Hey guys. I have a competition in about a month where I chose to compete in 2x2, 3x3 and OH. I can do OH, but i'm really slow and the time limit/cutoff is 1min30. I can't do finger tricks well at all with one hand and my average is around 2min35. Does anyone have any tips on improving?
If you're reasonably fast at two-handed solving (i.e. sub-30): Carry a cube with you wherever you go and drill random algs on it (e.g. U perm, T perm, etc.)
constantly. You can easily accumulate dozens of hours of practice time in this way, and it'll also build up muscle memory for the last layer algs.
If you're still using LBL and do the last layer in more than four looks, learn 4LLL and try to learn intuitive F2L. If you're having difficulty picking up F2L in a month (which is completely normal), here's One Cool Trick to improve LBL efficiency: after you finish your cross, finish your first two layers slot by slot, rather than corners-then-edges. This immediately gets rid of all the "annoying" cases where the edges are in the wrong slots and you need to spend 14-15 moves to move an edge to the correct slot. (This advice isn't specific to one-handed solving.)
As far as fingertricks go, assuming you use your left hand for OH, the essential ones are just:
- U with index (push either the FRU sticker or the LBU sticker away from you)
- U2' with index followed by middle (push BUL towards you with each of those fingers)
- R' with ring/pinky (push either FRD or DRB away)
- R2 with ring followed by pinky (or the other way; push BDR towards you)
- U' and R should be obvious
Thumb moves for F/F'/F2 are useful, but not necessary.
Thanks for the tips!
