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Older cubers discussions

Greycube

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Apr 25, 2019
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Austraila, Toowoomba
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2019BOWE05
It's a long time since I was a regular on this thread but I see some new names on recent posts.

I've spent a fair bit of time working on the over-40's rankings in recent weeks so I thought I'd post a link on this thread.

Please drop me a PM if you'd like to be added to the list.

http://logiqx.github.io/wca-ipy/

Every nice. looking forward to getting added when I do my first comp in September. Any chance though you can choose to sort by country?
 

Logiqx

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Every nice. looking forward to getting added when I do my first comp in September. Any chance though you can choose to sort by country?

I pondered it for a while but there are a few complications.

The first is that the report is regular markdown (converted to HTML by GitHub Pages) and the layout is at the mercy of the device and browser. I've chosen to combine the name + country to ensure the cleanest possible look on mobile devices. To make the tables sortable would require the country to be in a separate column and when I tried that it looked terrible on my phone, hence why they are combined.

Secondly it is isn't feasible to do to the representative rankings since the unknowns are well... unknown. ;)

Lastly and possible most importantly, I only know the WCA IDs of around 10% of the over-40's. Whilst I could produce reports per country it would be somewhat misleading and any claim to top-10 etc would more than likely be misplaced.

People can always to "search on page" to find the known results of their fellow countrymen.

Drop me a PM when you can be added to the list. :)
 

One Wheel

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Feb 24, 2016
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Wisconsin
WCA
2016BAIR04
Been looking for this one for a long time:Sub-1 4x4.jpg

Edit to add: after this solve I stopped working on 4x4 for the day, except for a couple of unremarkable relay solves later. Today I came back and did 4x4 for the weekly comp, and the first solve was 55.65. The rest of the average was unremarkable, but my 4x4 cstimer session has 59.81 and 55.65 back to back.
 
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OldManCuber

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Jan 14, 2019
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Park City, KS
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2018SMIT42
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Curious how you older cubers train when you have busy lives, married, kids, jobs, etc. We just don't have the time the teens have, to train 6 hours a day... lol

Anyway, I'm working on 2x2, 3x3, 4x4, and now working on 5x5. I want to get better on each, but I just don't have the time to give each puzzle the time it needs to get better. I cube for about 25-30 minutes at lunch and then 45-60 minutes in the evenings, and 2-ish hours a day on the weekends.

So, how do you guys train when you're trying to get better at multiple puzzles and only have a limited amount of time? Some thoughts:
-- I could cycle through each puzzle daily
-- Focus on each puzzle for a few days to work on different techniques and algs before moving on
-- Focus on each puzzle until you hit your goals, then move to the next puzzle. This could take a day or take a month.

Thoughts? What do you guys do?
 

SpartanSailor

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Joined
May 21, 2016
Messages
730
WCA
2016DUEH02
I used to try to get better at everything all at the same time.... needless to say that is a fools errand.

I tend to focus on one or two things at a time. 3x3 tends to remain in the stable, since I’m at a point where I need to do a couple thousands solves to improve consistency. No way to get those without keeping at it. Especially since I don’t even average 50 times solves a day...

Then another event will get my attention for a couple weeks or so. I find that I need at least a solid week of attention to see any sort of improvement at all. Especially on bigger cubes like 444,555,666 or 777. As summer approaches, I’ll limit my practice to 3x3 and 3BLD.

That doesn’t mean I don’t tinker with other puzzles, I’m just not focused on speed or anything just having fun.
 

h2f

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Thoughts? What do you guys do?

I think it's hard to be good in multiple puzzels for us oldies. In my opinion, best option is to focus on one puzzle and when you are quite good in it - try different puzzle. The puzzles you are about to practice are various. 2x2 is the easiest. You need only Ortega and a lot of solves to hit sub6 or sub-5 barrier globaly. Puzzles like 4x4 and 5x5 on the other hand require to be quite good (at least sub20 globally) in 3x3. That's why I would suggest to focus on 3x3. But if you are bored doing 3x3 practice - do others. I think the important thing is to practice what you like.

These days I do mostly FMC (1 solve every day - if I have time) and 3bld. In 3bld - drilling algs and solving with stackmat. But I do this because I have a competition on Sunday. I'm far away from my best times when I was practicing 3bld a lot.
 

One Wheel

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Feb 24, 2016
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2016BAIR04
2x2 is the easiest. You need only Ortega and a lot of solves to hit sub6 or sub-5 barrier globaly.

Depending on what you mean by easiest, I would respectfully disagree. Personally I don’t feel that I have the dexterity and finger speed (although I’m not sure how much of that is attributable to age, I can’t imagine it will get better over the next few decades) to be competitive at 2x2. I think I do have the dexterity to be competitive at big cubes, just not the fluidity. I don’t see fluidity of solving decreasing as long as I practice and don’t have serious neural degeneration.
 
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Mike Hughey

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I would agree that it's very hard for us oldies to be truly competitive at 2x2x2, but that's only because "truly competitive at 2x2x2" means pretty insane speed. But sub-5 (which I still wouldn't consider "competitive") is definitely in range for most of us oldies. If I had kept practicing it a bit, I could have easily managed sub-5, but I got bored with it once I was getting close to sub-6 and stopped practicing, and I doubt I'll ever really practice it again; it just doesn't interest me. But sub-5 is about like sub-18 3x3x3, and most oldies have plenty enough speed to manage that, but again it's just practice. I seriously doubt I'll ever get sub-18 3x3x3 either, again because I'm too bored with it to really practice it. :) Big cubes are just much more fun.

Edit: I thought it might make sense to mention what I would consider "competitive" at 2x2x2. How about this: for US Nationals, they say they will take the top 160 into the second round. Currently (with only half the total competitor slots filled), the top 160 averages in the psych sheet require an average of 3.52 seconds. So I guess maybe it would be reasonable to consider "competitive at 2x2x2" to be 3 seconds or so, since that's what it would take to get you to just the second round at US Nationals?
 
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SpartanSailor

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May 21, 2016
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2016DUEH02
Good point, @Mike Hughey ... regarding how to define competitive. I think being fast enuff to make the second round is a good way to look at it. Taking that logic forward, the top 200 will make the second round in 3x3. Currently that’s 10.94s.

I, too, practiced 2x2 for a bit and got to a point, mid5s to low 6s, and lost interest to push myself to be faster.

3x3 seems to take me long periods to see improvements, then even longer to re-establish consistency. I simply can’t imagine a day that I’ll ever be a 10s solver with 3x3.

My new favourite is 4x4. I’ve always liked it, but I’m at a point where I can still yield notable improvement with dedicated practice. Although, I find parity to be annoying sometimes, the fact that they happen keeps the puzzle more interesting.
 
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Mike Hughey

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Good point, @Mike Hughey ... regarding how to define competitive. I think being fast enuff to make the second round is a good way to look at it. Taking that logic forward, the top 200 will make the second round in 3x3. Currently that’s 10.94s.
Wow - insane how good people in general have gotten at 3x3x3. So far out of my range it's frightening.
 

openseas

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Oct 11, 2015
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2015PARK24
Wow - insane how good people in general have gotten at 3x3x3. So far out of my range it's frightening.

Yes, indeed. And that’s why I prefer BLDs, drawing less attention to young folks, still putting me in to the competitive range.

Even 3BLD now, the progress of many folks become insane, it was only Kaijun who recorded sub 20 only 3 years ago but now so many folks are getting there. Largely thanks to Ginfranco and folks continuous development of new Alf’s, theories and practice.
 

SpartanSailor

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Yes, indeed. And that’s why I prefer BLDs, drawing less attention to young folks, still putting me in to the competitive range.

Even 3BLD now, the progress of many folks become insane, it was only Kaijun who recorded sub 20 only 3 years ago but now so many folks are getting there. Largely thanks to Ginfranco and folks continuous development of new Alf’s, theories and practice.
I think that’s some of the appeal of BLD for me too. Certainly, it adds to my interest to learn 4BLD.
 

pglewis

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Sep 23, 2016
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Cincinnati
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One of my comps in Nashville 2017 had about a hundred 3x3 competitors; top 32 went to 2nd round, worst average to make the second round cut: 15:13. As I get faster so does the rest of the herd :D.

[...] And that’s why I prefer BLDs, drawing less attention to young folks, still putting me in to the competitive range.

The other big thing that makes blind events a different animal is the DNF rate, of course. My one official success was only 15 seconds shy of the cutoff yet I landed 6th due to eleven people DNFing.
 
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