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Older cubers discussions

Oldmancfop

Member
Joined
Mar 25, 2019
Messages
49
I'll go ahead and make it official at this point: the stickerless Tenyung has indeed usurped the GTS2M as my main. I accidentally picked up the GTS2M by mistake last night (with headphones on or I'd have noticed the different pitch) and was immediately annoyed that something had gone wrong with my puzzle. It felt all snappy and was fighting with with me the whole way, I've become very accustomed to the light magnet strength and lighter turn style of the Tenyung. After I realized what happened I decided to pull out the GTS3M for comparison and it feels almost comically snappy to me with the strong magnets. The beauty of this hobby: falling in love with new hardware and immediately obsoleting every other puzzle in your collection. I feel for all you 356X folks, that's an expensive fix!

Still in the midst of a super-busy work period with only a few dozen solves a day to keep from getting completely rusty. The usual stuff: lots of sup 25s when I timed yesterday, some OLL amnesia (I seem to be perpetually about a half dozen or so shy of 100%), lookahead regression, lost the gains I'd started to see practicing deeper unlimited inspection, and a couple full step 17s that could have been even faster for some relief that I haven't lost much as far as potential when things go well.

How would you compare corner cutting on the Tenyung to the GTS3M?
 

pglewis

Member
Joined
Sep 23, 2016
Messages
1,268
Location
Cincinnati
WCA
2016LEWI07
How would you compare corner cutting on the Tenyung to the GTS3M?

I'm useless as a gauge there, my turning style isn't very aggressive. If I do corner cut it's not something I'm aware of and all my puzzles are equally good at obliging me. The general consensus for some time now is all the modern flagship 3x3s cut more than adequately when setup for your style so it's not even much of a talking point in reviews these days.
 

Oldmancfop

Member
Joined
Mar 25, 2019
Messages
49
I'm useless as a gauge there, my turning style isn't very aggressive. If I do corner cut it's not something I'm aware of and all my puzzles are equally good at obliging me. The general consensus for some time now is all the modern flagship 3x3s cut more than adequately when setup for your style so it's not even much of a talking point in reviews these days.
Likewise I turn easy not aggressive, I didn't think I corner cut until I used a cheap magnetic cube that had poor corner cutting, it felt like it wasn't sprung. I may give the Tenyung a go, seems popular and isn't too costly.
 

Tom Joad

Member
Joined
Jun 29, 2016
Messages
137
I'll go ahead and make it official at this point: the stickerless Tenyung has indeed usurped the GTS2M as my main. I accidentally picked up the GTS2M by mistake last night (with headphones on or I'd have noticed the different pitch) and was immediately annoyed that something had gone wrong with my puzzle. It felt all snappy and was fighting with with me the whole way, I've become very accustomed to the light magnet strength and lighter turn style of the Tenyung. After I realized what happened I decided to pull out the GTS3M for comparison and it feels almost comically snappy to me with the strong magnets. The beauty of this hobby: falling in love with new hardware and immediately obsoleting every other puzzle in your collection. I feel for all you 356X folks, that's an expensive fix!

Still in the midst of a super-busy work period with only a few dozen solves a day to keep from getting completely rusty. The usual stuff: lots of sup 25s when I timed yesterday, some OLL amnesia (I seem to be perpetually about a half dozen or so shy of 100%), lookahead regression, lost the gains I'd started to see practicing deeper unlimited inspection, and a couple full step 17s that could have been even faster for some relief that I haven't lost much as far as potential when things go well.


Look ahead regression, haha, exactly the same thing happens to me when I have a spell of cubing less...
 

pglewis

Member
Joined
Sep 23, 2016
Messages
1,268
Location
Cincinnati
WCA
2016LEWI07
Likewise I turn easy not aggressive, I didn't think I corner cut until I used a cheap magnetic cube that had poor corner cutting, it felt like it wasn't sprung. I may give the Tenyung a go, seems popular and isn't too costly.

Yeah, now that you mention it I can break out my tiled Rubik's brand (that I have just to have) and I certainly notice the lack of corner cutting. But just about anything I've tried in the past few years lets me get away with whatever it is I'm doing without much fuss and is just a matter of getting used to each puzzle's quirks.

The TengYun is naturally a fast puzzle and the magnet feel is light, if those qualities sound like they suit you... though I think most puzzles are easily slowed with thicker silicone lube.
 
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openseas

Member
Joined
Oct 11, 2015
Messages
425
WCA
2015PARK24
How would you compare corner cutting on the Tenyung to the GTS3M?

GTS3 M (light version) feels still stronger than Tenyung in terms of magnet strength.
My main is DIY GTS 3M - used weaker magnets on GTS 3. I'm alternating between GTS 3M (DIY) vs Tenyuang back and forth. Sometimes, I love the smoothness and no-noise of Tenyung better. I might use Tenyuang as my main this weekend.

As @pglewis wrote, I keep switching to new H/W, like every 6 month cycle - Valk 3 M(DIY) - GTS 2 M (DIY) - Gan 356 X (DIY M) - GTS 3M (DIY), now Tenyung, first time, no DIY, out of the box + DNM.

I still want to change Tenyung core / tension system.
 

One Wheel

Member
Joined
Feb 24, 2016
Messages
2,883
Location
Wisconsin
WCA
2016BAIR04
I am curious to know how everyone structures their training sessions. Short from complete solves, what do you do?
Ie 15min f2l, 10 minute cross, 10 min oll, etc. I seem to be spinning my wheels lately
Practice is for noobs, I just solve. Which may be part of the reason I’m still solidly over 25 seconds after 5 (or is it 4?) years of cubing.
 

Greycube

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Joined
Apr 25, 2019
Messages
39
Location
Austraila, Toowoomba
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2019BOWE05
Practice is for noobs, I just solve. Which may be part of the reason I’m still solidly over 25 seconds after 5 (or is it 4?) years of cubing.

Lol 25secs, I dream of that day. I am doing full solves now. I think f2l with sweet FA look ahead and very poor fingering positioning is holding me back at the moment. This is a great a site with a lot of material and knowledge but its a little like Boardgame Geek, is taking a bit to find what I need in the forums.
 

auienrst

Member
Joined
Jul 25, 2017
Messages
15
Location
France
Practice is for noobs, I just solve. Which may be part of the reason I’m still solidly over 25 seconds after 5 (or is it 4?) years of cubing.

Same here…
I try to do some FB/SB training http://cubegrass.appspot.com/block_trainer/ and slow solves with unlimited inspection, but I quickly go to solve-only-mode and am happy with skips that lower my times…
 

pglewis

Member
Joined
Sep 23, 2016
Messages
1,268
Location
Cincinnati
WCA
2016LEWI07
(psst it's spelt "Teng Yun"; there's no "yung" in pinyin, the standard Chinese transliteration system)

Oops, my weird dyslexia surfaced; fixed. Also: if I say left or right just assume I selected one at random and it's a 50/50 shot I'll have to go back and edit. And there's a fair chance I'll mistakenly call you "plugh" at some point.

I am curious to know how everyone structures their training sessions. Short from complete solves, what do you do? Ie 15min f2l, 10 minute cross, 10 min oll, etc. I seem to be spinning my wheels lately

My progress has been relatively slow so... grain of salt and all that. Could just be me and/or the amount of practice time I have, or maybe I could progress faster if I weren't so allergic to "drills".

For the most part I just "spam solves". I typically do a period of a few weeks mostly without timing, doing F2L slowly enough that I don't have to pause much and evaluating which cases seem to throw sand in the gears. I focus on improving one or two troublesome cases at a time because that's all my brain seems to allow. Then I get my timer legs back and check my progress for maybe a week or two; rinse, repeat. Some people can do all that and still time their sessions without feeling timer pressure but I find it a lot easier to tinker with my solves without timing.

If you don't have full PLL down yet I suggest making that a focus. Otherwise, F2L is where the majority of the time is spent and you want to solve most F2L cases in 8 or fewer moves, with a few 11 move exceptions. Be on the lookout for the worst cases that take more moves than that as well as ones that induce pauses figuring out which case it is. A couple other random things:

* If you don't pay attention to edge orientation, now is a good time to start. Edge orientation can tell you if you need to rotate or not even before you've recognized the specific case. I go by the top color of my F2L edge if it's in the U layer, if it matches or is opposite the front color I'm already oriented (JPerm teaches this the opposite way: if the side color of the edge in the U layer matches one of the side colors... whatever works). If the edge is in a slot and not the U layer, compare the color with the center it's next to, same or opposite color is oriented. Secondarily, you can also avoid dot cases in OLL by paying attention to the edge orientation when solving the last pair.

* Develop a preference for solving your first pairs in the back when possible. Lookahead is improved when the pieces you need to find have fewer blind spots to hide in. This probably won't pay a lot of dividends right now but if you get in the habit it's one less thing to adjust to later.

* Practice solving your pairs blind. Spot your pair, determine the case, close your eyes, solve them, open eyes, repeat. My own allergy to drills keeps me from doing this much but I have no doubt it's a highly beneficial exercise.

* Pay attention to smoothing out transitions: cross => F2L, F2L => OLL. That first pair after solving the cross is a notorious time eater.

* If you're really feeling stuck on progress, maybe experiment with a different method like ZZ or Roux. There's less pressure on yourself when learning new stuff and you might find another method just clicks better for you. Worst case IMO is you try it and abandon it, but still come out on the other side with more concepts to apply to your CFOP solves.
 
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White KB

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Oct 3, 2017
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Putting Runza on the map since 2022
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Hi Guys,

My name is Marcel, 42 years old. I have learned to solve the cube at age 11 - 12 or so. I had not touched a cube a maybe 15 - 20 years. A few weeks ago I solved a cube and found it very nice to see that I still knew how to do that. When I looked at youtube I found amazing stuff from you speedsolvers. I thought it was the most amazing thing I have ever seen. I solved the cube in a layer by layer which could take up to 10 minutes.

So when I decided that I want to be much faster. I ordered a few cubes. The Dayan Zhianchi and Guhong. I looked at these video's:



And in one week I went from solving times of 10 minutes to below 2 minutes. In fact I have a video of a 1.30 solve:


My goal is to get below one minute. Right now I have not focussed on OLL and PLL. I just need to get the 2FL much quicker. I recon in a few weeks times must be a lot better.

Cheers!
I know this is from 7 years ago, but get the GAN X with Numerical IPG. It's way better than DaYan... trust me.
 

pglewis

Member
Joined
Sep 23, 2016
Messages
1,268
Location
Cincinnati
WCA
2016LEWI07
Did three days at normal practice level to keep things from sliding. No consistency but I did hit a spell with 5 full step :18s in a span of about 8 or 9 solves. Biggest issue is mistakes, a fair bit of that being rust. So three days brush-up after about six weeks of minimal practice and I'm back to threatening my single and short averages.
 

openseas

Member
Joined
Oct 11, 2015
Messages
425
WCA
2015PARK24
I'm on a business trip in Korea - registered a local comp for the weekend.
It's a "PlayX4" - kinda expo for gamers (video games, board games, puzzles, speedstack, and of course, cubing). A large convention center with tons of noises. Cubing competition got a booth right next to "Overwatch" game competition area with live broadcasting. So, basically, you can't understand what your neighbor is saying. But aside from the noise, quite fun competition.

Past couple of days, drilling new setup comms kind of slowed me down quite a bit and made me difficult to focus on memo/recall. I think it is due to the part that I'm trying to remember latest drilled comms constantly. My practice success rate was less than 10% coming into the competition.
I guess due to my extreme low expectations, my comp results were not that horrible. I've got first official sub 1 (57.64s) in 3BLD. It was 10 algs. 6 edges, 3 corners + 1 twist. I had a little bit of corner recall pause and execution didn't fell that smooth. So, I was quite surprised that it was 57s.

At the final, I started the memo and felt quite good (9 alg) - quickly tried to execute but only realized there was no blindfold. Not on my head, not in the pocket, nowhere. I was about to give up then found a un-attended blindfold in the station (kinda luck), used that one after wasting good 20s. Not only the time I wasted but also forgot the most of memo. I managed to figure out audio and moved to corner. I had a little bit of pause for corner recall but was able to recall then started. When I finished 3rd corner comm, then, realized I had no idea what was the 4th corner pair. There were only two corner pieces left - just guessed one pair and did that - didn't expect to be a success. When I opened my eyes, the cube was, of course, unsolved by the exact corner comms I just did. Turned out, there was no 4th comm: so, I solved it but somehow thought there was one more pair, executed a random pair comm, made a solved cube to a DNF :-( After this dramatic event, kind of lost, couldn't recall the rest of the attempts, got a triple DNF. Those big noised from the neighboring booth, broadcasting game battle was not that helpful either.

But any how, I'm still excited about my first sub 1.

As a bonus, I've got another 18s in 3x3x3. My 3x3x3 strategy is just simple - if you do tons of official solves, you'll end up with some luck scramble / leading to PBs at some points. I'm getting PBs past 3 comps which means my strategy works :)
 
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