Random Blindfold Cubing Discussion

[cmhardw]

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

I don't. I just don't orient to those cases at all. I know I should learn a party alg, but I don't know of any good ones.

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

There's a quick check for whether it's even parity

1) 3-cycle around a U layer corner is even parity
or
2) 2 double swaps in the same middle slice layer is even parity

Those account for 11 of the cases (the 12th being the solved case)

 

[LarsN]

I preorient the centers for 5x5x5bld. I check the parity using the fast trick from Chris and fix parity with an alg I got from Henrik. I do try to avoid center parity, but sometimes the centers are just too nice to resist.

My official 14:44 had center parity. I fix parity with: Fw Uw2 Rw Uw' Rw' Fw M Fw' Rw Uw Rw' Uw2 Fw' M2
Or the inverse wich is the same only doing the M-slices inversed. The alg moves the centers by an M' (or M for the inverse)

 

[Zane_C]

I've never pre-oriented, however, I've read through this post and know how to use center switching comms.

I was just practising pre-orienting, and kept on getting parity cases.
Maybe I'll start off by pre-orienting only when I see something really obvious, or if my current centers are complete crap.

 

[Mike Hughey]

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

But it's really easy. Actually, the way I usually do it is this: I first orient the normal way, then I look for orientations that are exactly 2 quarter-turns from where I am. I can keep doing 2 quarter-turns as many times as I want, and it will still be non-parity.

Also, after a while of practicing, you get where you just know which ones are parity and which ones are not.

The biggest deal about it is to make sure you don't waste a bunch of time thinking about it. It's only worth it if you can make up your mind about it quickly. Sometimes I totally fail at that.

Oh, and I can definitely tell you Chester reorients; we almost always wind up picking the same orientations when competing.

 

[Sakarie]

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

I, for some reason, checked how much number increased in percent, and the quotient between 2007/2006 is 2,0659, while 2008/2007 is 2,0638. The same thing happened with 2009/2008=1,5309 and 2010/2009=1,5488! So yes, the growth is slowing down, but only every other year!

 

[Krible]

Ok, the growth in percent is slowing down a bit, but still the growth in numbers is increasing.

 

[cmhardw]

For those like me who are always looking for good music to BLD cube to, I just found a song with a great pace for 3x3x3 BLD, for me at least. I put Indestructible by Disturbed on loop while doing 3x3x3 BLD practice, and not only is it extremely motivating during your solving, but the beat is such a nice pace for memo! Try it, I'm quite satisfied with how well this song works for practicing!

 

[riffz]

For those like me who are always looking for good music to BLD cube to, I just found a song with a great pace for 3x3x3 BLD, for me at least. I put Indestructible by Disturbed on loop while doing 3x3x3 BLD practice, and not only is it extremely motivating during your solving, but the beat is such a nice pace for memo! Try it, I'm quite satisfied with how well this song works for practicing!

I have a hard time using the auditory loop memo technique while listening to songs with lyrics.

 

[cmhardw]

I have a hard time using the auditory loop memo technique while listening to songs with lyrics.

I also don't perform at my peak when listening to music with lyrics, but for the most part I choose to practice with distractions. I'll often have music on, or the TV, so that there is something to disturb the quiet. Even a quiet competition BLD room can have distractions, and I prefer to be used to them. At least this way I understand what effect they will have on me, rather than being thrown off balance on the day of.

I haven't done this in a really long time, but I even used to do "alarm clock" solves. I would basically set my alarm clock for random times in the future, like 4 minutes, then start something like a 5x5x5 BLD solve. At some unexpected time during memo the clock starts going off, and you still have to focus for the remainder of the solve. I know it may sound weird, but I prefer to practice in "less than ideal" conditions so that the competition environment feels more like "ideal" conditions, however people choose to define ideal in this case.

 

[riffz]

I also don't perform at my peak when listening to music with lyrics, but for the most part I choose to practice with distractions. I'll often have music on, or the TV, so that there is something to disturb the quiet. Even a quiet competition BLD room can have distractions, and I prefer to be used to them. At least this way I understand what effect they will have on me, rather than being thrown off balance on the day of.

I haven't done this in a really long time, but I even used to do "alarm clock" solves. I would basically set my alarm clock for random times in the future, like 4 minutes, then start something like a 5x5x5 BLD solve. At some unexpected time during memo the clock starts going off, and you still have to focus for the remainder of the solve. I know it may sound weird, but I prefer to practice in "less than ideal" conditions so that the competition environment feels more like "ideal" conditions, however people choose to define ideal in this case.

I tried that once but I never continued doing it. I suppose it would be a great way to practice. On The Run by Pink Floyd is a good tune to cube to as well.

 

[Xishem]

On The Run by Pink Floyd is a good tune to cube to as well.

I could see that.

I often just listen through a Coldplay album. It distracts me a bit with the lyrics, but like Chris said, I imagine that helps me get better.

 

[JasonK]

Had an epic fail DNF tonight and it got me wondering: if you get to the end of your memo and then realise you made a mistake right at the start, but you can't immediately see what the mistake is, will you sit there and work through until you get it (taking ages) or just DNF? I guess this would be more of a pain for big/multiBLD, but do you think it's worth it to avoid DNFing?

 

[Zane_C]

Had an epic fail DNF tonight and it got me wondering: if you get to the end of your memo and then realise you made a mistake right at the start, but you can't immediately see what the mistake is, will you sit there and work through until you get it (taking ages) or just DNF? I guess this would be more of a pain for big/multiBLD, but do you think it's worth it to avoid DNFing?

I usually DNF, unless I'm desperate for a success, such as in weekly/official comps.

 

[Mike Hughey]

Had an epic fail DNF tonight and it got me wondering: if you get to the end of your memo and then realise you made a mistake right at the start, but you can't immediately see what the mistake is, will you sit there and work through until you get it (taking ages) or just DNF? I guess this would be more of a pain for big/multiBLD, but do you think it's worth it to avoid DNFing?

I hate DNFs, so I always work through it. It's probably a stupid idea, but it's what I do. (Joey has commented that I shouldn't do that - it wastes time that could be spent doing another solve or two instead.) I can never give up - it's just part of the way I'm wired.

For a case like this, an option (which I did a few years ago, but I've given up lately) is to do sort of the inverse of Chris's pickup solving. Figure out a way to insert a fix into what you've already memorized. That requires some mental gymnastics sometimes, but you can usually figure out how to do it. The nice thing about that approach is that the rest of your images/story/whatever don't have to change. Another alternative is to pick a different buffer so you can start in the middle of the cycle and keep whatever you've done after the mistake, keeping most of your original memo (but not all of it).

 

[d4m4s74]

Depends on how far I am in the memo and where the problem is. for example if I'm at corners and I notice a problem at the beginning of the edge memo I just dnf it and start over. But because of how often I check, check and double check (I don't care about time yet) that rarely happens

 

[cmhardw]

I finally got sick of DNF'ing on 3x3x3 because of permuted but disoriented corners that I memo visually and then forget to execute. I finally created an image system to handle 2 or 3 corners flipped (with or without the buffer in each case). 4 corners or more I'll still sort of have to do visually, but at least it won't happen very often.

I still don't have a system for edges, but I do them last and visually so it doesn't really matter for them right now anyway (until and if I ever get into multi). Going to try some practice solves with my new system and see how it works.

 

[Mike Hughey]

How did you forget to execute them? Didn't you memorize them last and solve them first? I would think they'd be the one thing you wouldn't forget.

I have problems with forgetting to do edge flips, since I do them at the end, so I put my feet together if I have flipped edges, and always try to remember to check my feet before I stop. On multi, I always think to see if I have flipped edges and if so, put my feet together before I start to solve that particular cube.

 

[cmhardw]

How did you forget to execute them? Didn't you memorize them last and solve them first? I would think they'd be the one thing you wouldn't forget.

My memo/execution, before today, was like this:

Memo corner permutation (images/journey)
Memo permuted but disoriented corners (visually)
Memo edge permutation (auditory loop)
Memo permuted but disoriented edges (visually)

Solve flipped edges
Solve edge permutation
---------------------------
Solve corner permutation

And hopefully I would remember to flip the twisted corners before the dotted line (before corner permutation). I memo for flipping them first, so if I forgot, but remembered at the very end of the solve, I would adjust my memo to flip them at the end. More often than not, I would not remember to execute them at all.

Now I do:

Memo corner permutation (images/journey)
Memo permuted but disoriented corners (images/journey)
Memo edge permutation (auditory loop)
Memo permuted but disoriented edges (visually)

Solve flipped edges
Solve edge permutation
Solve corner permutation
Solve twisted corners

So far it seems to be working out, but I need to get used to memorizing the corners for flipping after solving the permutation, and I also need to test to see if I will solve the same way on 5x5x5 at Full Sail Spring. I know I want to switch to this on 5x5x5 too, but I'm not sure if I'm ready for such a big change on such a short notice. I may just do the old way for the competition since I'm used to it, then work hard on changing to the new way after.

I have problems with forgetting to do edge flips, since I do them at the end, so I put my feet together if I have flipped edges, and always try to remember to check my feet before I stop. On multi, I always think to see if I have flipped edges and if so, put my feet together before I start to solve that particular cube.

Do you memorize them visually, or with images/techniques? Remembering to do corner flips at the end of my solves with my new style is never a problem, as I have an image at the end of my memo that tells me what to flip.

If you do flip edges visually, why not flip them before you begin the permutation? This is what I used to do, back when I had a memo order more conducive to this, and it was very easy to get used to. You only need to remember them long enough to flip them, so you can memo them last and solve first.

 

[Mike Hughey]

Oh, I forgot you switched to the auditory loop on edges, so you changed your order. That makes sense now. I'm still memoing corners last and executing first, so visual works fine for orienting corners.

As for forgetting to flip edges, I do have an image for them, but sometimes I would forget to do it (before I started doing the feet thing). The feet thing works fine, so I'm okay with it. Keep in mind that I don't use journeys for 3x3x3 BLD, so it's not like I notice the flipped edges at the end of my journey - I need to remember to actually do them. I just have an auditory loop for corners, a single story for all my edges, and then an image or two for flipped edges, separate from the story. I actually do the same for multi - I cram all of the edges for permutation into a single location. I found that I sped up dramatically when I did that, even if it did mean a lot of images at one location for some solves.

 

[cmhardw]

Oh, I forgot you switched to the auditory loop on edges, so you changed your order. That makes sense now. I'm still memoing corners last and executing first, so visual works fine for orienting corners.

Yeah Rob convinced me to switch to auditory loop for edges. It actually took my overall average time down by about 10-15 seconds on average once I got used to it O_O

As for forgetting to flip edges, I do have an image for them, but sometimes I would forget to do it (before I started doing the feet thing). The feet thing works fine, so I'm okay with it. Keep in mind that I don't use journeys for 3x3x3 BLD, so it's not like I notice the flipped edges at the end of my journey - I need to remember to actually do them. I just have an auditory loop for corners, a single story for all my edges, and then an image or two for flipped edges, separate from the story. I actually do the same for multi - I cram all of the edges for permutation into a single location. I found that I sped up dramatically when I did that, even if it did mean a lot of images at one location for some solves.

This is good to know, I'll have to watch for this with my corner images. I can see how in the heat of a fast solve that there could either be a recall delay on the flipped pieces image, or just a total skip over it without even doing it. I may also try the feet thing just to fully reinforce the fact that I have pbd pieces.

As for memorizing corners in a single location (or in a void), I have tried this for single BLD, and it really messes with my head. I can see how it would be useful for multi, definitely. However, I've found that if I try to cram 5-6 images into one location it feels like my head will explode On the solves where I need to break cycles a lot, and I get upwards of 5 images or so I always use a spillover location to hold them. Now that I am also adding corner flip images I could theoretically get upwards of 6-7 images to memo corners now

That's so weird to me how adding orientation into the mix can make so many images to memo (if you break cycles). 7 images would be over half of a wing edge orbit for me. Crazy stuff! 3x3x3 BLD is so weird!