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pglewis

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It has been a month since I got back to regular 3x3 practice and two weeks since I really returned to spamming lots of solves but I'm definitely at peak again now. I had a very encouraging session last night after getting home from a lovely family holiday.

Knocked another quarter second off my Ao50 and feel like I could have kept rolling it lower if I'd had the time. I think my LL is as good as ever again, better recall and execution on some OLLs that were iffy before and the remaining ones that need work were never solidly in muscle memory before, so they were already either responsible for sup 30s or just 2-looking in timed solves anyway.

The biggest drag on my Ao50 has been the disaster solves, making it difficult to get it sub 25. I only had four sup 30s in 66 solves with nothing over :33, so a really big improvement there though I'm unsure if I can attribute that part to anything. Two obvious and very small things are probably the biggest factors for the improvement: 1) paying extra close attention to the transition from cross to 1st pair (and not forgetting to keep doing it after the first 3 solves) and 2) Being very conscious about not watching the pair I'm solving all the way into the slot.

My confidence was at a level I've rarely experienced. I commonly get "spooked" during a good session and start to trail off but last night every solve just felt like an opportunity to do better. My current Ao5 PB is probably a full second better than my next best one and even though I never threatened it last night I felt like I could at any moment... the thought of a couple 17s and an 18 felt perfectly reasonable if I hit a hot streak.

Now to give the same treatment to 3bld. PB is still over 3:00 so it shouldn't take nearly as long :)

dist.png
 
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openseas

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Looks like a #1 finish for @openseas today in 3BLD!

Ah, Jeff got triple DNF - not the kind of win I would like to have. Not completely done with switching to UFR buffer, looks like.

1st round, missed the mean by one corner alg (used the wrong target) but in general, looks like my solves and times are stable. All DFNs were 1:17 range (interestingly). Next comp, trying to get 1:00 range.
 

pglewis

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Ah, Jeff got triple DNF - not the kind of win I would like to have. Not completely done with switching to UFR buffer, looks like.

1st round, missed the mean by one corner alg (used the wrong target) but in general, looks like my solves and times are stable. All DFNs were 1:17 range (interestingly). Next comp, trying to get 1:00 range.

lol I very nearly posted "I'm sure that's not how you want to get it, but a win is a win". But I'm also sure there is personal satisfaction beyond the win, good things are happening for you in 3bld right now, big congrats.
 

openseas

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lol I very nearly posted "I'm sure that's not how you want to get it, but a win is a win". But I'm also sure there is personal satisfaction beyond the win, good things are happening for you in 3bld right now, big congrats.

Haha, yes, exactly, thanks.

I guess it takes really time to be actually executing without much hesitation even though you think you know those comms inside out. Looks like edges (still DF comms) are stable, corner comms are getting better (less thinking). Also, tried to do practice solve at least 30 per day - it seems to make difference in terms of stability and memo.
 

SpartanSailor

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Haha, yes, exactly, thanks.

I guess it takes really time to be actually executing without much hesitation even though you think you know those comms inside out. Looks like edges (still DF comms) are stable, corner comms are getting better (less thinking). Also, tried to do practice solve at least 30 per day - it seems to make difference in terms of stability and memo.
30 BLD solves a day?!? That’s absolutely got to help. Looks like you are on track to close in on the 1:00 range consistently pretty soon.
 

openseas

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30 BLD solves a day?!? That’s absolutely got to help. Looks like you are on track to close in on the 1:00 range consistently pretty soon.

It may sound like a lot but not actually.
I'm averaging around 1:10, so, scrambling + fixing DNF'd session combined, roughly 2 min/attempt. I try to do 10 in the morning, 10 in the afternoon, and the last 10 in the evening or night. So, 20min per each session.
 

pglewis

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... Also, tried to do practice solve at least 30 per day - it seems to make difference in terms of stability and memo.

Scaling that down to my times, I think I'll try to target 8-12 daily 3bld solves soon. Plus I really want to get back in shape for mbld... when I left off I had done a legit 7 cube attempt right before the busy spell interrupted.
 

One Wheel

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Accomplishment and a gripe/advice request:

Second ever sub-4:00 6x6! 3:58.xx on the 2-6 relay for the WC.

Tried 3BLD for the WC yesterday, 3 DNFs. The first cube my sister interrupted me mid-memo, but I was able to keep going. Last cube my dad interrupted me as I was finishing memo, and I lost the whole thing and couldn’t even concentrate to start over. It doesn’t help that I’m changing my lettering scheme so I can use it for big blind, but do you have anything like that? I can speedsolve when he’s around, but once he walks in the room and opens his mouth any chance of memorizing anything go out the window. He’s living with me right now and working part time, so he’s bound to be around some. I’ve got 5 weeks to learn 4BLD and hopefully 5BLD, this is not looking good.

Slightly off topic: I like my YLM 6x6 that I magnetized, and I also magnetized a stickerless pink Yuxin Blue and replaced orange with black, so now all my mains for 3-7 are stickerless.
 

Mike Hughey

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I've learned to do a lot of my BLD practice (especially big BLD) very late at night, after everyone else goes to bed. It works well, and has the added advantage that I'm more experienced than most people at doing BLD even when I'm very tired. :)

Also, distraction training is very good in the long run. However, if you have a 5 week deadline, that's probably not such a good thing. If I were you, I'd try to find a way to allow yourself to be undistracted. I can understand how that might be challenging for you, though - I certainly find it challenging.
 

One Wheel

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I've learned to do a lot of my BLD practice (especially big BLD) very late at night, after everyone else goes to bed. It works well, and has the added advantage that I'm more experienced than most people at doing BLD even when I'm very tired. :)

Also, distraction training is very good in the long run. However, if you have a 5 week deadline, that's probably not such a good thing. If I were you, I'd try to find a way to allow yourself to be undistracted. I can understand how that might be challenging for you, though - I certainly find it challenging.
Thanks for reminding me of the late night thing. I think nearly all of my few successes have come late at night, as well as a few of my best DNFs. I’m usually the first to bed and almost always the first one up, so it may be difficult, but I’ll see what I can do.
 

Mike Hughey

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Thanks for reminding me of the late night thing. I think nearly all of my few successes have come late at night, as well as a few of my best DNFs. I’m usually the first to bed and almost always the first one up, so it may be difficult, but I’ll see what I can do.
Yes, I've had success with early morning too, although I usually find it pretty hard to get good times for the first half hour or so after I get up. :)
 

pglewis

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Accomplishment and a gripe/advice request:

Second ever sub-4:00 6x6! 3:58.xx on the 2-6 relay for the WC.

Tried 3BLD for the WC yesterday, 3 DNFs. The first cube my sister interrupted me mid-memo, but I was able to keep going. Last cube my dad interrupted me as I was finishing memo, and I lost the whole thing and couldn’t even concentrate to start over. It doesn’t help that I’m changing my lettering scheme so I can use it for big blind, but do you have anything like that? I can speedsolve when he’s around, but once he walks in the room and opens his mouth any chance of memorizing anything go out the window. He’s living with me right now and working part time, so he’s bound to be around some. I’ve got 5 weeks to learn 4BLD and hopefully 5BLD, this is not looking good.

Slightly off topic: I like my YLM 6x6 that I magnetized, and I also magnetized a stickerless pink Yuxin Blue and replaced orange with black, so now all my mains for 3-7 are stickerless.

Things I have tried, fwiw.

Distraction: practice sessions at my local coffee shop, probably not convenient if you're rural. Also various YT videos with distraction noises; busy cafe, city street noises... whatever I can find. I've had as many as 4 or 5 different ones set at various relative volumes running at once in the past.

Concentration: Headphones with various ambient white noise videos; snowstorm, rain, 2 hours of pirate ship sounds. I've used these during my home mbld attempts. Obviously not comp legal but I'm 100% green and working to find my limits so I wanted the best possible environment for these early attempts.

Not sure any of that would be much help for your situation vs. just trying to give them a heads up not to disturb you for an hour or so if possible. Good ol' ear plugs or passive hearing protectors might also help and are also comp kosher as long as they're not electronic, I believe.

Nice job on the 6x6! Your singles are closing in on my 4x4 averages :D
 

pglewis

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And a quick one for all the experienced mbld folks: is there an ideal breakdown for memo/execution time? Memo is the current bottleneck so I want to work out ideal memo time and work backwards from that. My 7 attempt was just over on time but was doable, if I wanna get crazy and set a goalpost at 10 I should work out how fast the memo needs to be to get there.
 

Mike Hughey

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And a quick one for all the experienced mbld folks: is there an ideal breakdown for memo/execution time? Memo is the current bottleneck so I want to work out ideal memo time and work backwards from that. My 7 attempt was just over on time but was doable, if I wanna get crazy and set a goalpost at 10 I should work out how fast the memo needs to be to get there.
To me,. the breakdown isn't necessarily a ratio for multi. Basically you should figure out how fast you can slowly solve the number of cubes you want to solve, add a few minutes, and take the rest of the time memorizing. So if you're going for 10, ask how fast you can slowly solve 10 cubes in BLD style, add a few minutes, and take the rest of the time memorizing. Once you get past 6 cubes so that you have the full hour, for me that has always gone to somewhere between 40 and 45 minutes memorizing time (since I seem to speed up on solving time at about the same rate that I tend to speed up on memorizing time).

I'm currently regularly practicing 16 cubes, and I generally take about 42 minutes to memorize, and I usually end now with a couple of minutes to spare.
 

pglewis

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Once you get past 6 cubes so that you have the full hour, for me that has always gone to somewhere between 40 and 45 minutes memorizing time (since I seem to speed up on solving time at about the same rate that I tend to speed up on memorizing time).

I was already at that point when life interrupted. Based on other good advice I didn't wait for a N/N success to move forward and pushed through increasing attempts until finally just going over the hour limit at 7. Luckily my retention seems good there, pretty sure I was 100% on what I memo'ed when I went through the postmortem. I can't recall the result, somewhere from 2-4/7 but mostly small mistakes... if it was 2/7 then it was a very encouraging 2/7.

I still need to get my blind solving legs back first but the beauty of being so slow is it shouldn't take too long to get it back.

Edit to add that going by my typical splits, 2:00 for execution feels like a comfortable target. I'm capable of faster but my recall during mbld is slower than 3bld so it gives cushion. At 6 mins / cube that means 4 mins for memo and breaks down to a 40/20 overall split which feels reasonable. It's a very bizarre thought but it seems perfectly within my ability on paper, after brush up and some targeted drills on the memo side. The idea of three felt like a stretch when I went into this.
 
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openseas

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I was already at that point when life interrupted. Based on other good advice I didn't wait for a N/N success to move forward and pushed through increasing attempts until finally just going over the hour limit at 7. Luckily my retention seems good there, pretty sure I was 100% on what I memo'ed when I went through the postmortem. I can't recall the result, somewhere from 2-4/7 but mostly small mistakes... if it was 2/7 then it was a very encouraging 2/7.

I still need to get my blind solving legs back first but the beauty of being so slow is it shouldn't take too long to get it back.

Edit to add that going by my typical splits, 2:00 for execution feels like a comfortable target. I'm capable of faster but my recall during mbld is slower than 3bld so it gives cushion. At 6 mins / cube that means 4 mins for memo and breaks down to a 40/20 overall split which feels reasonable. It's a very bizarre thought but it seems perfectly within my ability on paper, after brush up and some targeted drills on the memo side. The idea of three felt like a stretch when I went into this.


First, everybody here knows that how terrible I am in MBLD, so, this is at your own risk :)

I'm with Mike, 40 / 20 split if you have a full hour. My single BLD execution is about 30~40s but it seems to be way over 1 minute for MBLD. Part of reasons, 1) trying to go slower to make less errors, 2) recall (I mean the whole room for one cube) before I execute to reduce errors, 3) in between two cubes, trying to confirm whether I'm on the right room (or cube) after each finish, 4) sometimes, I use OP and M2 when I doubt my comms

I'm kinda at the point whether I should go for as many cubes as possible vs accuracy guaranteed N/N mode. Keep in mind that I have not made a success since US Nats with all 11 MBLD attempts. All of them, 5 or 6 /11 DNF. But I noticed that I finished my memo (including recalling and confirming) faster each time.
 

Mike Hughey

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Keep in mind that I have not made a success since US Nats with all 11 MBLD attempts. All of them, 5 or 6 /11 DNF. But I noticed that I finished my memo (including recalling and confirming) faster each time.
6/11 is not a DNF? So does that mean they're all 5/11??

I've only ever had one DNF in competition, and that was back in 2009, so I don't remember what the result was. I find that, for me, one extra cube can make a huge accuracy difference. In general, I find that it is very dangerous for me to attempt my at-home limit in competition, while it is much safer if I back off one cube. So right now, I would probably attempt 15 in competition, knowing that I can generally handle 16 safely at home. That policy has led to my near-zero (1/20) DNF results so far.
 

openseas

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6/11 is not a DNF? So does that mean they're all 5/11??

Oh, yes, 5/11. You can see that now I can't even remember how many cubes were success let alone the whole room memo.

My last success was 8/10 with 53min (back in June) - that's why I moved to 11. I don't see the reason to go back to 10 but just discouraging due to continuous fails. I'm hoping, 3BLD practice makes the whole execution more stable and faster so that my next MBLD attempt wouldn't be that horrible. The only concern for the next MBLD is, it's after midnight - Welcome to 2019 competition. All BLD events will start after midnight - so, it will be really interesting how things will go with all those overnight BLD shows :)
 

pglewis

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In general, I find that it is very dangerous for me to attempt my at-home limit in competition, while it is much safer if I back off one cube.

This was exactly my thinking; push my at home attempts until I hit the time wall but attempt one or two fewer for comp. If I can get comfortable attempting 10 at home then 8 should feel "easy". Accuracy isn't as much a concern as time management at home right now but I have a healthy respect for the penalty on an official attempt.

Also, I completely forgot about review in my previous calculations, that's why "4 mins / cube for memo" ain't quite as easy as it looks on paper. So far I've been reviewing previous memos quickly after each new one so it'll have to be quite a bit quicker than 4.
 

Mike Hughey

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Also, I completely forgot about review in my previous calculations, that's why "4 mins / cube for memo" ain't quite as easy as it looks on paper. So far I've been reviewing previous memos quickly after each new one so it'll have to be quite a bit quicker than 4.
Yes, as the number of cubes goes up, the amount of time needed to securely memorize per cube goes up. I can easily memorize 4 cubes in 8 minutes or so, but there's no way I can memorize 16 cubes in 32 minutes - it takes me well over 40 minutes for that.
 
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