Random Blindfold Cubing Discussion

[Xishem]

Maybe I'm out of line to make this, but I feel the one question one answer blindfolds thread should be kept to one-shot questions, yet it seems like large discussions are being sparked there. This thread can be a place to discuss random interesting blindfold concepts which aren't fleshed out enough to warrant their own threads. If this thread is unnecessary, feel free to lock it, but I'll go ahead and start us off:

What do you guys think about using a center commutator at the end (or the beginning) of a 3BLD solve if you see an obviously easy orientation where a lot of the pieces are already solved relative to each other, but the centers are not correct?

An extreme case would be this. Obviously it's faster to a z' and solve the S slice and then use a center commutator, but would it be worth it to do a quick glance over for this at the beginning of every solve?

 

[uberCuber]

If I am understanding you right, I believe Stefan came up with that idea a long time ago

 

[Xishem]

Ah, I figured someone probably had. And it was considered to not be worth it?

 

[amostay2004]

Yea it's really not worth it especially when you get your times down to like 50s. You wanna try to eliminate as much thinking as possible.

Btw I've also thought that the one answer BLD thread should just be renamed to random BLD discussion

 

[joey]

Yeah, it's pretty useless if you're trying to go fast! I came up with it ages ago, not sure if Stefan was before me or not.

I've done solves with it, just for fun!

 

[Xishem]

Yea it's really not worth it especially when you get your times down to like 50s. You wanna try to eliminate as much thinking as possible.

The thing is, it really wouldn't require a lot more thinking, you could just tack on another image at the end of your memo for centers, and then apply the center comm. Regardless, when the centers need to be 4-cycled, it's kind of a pain, as either two edges or two corners have to be switched as well. It would really only be slightly handy when all six centers are off, or when two sets of opposite centers need to be swapped. But, I've tried to do a few solves with it, and it is kinda awkward to do when the centers need to be 4-cycled.

For the additional effort, I would not imagine that it would be worth it to become proficient in the technique considering how few cases it would actually be beneficial for.

On another note, I also tried a few solves using setup moves with various 2-corner, 2-edge swapping PLLs to solve both an edge and a corner at the same time, using UBR and UR as the buffers, but a lot of the setup moves were pretty cumbersome, 3 or more moves usually. It was pretty fun to solve with, though.

 

[toastman]

What do you guys think about using a center commutator at the end (or the beginning) of a 3BLD solve if you see an obviously easy orientation where a lot of the pieces are already solved relative to each other, but the centers are not correct?

I had a similar thought recently when working on a particular scramble. I saw pretty early that I did a "D" move, I'd have 2 edges solved. I thought about "imagining" the whole solution as if the D face was turned, (i.e, shoot an edge to RB instead of RD, solve corner RDB instead of FDR etc). Thought it would be way too hard and didn't bother. But say could came across a situation where one or two turns would give you 2 or 4 pieces for free, would you try it?

Am guessing that since a 3 move commutator takes like a billionth of a second for most of you to execute, you wouldn't bother with the "additional thinking time" required.

 

[amostay2004]

The thing is, it really wouldn't require a lot more thinking, you could just tack on another image at the end of your memo for centers, and then apply the center comm. Regardless, when the centers need to be 4-cycled, it's kind of a pain, as either two edges or two corners have to be switched as well. It would really only be slightly handy when all six centers are off, or when two sets of opposite centers need to be swapped. But, I've tried to do a few solves with it, and it is kinda awkward to do when the centers need to be 4-cycled.

For the additional effort, I would not imagine that it would be worth it to become proficient in the technique considering how few cases it would actually be beneficial for.

It's not the thinking of the center-switching that takes up time, it's actually trying to look for a nice position to reorient to (unless it's a very obvious case, in which you already pointed out is very, very rare ) And if you do get an obvious case in 1 out of 500 tries, you'll spend like 5 seconds going 'zomg I should totally reorient for this'

 

[riffz]

It's not the thinking of the center-switching that takes up time, it's actually trying to look for a nice position to reorient to (unless it's a very obvious case, in which you already pointed out is very, very rare ) And if you do get an obvious case in 1 out of 500 tries, you'll spend like 5 seconds going 'zomg I should totally reorient for this'

Exactly. Not to mention then having to check whether you could reorient to that without swapping 2 corners or 2 edges as well.

 

[cmhardw]

The soundtrack to the movie Collateral has a really excellent beat for keeping a good pace when doing big cubes BLD. Just thought I'd share

 

[riffz]

The soundtrack to the movie Collateral has a really excellent beat for keeping a good pace when doing big cubes BLD. Just thought I'd share

I will have to check it out. I need some more instrumental/ambient music to play while cubing.

 

[toastman]

I will have to check it out. I need some more instrumental/ambient music to play while cubing.

For the record, I like:
- (Australian) ABC Classic FM, or BBC Radio 3 "Overnight Classics". Just multi-hour blocks of streaming classical music.
- Ghosts (4-CD album) by Nine Inch Nails.

I listen to this sort of thing (instrumentals, no lyrics) when studying or writing too. Something about it "occupying" a certain part of your brain so it shuts up and the rest of your brain can work in peace without continually interrupting "I have a good idea about ham, what's on TV tonight, that girl was pretty, I'm hungry, why is my life so full of fail" and you're like "shut up stupid brain, have some music, I'm trying to solve cubes here".

 

[riffz]

For the record, I like:
- (Australian) ABC Classic FM, or BBC Radio 3 "Overnight Classics". Just multi-hour blocks of streaming classical music.
- Ghosts (4-CD album) by Nine Inch Nails.

I listen to this sort of thing (instrumentals, no lyrics) when studying or writing too. Something about it "occupying" a certain part of your brain so it shuts up and the rest of your brain can work in peace without continually interrupting "I have a good idea about ham, what's on TV tonight, that girl was pretty, I'm hungry, why is my life so full of fail" and you're like "shut up stupid brain, have some music, I'm trying to solve cubes here".

Yea, Ghosts is definitely a good album for cubing. So is the soundtrack for The Social Network:

 

[Krible]

Have anyone else noticed that blindfold cubing has become a lot more popular lately?

 

[d4m4s74]

Now everyone in the world knows you can learn how to solve the rubik's cube in a few hours with some help from youtube, some people feel the need to step it up a notch.
just a guess.

The reason I want to learn BLD is to have done every event at least once

 

[Mike Hughey]

Have anyone else noticed that blindfold cubing has become a lot more popular lately?

It seems to me it's the same as ever; in fact, it seems like the growth is slowing down a little.

Number of people with at least one successful BLD solve in official WCA competitions:
currently: 974
through 2010: 920
through 2009: 594
through 2008: 388
through 2007: 188
through 2006: 91
through 2005: 32
through 2004: 9
through 2003: 2

 

[Xishem]

Going back to the idea of reorienting on 3x3 and doing a center commutator at the end, what is the story with doing this on 5x5? It seems like it would be worth the effort to reorient, especially on good center cases. Do most people reorient, or do they just stick with their standard orientation based on fixed centers?

 

[cmhardw]

Going back to the idea of reorienting on 3x3 and doing a center commutator at the end, what is the story with doing this on 5x5? It seems like it would be worth the effort to reorient, especially on good center cases. Do most people reorient, or do they just stick with their standard orientation based on fixed centers?

I'd say a few people reorient on 5x5x5. I know that Mike and I certainly re-orient, I believe Mats does as well. I'm not sure about Zane, Ville, Aron, Dennis, Faz, Lars, etc.. I don't usually reorient on 3x3x3, but if I saw a big block already solved, and it happened to be one of the 12 non-parity center orientations, then I would certainly do a reoriented solve, yes.

 

[Xishem]

I'd say a few people reorient on 5x5x5. I know that Mike and I certainly re-orient, I believe Mats does as well. I'm not sure about Zane, Ville, Aron, Dennis, Faz, Lars, etc.. I don't usually reorient on 3x3x3, but if I saw a big block already solved, and it happened to be one of the 12 non-parity center orientations, then I would certainly do a reoriented solve, yes.

I see. How do you go about solving the odd parity fixed center cases?

 

[aronpm]

I'd say a few people reorient on 5x5x5. I know that Mike and I certainly re-orient, I believe Mats does as well. I'm not sure about Zane, Ville, Aron, Dennis, Faz, Lars, etc.. I don't usually reorient on 3x3x3, but if I saw a big block already solved, and it happened to be one of the 12 non-parity center orientations, then I would certainly do a reoriented solve, yes.

I don't do it. I can't be bothered learning how to tell between the non-parity and parity orientations.