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Two-sided PLL recognition guide

mark49152

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So, I decided to learn two-sided PLL recognition, just for the fun of it. It looked pretty complicated at first, but it turned out to be much easier than I expected. When trying to recognize from two sides, you see six stickers in a row. There are only 35 patterns for these stickers, and each pattern indicates a unique PLL. Most of the patterns are easy to recognize and remember.

I found several resources to help learn two-sided PLL recognition, but all of them seemed to make it over-complicated. I just wanted a simple quick-reference guide for the 35 possible patterns - show me each pattern, and tell me which PLL it is. So I made the attached. I hope someone else out there finds it useful, and would welcome any feedback to help improve it.

pll2side-20140531.pdf

For practice, I recommend the random button in RiDo's play-tool. Scroll until the answer is off the top of the window, to make it harder ;)

Why bother? Well I'm not fast and it's not like avoiding looking at a third side is going to save me that 0.2s that gets me a WR. But it did occur to me that checking around the cube for the usual headlights and bars to confirm my PLL case is kinda lazy when they can be recognized more quickly with a just bit of practice. I often still look at the 3rd and even 4th sides to confirm the case, but by then I know what case to expect and am already AUFing when I check the other sides. So it's definitely reduced my pre-PLL pause, and, well... is there any reason not to? :D

EDIT: Guide updated on 2 June 2014 with easier recognition for some of the patterns, plus adding links to other resources below.

Here are links to some resources I found useful while learning two-sided recognition:-
 

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mark49152

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Thanks for the positive feedback. I just edited the OP to add some links to other resources I found useful.

After a couple of weeks learning and practising these, I've found that it certainly helps reduce PLL recognition time, but slowly. It takes a lot of practise to recognise from two sides, which I do during untimed solves avoiding peeking at the other sides. For timed solves, I don't even try to recognise by two sides; I just rely on some of those patterns having crept into my brain allowing me to do normal recognition faster.
 

mark49152

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Updated the guide in the OP to simplify recognition of some patterns. Having practiced this for around a year, I had found simpler ways of remembering or recognizing some of the trickier cases. Enjoy!

For those who don't want to scroll back to the OP: pll2side-20140531.pdf
 
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mafergut

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Great stuff!!! I found about your guide via a video that APdRF did on your method and it's, by far, the easier 2-side PLL recog guide I've found.
I definitely plan on learning from it and putting it into practice during Christmas.
Thanks a lot!
 
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I am having trouble with R perms and G perms :(
Example: Setup - R U' R' U' R U R D R' U' R D' R' U2 R' U
From this angle I have trouble recognizing the Ga, Gc, Ra and Rb perms. Any help?
 

YTCuber

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Scrambled with green front, white on top.
You see on red the two orange corner stickers. The other corners have to be swapped.
The edge between them is blue. A blue edge needs to go to green/white. The edge there is orange, which makes a 2-swap. because we have a 2-swap in corners and edges, it is a r-perm. Ra-Perm would have a 1x2-block visible, therefore it is Rb-Perm.
 

mark49152

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I am having trouble with R perms and G perms :(
Example: Setup - R U' R' U' R U R D R' U' R D' R' U2 R' U
From this angle I have trouble recognizing the Ga, Gc, Ra and Rb perms. Any help?
Assuming you are looking at it from the FL angle, I see two end colours the same (bookends) and another colour that appears twice. That colour is an adjacent colour, not opposite, relative to the end colour. So the way I have scrambled, it's blue and orange.

To know which case it is, I look for the side with opposite colours on the corners. I know the headlights are going to be on the side opposite that.

If you do U' you will see a similar pattern - same colour each end, two pieces of a same adjacent colour in between, but this time one of the ends is a block of two. That's also an R perm.

There are similar patterns for G perms, but either the second colour is opposite, or the second colour pieces are joined as a block.

Have a look at the bottom row in the guide, it does show how to differentiate them.

Nice that this guide is helping people, and really cool to see it used in the video! I wish I could understand Spanish :D
 
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Do you mean R U' R' U' R U R D R' U' R D' R' U2 R without the U on the end? because that would make more sense to me
This angle: https://alg.cubing.net/?setup=R_U-_R-_U-_R_U_R_D_R-_U-_R_D-_R-_U2_R- I am looking at the green and red side and having trouble with recognizing it from this angle.

Assuming you are looking at it from the FL angle, I see two end colours the same (bookends) and another colour that appears twice. That colour is an adjacent colour, not opposite, relative to the end colour. So the way I have scrambled, it's blue and orange.

To know which case it is, I look for the side with opposite colours on the corners. I know the headlights are going to be on the side opposite that.

If you do U' you will see a similar pattern - same colour each end, two pieces of a same adjacent colour in between, but this time one of the ends is a block of two. That's also an R perm.

There are similar patterns for G perms, but either the second colour is opposite, or the second colour pieces are joined as a block.

Have a look at the bottom row in the guide, it does show how to differentiate them.

Nice that this guide is helping people, and really cool to see it used in the video! I wish I could understand Spanish :D

I apologies but I didn't understand it unfortunately :( Here is the example I am looking at: https://alg.cubing.net/?setup=R_U-_R-_U-_R_U_R_D_R-_U-_R_D-_R-_U2_R- In this I am looking at the green and red face and I mainly have trouble recognizing it from this angle. I cannot differentiate if it is an R perm or G perm, let alone specify Ra or Gc pll :(
 

mark49152

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I apologies but I didn't understand it unfortunately :( Here is the example I am looking at: https://alg.cubing.net/?setup=R_U-_R-_U-_R_U_R_D_R-_U-_R_D-_R-_U2_R- In this I am looking at the green and red face and I mainly have trouble recognizing it from this angle. I cannot differentiate if it is an R perm or G perm, let alone specify Ra or Gc pll :(
The stickers on both ends are the same colour (blue). Between them, the colour that appears twice (red) is of an adjacent face to blue, and those red stickers are not connected in a block.

That pattern only occurs with R perm.
 

Akash Meena

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I am having trouble with R perms and G perms :(
Example: Setup - R U' R' U' R U R D R' U' R D' R' U2 R' U
From this angle I have trouble recognizing the Ga, Gc, Ra and Rb perms. Any help?

The way i recognise it as-
Its forming checkerboared..First color-second color-first color-second color-first color-opp.color of first color
You can take a look here-ff.png
 

KukuhTrisna

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I just simply recognize from the front and right side. If I didn't get the case yet, I just tilt it to the right, and peek the left side or maybe doing U then U' helps. I am using fast 3 sided recognition, but currently working some 2 sides based on my own perspective.

I think it's better figure it out yourself, I know it's hard to find the difference and takes a bit time. But it's much easier to remember and recall it
 

Kartik Mehra

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I also have trouble recognizing R, G, E, V, Y and F perms
Setup - R U' R' U' R U R D R' U' R D' R' U2 R'
It is very difficult to recognize Ra, Rb, Ga, Gc, V, Y and E.
F is somewhere easy...
Plzzz help
 

Hammer

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I'm having trouble differentiating between R perm and T perm as well as A perm from G perm from this angle.
I mean, it takes a long time to check whether you can see all 4 colors or not.
 

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