One-Answer 4x4 Question Thread

[Cubing5life]

is it worth it to get into 4x4 when I average 50 on 3x3

Just try it. If it‘s fun, great!

 

[Christopher Mowla]

I can see that people have asked about solving a 4x4x4 by reducing it to a 2x2x2 in this thread, but I did not see any example solves. I also searched the entire (which isn't that long, of course) The 4x4x4 example solve game thread, and I didn't see any such solves there either.

Are there any move-efficient 2x2x2 reduction 4x4x4 solves (typed up) online? I've seen videos like this where someone does it, but I'd rather know how many moves the best of us have achieved with this approach. (Where the amount of time taken doesn't matter.)

 

[ProStar]

I can see that people have asked about solving a 4x4x4 by reducing it to a 2x2x2 in this thread, but I did not see any example solves. I also searched the entire (which isn't that long, of course) The 4x4x4 example solve game thread, and I didn't see any such solves there either.

Are there any move-efficient 2x2x2 reduction 4x4x4 solves (typed up) online? I've seen videos like this where someone does it, but I'd rather know how many moves the best of us have achieved with this approach. (Where the amount of time taken doesn't matter.)

J Perm made a video on it

 

[Christopher Mowla]

J Perm made a video on it

Yeah I saw that, but as far as I recall, I didn't see him actually do it, and nor does this answer my question. But thanks. I'm sure some people didn't know about his video.

EDIT: Okay, he did, but I don't define that as move-efficient.

 

[BenChristman1]

I can see that people have asked about solving a 4x4x4 by reducing it to a 2x2x2 in this thread, but I did not see any example solves. I also searched the entire (which isn't that long, of course) The 4x4x4 example solve game thread, and I didn't see any such solves there either.

Are there any move-efficient 2x2x2 reduction 4x4x4 solves (typed up) online? I've seen videos like this where someone does it, but I'd rather know how many moves the best of us have achieved with this approach. (Where the amount of time taken doesn't matter.)

I think that if you know some sort of wing, center, and corner commutator (one of each) then it shouldn’t be too hard. It might not be very move-efficient, though. I haven’t tried it myself.

 

[xyzzy]

I can see that people have asked about solving a 4x4x4 by reducing it to a 2x2x2 in this thread, but I did not see any example solves. I also searched the entire (which isn't that long, of course) The 4x4x4 example solve game thread, and I didn't see any such solves there either.

Are there any move-efficient 2x2x2 reduction 4x4x4 solves (typed up) online? I've seen videos like this where someone does it, but I'd rather know how many moves the best of us have achieved with this approach. (Where the amount of time taken doesn't matter.)

I'll give this a try; check the example solve thread in a couple of hours. On a handscramble, I managed to get to five grouped corners in around 90 moves, which is already much more than what I need to do reduction+cross, then I got hit with the accursed parity. (Now that I think about it, domino J/T perm should work to solve it. Hmm.)

Thinking out loud: unlike in a normal reduction solve, where the order in which you pair the edges doesn't matter, here, there is freedom to choose which centre pieces to use for which corner blocks, so the order matters! (Probably not a lot, but still.) The ideal seems to be to solve four corner blocks of the same layer first, but if I'm going to do that, why wouldn't I just directly solve two layers (which is way easier, imo) instead of building four corner blocks?

edit: 64 moves to 6 blocks (way better than I expected), but I can't figure out how to do the last two blocks without just spamming commutators.

edit2: Posted a 93-move solution there.

 

[zslane]

So one 4x4 PLL case that I'm running into, but which isn't covered in the CubeSkills beginning tutorials is where everything is solved except two opposite corners need to be swapped. What is the recommended approach to dealing with this?

 

[Sub1Hour]

So one 4x4 PLL case that I'm running into, but which isn't covered in the CubeSkills beginning tutorials is where everything is solved except two opposite corners need to be swapped. What is the recommended approach to dealing with this?

adj parity into Y perm would be the easiest and fastest non-algorithmic approach

 

[Spacey10]

adj parity into Y perm would be the easiest and fastest non-algorithmic approach

Real smooth

 

[Nmile7300]

adj parity into Y perm would be the easiest and fastest non-algorithmic approach

I do a Y perm with an opposite parity in the middle. So I do F R U' R' U' R U R' F', then do a U' and opposite parity followed by another U', then R U R' U' R' F R F'.

 

[xyzzy]

So one 4x4 PLL case that I'm running into, but which isn't covered in the CubeSkills beginning tutorials is where everything is solved except two opposite corners need to be swapped. What is the recommended approach to dealing with this?

@Nmile7300's solution is the "standard" one.

You can also try 2R U 2R' U' r' F r2 U' r' U' r U r' F' R U R' U' r' D' r U2 r' D r, which is much shorter in QTM.

 

[zslane]

Why is it not recommended to do an Nb perm followed by the parity alg?

 

[BenChristman1]

Why is it not recommended to do an Nb perm followed by the parity alg?

Because a lot of people would agree that Nb perm is the worst PLL.

 

[zslane]

By my count, Nb (17 moves) + parity (6 moves) is two moves shorter than Y perm (17 moves) + parity (6 moves) + a U/U` pair in the middle.

 

[Nmile7300]

By my count, Nb (17 moves) + parity (6 moves) is two moves shorter than Y perm (17 moves) + parity (6 moves) + a U/U` pair in the middle.

Still, Nb perm is complete garbage compared to a Y perm. Drilling both the Y perm with parity in the middle and the Nb followed by parity on my 4x4, I could get the first one sub 3 consistently, but was barely sub 4 on the second one.

 

[Spacey10]

By my count, Nb (17 moves) + parity (6 moves) is two moves shorter than Y perm (17 moves) + parity (6 moves) + a U/U` pair in the middle.

Low move count isn't always the best, pretty sure you can do y perm faster than nb perm

 

[zslane]

Well since I don't (yet) know either Y or Nb, I'm not sure I want to confuse myself with learning a variant of Y where I interrupt it mid-execution to insert (U [parity] U'). Using variations on perms you've already mastered in the interests of shaving off a second makes sense to be sure. But as a beginner 4x4 solver who is still barely sub-60 using 4LLL on a 3x3, speed on the 4x4 is not a priority (or even much of a consideration at this point).

 

[BenChristman1]

Well since I don't (yet) know either Y or Nb, I'm not sure I want to confuse myself with learning a variant of Y where I interrupt it mid-execution to insert (U [parity] U'). Using variations on perms you've already mastered in the interests of shaving off a second makes sense to be sure. But as a beginner 4x4 solver who is still barely sub-60 using 4LLL on a 3x3, speed on the 4x4 is not a priority (or even much of a consideration at this point).

You asked why you wouldn't use Nb instead of Y, and we told you.

 

[zslane]

Yeah, that's on me for not making it more clear that I'm a beginner with different needs/priorities. Thanks guys for the input!

 

[Christopher Mowla]

@ zslane,

Just for your possible curiosity (later on), you may like my post on 10 Ways to Swap Two Corners on a 4x4x4.