam Sune to do CO which again is very inefficient.

Any advice on a good method for S2L, and perhaps a 2Look for last layer CO ?

I got interested in Megaminx back in April/May timeframe. I don’t have the new Galaxy 2M, but would like it. My problem with Mega is the same as I had with larger cubes (5-7)—the layers I’m not working slip out of position making it harder to turn and less enjoyable to solve. When I stopped, I think I was about the same place as you...perhaps a little slower, but I never learned any last layer ALGS and just spammed a couple monotonous ALGS to painfully work the last layer. But, it’s still a fun puzzle to have on the shelf and I’ll get into it again soon. I DID have the opportunity to try a Galaxy 2M last weekend and now I want one. If I had that, I would definitely give it more attention.

 

[xyzzy]

Any advice on a good method for S2L, and perhaps a 2Look for last layer CO ?

For "2-look" corner orientation (which is more like 1-look 2-alg), you can use "intelligent Sune spam".

• 3 misoriented: R U R' U R U2' R'; R' U' R U' R' U2 R; and the inverses of these cover all the cases with three misoriented corners. Should be fairly easy to recognise since they're similar to the 3×3×3 cases solved by the same algs. (The mnemonic I use is that the Sunes orient three adjacent corners, while the Antisunes orient two adjacent corners and one "unconnected" corner.)
• Everything else: try to twist three corners using one of the above algs so that you'll be left with three misoriented corners, then use one of the above algs again to finish CO. This always works and you can always solve CO with at most two Sunes/Antisunes.

Probably better to just learn proper 1-look CO algs instead, though. Many of them are similar to 3×3×3 OLL/COLL algs, so even though 16 cases might sound like a lot, you probably already know half of them.

For S2L… (almost) everyone pretty much just does "star then F2L-style pairs" repeatedly on different colours until it's finished. Do have a look at the CubeSkills tutorials.

 

[AvGalen]

I've been trying to learn to freeslice edges for big cubes for the past year or so, but just a few months ago I started doing them "properly", where the slicing is horizontal (I originally learned to slice vertical because I was doing AvG.….Yes, that is what I meant. At the last competition I attended, I judged for a lot of big cubes solves, and I couldn't help noticing how almost no one there used M-slice edge pairing. So I decided I'd try to switch. I'd say I'm still far from comfortable with it, but it is getting much better now, and I think it is likely to work better for me once I really get used to it.

Funny, because I do AvG with the slicing horizontal, which is NOT what I would recommend to most people.
Doing 2:30 for 7x7x7 centers is very very quick. My best solve (a sub 5) was about that for centers. For edge-pairing I am at a very steady "30 seconds per 6 pairs", meaning 30 seconds for 4x4x4, 60 for 5x5x5, 90 for 6x6x6, 120 for 7x7x7, etc. In reality this means that the best way for me to improve is by turning faster
If you do 2:30 for centers but get a 5:42 for your total I would recommend switching back to AvG

 

[Mike Hughey]

If you do 2:30 for centers but get a 5:42 for your total I would recommend switching back to AvG

The 2:30 centers was VERY unusual for me. I'm almost always over 3:00 for centers, sometimes over 3:30, maybe once every 10 solves I might get 2:50-2:55. I've never gotten anything as fast as 2:30 before that solve. As for my edges, 3:12 for edges now with horizontal freeslice is actually pretty good for me. But it is still improving rather rapidly and I think it's worth giving it a try for a while before I give up and go back to AvG.

And anyway, it seems like I always go back to AvG right before an official competition anyway; I have another competition in a month and a half where I'll be doing 5x5x5, so I'll probably go back to it again then for that. I always give AvG a try about 3 or 4 days before the competition, and inevitably I'm instantly better with AvG than I am with whatever I've been practicing for the past few months. It will probably happen again. The good news is, it's a kind of fun way to get better with AvG - never practice it, just practice other methods, and my AvG mysteriously gets better.

 

[adimare]

No successes to report. I am stalled on my 3BLD Quest, though working diligently at it. Still doing corner solves and edge solves separately, but nowhere near solid enough on either to try a full solve. Not sure where my mistakes are (doing it blind I rarely know where I messed up). Probably one thing here and another thing there. Usually, I think I've done everything correctly, only to discover a completely scrambled cube at the end when I look. Mostly, I then just laugh.

Not at all discouraged. Everything is getting easier every day, and sighted solves are going just fine. When it happens, I suspect it will come fast.

One thing you can try to reduce the frustration factor is to keep trying the same scramble until you get a success. So for instance, you could try a simple corners only scramble like this one: R' F2 L F2 U2 L2 U2 F2 L U' L U F2 L U R U' and if you fail, instead of trying a different scramble you can try to figure out what went wrong and try the same scramble again until you get a success. That'll greatly increase the amount of successes you get (because you're way likelier to get a success on a scramble you've already tried that on a brand new one) so it makes practice feel more rewarding, and it has the added benefit of forcing you to work on cases where you're having problems that might take awhile to show up again if you keep trying different scrambles (for example, if you have trouble solving the DFR corner and that's what caused you to mess up your solve, it's probably more beneficial to try again until you're able to solve DFR instead of going for a different scramble where you probably won't have to deal with DFR at all).

 

[newtonbase]

Good luck to everyone competing at ABHC or anywhere else this weekend. I'm jealous and need a comp to get me focused again.

 

[pglewis]

One thing you can try to reduce the frustration factor is to keep trying the same scramble until you get a success. So for instance, you could try a simple corners only scramble like this one: R' F2 L F2 U2 L2 U2 F2 L U' L U F2 L U R U' and if you fail, instead of trying a different scramble you can try to figure out what went wrong and try the same scramble again until you get a success. That'll greatly increase the amount of successes you get (because you're way likelier to get a success on a scramble you've already tried that on a brand new one) so it makes practice feel more rewarding, and it has the added benefit of forcing you to work on cases where you're having problems that might take awhile to show up again if you keep trying different scrambles (for example, if you have trouble solving the DFR corner and that's what caused you to mess up your solve, it's probably more beneficial to try again until you're able to solve DFR instead of going for a different scramble where you probably won't have to deal with DFR at all).

Excellent advice here, @Old Tom. None of the individual parts of the solve are that hard, it's just the variety of ways you can make one little mistake and often no way to know where things went South. Use a generated scramble so you can re-create it to troubleshoot (and I think a lot of people scramble from their orientation, if different from WCA, so it's easier to share the same scramble with someone using a different orientation).

 

[Old Tom]

@adimare and @pglewis: thanks for the tips and advice. I have been doing a new scramble each time, to get experience with memo and trace, but I suspect I am stronger on those aspects than on execution, especially setups and un-setups. So, I will re-do scrambles, as you suggest, and try to discern where I have messed up.

This morning I did some very relaxed and successful corner solves, so on to edges. Hardest part for me there is to keep track of unsolved locations for new cycles, with 11 total spots. I have some ideas for that, working on it. It is also a problem for me switching from one alg to another with edges, this should just be a matter of practice. An 80-yr old brain is a little slower (maybe a lot) getting those algs to be automatic. But it will happen.

 

[newtonbase]

I want to remove logos from stickerless cubes. Ethanol doesn't seem easily available so would isopropyl alcohol do the job? I know acetone makes a mess of the plastic.

 

[newtonbase]

1:10.34 3BLD PB. Parity edge swap made it a nice 7/8 solve. Used some comms.

 

[Old Tom]

I want to remove logos from stickerless cubes. Ethanol doesn't seem easily available so would isopropyl alcohol do the job? I know acetone makes a mess of the plastic.

Do you have Amazon in the UK? I bought a bottle of 95% ethanol from them, which worked fine to remove my GAN logos. I used "magic eraser" instead of cotton; the result was perfect, no abrasion at all. You might try 90% (not 70) isopropyl with this if you cannot get ethanol.