Transition from EOCross to EOLine

[pepkin88]

Hello.
Long time ago my solving method was CFOP, but I transitioned to a ZZ-like method, which starts with EOCross. Now I see many opinions that EOLine with blockbuilding is much better than EOCross with slots. But I see some drawbacks of those supposedly better steps:

• I don't know what edge is on LD and RD.
• The order of creating blocks is fixed (first left block, then right block). With slots I can choose the easiest to do first and so on.

So I have a few questions to my lovely experienced ZZ users :

1. How do you overcome the lack of knowledge about the bottom edges?
2. Do you think that creating blocks in various order would be beneficial? E.g. front left 2x2x1, back right 2x2x1, front right 2x1x1, back left 2x1x1.
3. Do you have any tips about transition to EOLine?

 

[joey]

With ZZ you don't do the blocks in a certain order.

 

[pepkin88]

The original document describing this method stated, that first should be built 3x2x1 block on the left side, then on the right side. But that was quite some time ago so it could have evolved to something different.
So the 2nd question is answered

 

[Athefre]

Transition to EOLine should be easy. It's two fewer pieces and practice. DL and DR are no different from the other four edges. The suggested strategy isn't to find those two immediately after finishing EOLine. You're looking for any corner and edge to put together. There is no true order to solving the blocks. Some do the left first, some do a 1x2x2 on L then a 1x2x2 on R. It depends on which makes it easier for you to find pieces.

 

[porkynator]

To improve my block building look-ahead I sometimes train with < R, U, L > scrambles, no inspection, maybe you could try this.

 

[PhillipEspinoza]

I got a 10.25 OH with ZZCross lol. But the thing is I just orient the cross and F2L edges without worrying about the orientation of the LL edges, figure it would account for the moves gained during EO "Cross".

 

[pepkin88]

Thank you for your advice. I get back to training

 

[gewinnste]

Hello.
Long time ago my solving method was CFOP, but I transitioned to a ZZ-like method, which starts with EOCross. Now I see many opinions that EOLine with blockbuilding is much better than EOCross with slots. But I see some drawbacks of those supposedly better steps:

• I don't know what edge is on LD and RD.
• The order of creating blocks is fixed (first left block, then right block). With slots I can choose the easiest to do first and so on.

So I have a few questions to my lovely experienced ZZ users :

1. How do you overcome the lack of knowledge about the bottom edges?
2. Do you think that creating blocks in various order would be beneficial? E.g. front left 2x2x1, back right 2x2x1, front right 2x1x1, back left 2x1x1.
3. Do you have any tips about transition to EOLine?

I actually disagree with some posts here. I transitioned to ZZ (ZZ-b(+), to be more specific) about 1 year ago and intuitively went for an EO cross - at first, because I wasn't able to plan the line edges during inspection, but later I found that while placing the line edges, I could automatically place the other 2 cross edges in the flow without pretty much any time lost. And this allowed me to not worry about the hidden edges on the bottom for the ZZ F2L, just doing standard 3-gen F2L algs to place all pairs. That takes about 5 moves more than ZZ-F2L with only line edges placed, but, lord, is that so much quicker for me than puzzling 3 pieces together for the 2 blocks, which is a serious pain. Instantly spotting 2 pieces to form an F2L pair is very easy but 3 is another world of difficulty in terms of lookahead, specifically the fact you have to take into account potential pieces hidden on the bottom.

It's great if skilled folks can do that so it's faster than doing it with an already built cross, but for me, it's about 5 seconds slower at ~ 25-30s for the whole solve. I really wish I would be able to do it the "professional way" (also because it allows to build blocks by first pairing a corner with a "white-colored"-edge first and then proceed to build a block, thus saving moves, like it was metioned above) but my TPS is just so incredibly much worse that it just doesn't pay off. Good for the folks who get to benefit from block building, but it's unfortunately not viable for me.

 

[AlphaSheep]

It's great if skilled folks can do that so it's faster

This is the flaw in your thinking. Block building is not something that you're born being able to do. Block building is a skill that you need to develop with lots of practice over a long time. Of course CFOP F2L feels easier and your TPS will be higher if thats what you're used to. You need to force yourself to practice blockbuilding until it feels easier. With lots of practice, it will become instinctual and you won't have to think about so-called "hidden edges" or anything like that, and you block building TPS will catch up to your CFOP style F2L.

In my opinion, the only thing that makes ZZ worth it is the easy blockbuilding in F2L. I know it feels cool to get to LL and have EO already done, but it's really not hard to do some edge control in CFOP to get the same result in a similar number of moves. I cannot emphasise that enough. If solving cross edges is something you feel is essential, then CFOP me be a better method for you.

I assure you, the only thing that seperates you and "skilled folks" is practice.

 

[gewinnste]

... In my opinion, the only thing that makes ZZ worth it is the easy blockbuilding in F2L. I know it feels cool to get to LL and have EO already done, but it's really not hard to do some edge control in CFOP to get the same result in a similar number of moves. I cannot emphasise that enough. If solving cross edges is something you feel is essential, then CFOP me be a better method for you.

I assure you, the only thing that seperates you and "skilled folks" is practice.

I disagree with that kind of reasoning: 1st, if edge control would be so easy and viable in the Fridrich method, then there would be variants analogous to ZZ-b and ZZ-a (Fridrich-ZZLL, Fridrich-ZBLL) but there aren't. There is only the yucky 302 algorithm heavy ZBLS - who does that?

2nd, if block building would be such a benefit over filling in F2L-pair-slots, then one could as well do a Fridrich variant where only a line would be placed, followed by 2 blocks (which would require orienting edges on the fly but that's done during regular Fridrich F2L anyway). There is nothing like that, either.

anyway, I'll keep on trying pure ZZ-F2L for a few months hoping I'll improve, but right now I'm a bit pessimistic.
Thanks for your input anyway.

 

[GenTheSnail]

There is only the yucky 302 algorithm heavy ZBLS - who does that?

Well, I'm pretty sure @4Chan did those "yucky 30[6] algorithms" when he learned ZB method all those years ago, and he used CFOP if i'm not mistaken.
www.speedsolving.com/forum/threads/chris-tran-zbll-average-of-5.16405/#post-255522
And anyway, there is also VHLS:
http://www.cubewhiz.com/vh.php

if edge control would be so easy and viable in the Fridrich method

Uh, isn't it?

then there would be variants analogous to ZZ-b and ZZ-a (Fridrich-ZZLL, Fridrich-ZBLL) but there aren't.

Why do we need to rename subsets just because you use a different way of solving the f2l? Anyway, the ZB method was created originally for CFOP, that's why there is ZBLS.

2nd, if block building would be such a benefit over filling in F2L-pair-slots, then one could as well do a Fridrich variant where only a line would be placed, followed by 2 blocks (which would require orienting edges on the fly but that's done during regular Fridrich F2L anyway). There is nothing like that, either.

With blocks (edge-corner-edge), you need to orient 2edges, as opposed to one, with pairs. This makes it much more difficult. You might say: well, Roux does that.
Yes, but roux has the freedom of the M-slice to do that. This LFOP you describe wouldn't.

anyway, I'll keep on trying pure ZZ-F2L for a few months hoping I'll improve, but right now I'm a bit pessimistic.

Improvement is fast. I used to think that EOCross was better, mainly because I didn't know how blockbuilding worked with ZZF2L. But, now I know that blockbuilding can deffinetly get you better times than EOCross.
Hope you continue with ZZF2L.