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[Unofficial] Tony Snyder solves the cube

qqwref

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Video's neat although it makes me wonder where he came from (and why he is sitting in front of a timer and yet neither using the timer nor the given scramble). Haven't heard of this guy being active for a long time.

Wiki says "Anthony claims to have the only cube solving method that relies on a simultaneous permute and orient at every stage." This is a false claim nowadays (even in the sense of never only orienting or permuting any piece, which would exclude things like ZB which always directly solve at least one piece); other methods which accomplish this are a Fridrich/FreeFOP/Keyhole/LBL F2L with CLL/ELL (around since 1982); pure Tripod; some Corners First and Edges First methods; and of course many BLD methods (Pochmann, M2/R2, Freestyle, BH, DIADEM, TUrBo...). Of course, this does not at all prevent the Snyder Method from being a good method or from being fast.

An interesting Wiki quote: "Experienced cube solvers know that anti-slices and even imbalanced anti-slices can be easier to operate than slices and sometimes easier than 180 singles." This is an interesting insight into wristing techniques, but with modern fingertricks I'm not sure I agree.
 

Tony Snyder

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You're right qqref, I haven't been active in a long time, at least not on-line. I regularly practice at Star Bucks after bicycling and meet people there all the time who are curious, and this keeps my times from sliding, but I have not put any "serious" effort into improving my method for many years. Lots of little improvements come to me here and there but nothing major. I also have just recently started working on notation, as in the past I've always just followed the patterns without any thought regarding notation. So I'm a bit slow reading the posted algorithms, and though I've come up with my own notation method I'm determined to come up with yet another method that includes all the objectives of solving a cube, not just recording the moves. I hope to both improve and document my advanced method next year. I never took the step to computer modeling in the past because I felt it would spoil the fun, but now that so many have improved beyond my level I think I have no choice about it. I'm going to start on that next year as well to see if I can get a sub-15 average.

A lot of what I know just comes from random conversation rather than actual research, so if there are other techniques that simultaneously permute and orient every piece at every stage then I'll remove that part of my post. I thought mine was unique in that respect. I know fridrich does not. Neither does Petrus. I have not looked into the others, but I'll take your word on it. I'll try to come up with some better videos as well, as that one had little preparation.

I agree with your note regarding wristing technique, I have known for a long time now that my fingering methods need improvement so I'm looking into the new fingering techniques and tossing around some additional ideas to see what combination of techniques I'm going to switch to. Thing is, I sometimes get into a mode where I can go extremely fast, but I can't maintain that mode for long, and I think it is just a more precise mode rather than any special technique, and depends on a lot of things, like cube condition, temperature, warm up, and the right amount of coffee. However, if I can codify that method then it will be the best one. With it I can turn about 8 times per second, which is normally very hard to do using a method with many algorithms.
 
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mrCage

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How does algcount affect TPS?

If you have some understanding of what you are doing you may often make short algs/sequences directly from intuition/muscle memory, I believe that can be faster than doing algs you do not fully understand. Then again it may cut both ways, i know ...

Per
 

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I wonder if he was meaning that over the course of the solve having a method with lots of algs could cause increased recognition + recollection time which will bring down the overall average TPS. I'm thinking of that cool video where someone does sub-20 full ZB solves, but has a 4-5 second pause before executing the final alg. In that cause the number of algs had a major influence on the average TPS.
 

Kirjava

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I think he was referring to his own method. Recollection and recognition problems don't really show up until you hit about 200 algs for a single step.
 

irontwig

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I think he was referring to his own method. Recollection and recognition problems don't really show up until you hit about 200 algs for a single step.

LLEF+1C got quite a few cases (though there are fewer cases than algs). He also claims to know 20% of LL, so thats' pretty many algs.
 

Kirjava

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8 tps and not sub15

?!?!

I doubt he uses 250 algs in speedsolves. At least not in the ones where he turns at 8 tps XD
 
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qqwref

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He also claims to know 20% of LL, so thats' pretty many algs.

Considering 20% of LL is some 240 algs not counting mirrors *or inverses*, I'm betting this is not the number of algs he actually knows, but rather the rough proportion of cases he could do in one look on if he tried, counting stuff like easy setups to algs he knows.
 

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Hmm, I wish I knew how to calculate that kind of stuff. Am I right in saying for the last CE pair, he puts them in while solving two LL edges, then solves one corner and the other two LL edges (before finishing with L3C), I don't think that sounds like 'too' many algs.
 

Tony Snyder

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the more algs, the more fingering scenarios to learn

Alg count affects fingering because where there are more algs you'll have more scenarios to learn fingering for. Plus with my method I'm constantly looking as I'm solving, in case I can shave turns in better combos, and this makes fingering even harder, usually. However, sometimes, roughly an hour or two per week, I find I can finger fast through every scenario (that I encounter). I'm going to try to figure out why, and see if I can reduce that to a set of rules for documentation.

For years I struggled with the question "do I completely finish each alg or look for combos as I go?" There was always a trade-off, however, gradually over the years I found I could find worthwhile combos most of the time, so now the trade-off is about 50/50 on a speed solve, making it a reasonable pursuit. And I have found more complex ways to combine algorithms, for example, in some cases I can do a few steps of one alg, then the entire next alg, then the remaining portion of the previous alg. This creates 3 opportunities for benefitting from the combo rather than one opportunity: cancelling turns before and after the insertion, and selecting a shorter alg than I'd be stuck with at the end. To do this I look at where the remaining pieces are as I perform the first few steps of one alg, and as they move around I look for a favorable position where I can insert the next alg early. I've only just started this year in using this method for combining algs.
 
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