Video of 3 solves: advice wanted

[Boz]

Hi everyone, I've been cubing since November '08, I first learnt a beginners method from wikipedia, and now I use Fridrich method (with intuitive F2L) except I still do 2 look OLL, my best times for 3x3x3 are 22.22s single and around 30-31s for average of 12.

I am looking for some advice on what areas I could improve the most (obviously everthing needs improving) since I have kind of been stuck around this 30 second mark for quite some time.

I am not that enthused about learning full OLL at this point, and my F2L obviously needs some work (there are some painful pauses in there). I'm not sure If I should try and learn F2L algorithms or if I should just keep practicing and hope it improves naturally.

Here is a breakdown of each solve approximately (in seconds):
Solve 1 2 3
Cross 4 4.5 5.1
F2L 18.5 17 15
OLL 6 3.5 5.7
PLL 7 5 5.2
Total Time 35.56 30.39 30.2

Thanks for you help!

 

[JohnnyA]

F2L is definitely what you need to work on. You should try going slow, using a metronome, and try to have no pauses

 

[SRV]

I'm not the one you should trust, because I'm at about 27-28 avg... The advanced guys here will tell you. However I see you need better lookahead at your F2L and stop pausing that much.

What I want is: What type cube is that?

Edit:LOL johnnyA, you re fast! You stole my post!

 

[rckclmb124]

I am sub 25 with a two look OLL and most times two look PLL. So there is room for improvement. You should work on your cross and f2l AlOT. It is a good thing that you have your cross on bottom, it is a bad habit of mine. You also have alot of delays, you should try to slow down and look for you next f2l pair while making and inserting the one you have.

Hope it helped.

 

[Boz]

Thanks for your advice so far. It seems like I need to improve my F2L the most.

I know everyone is different, but given the times for the other sections of my solve, how bad is my F2L, i.e. approximately how much faster do you think it should be at my level?

What I want is: What type cube is that?

It's a YUGA cube from Nice puzzles

 

[Kieran]

Cross could be a bit faster, I do solves around a minute and my cross is ~ 4sec everytime.. F2L should be around 12-15 seconds for you.. then I would say work on PLL after you get F2L to ~15 everytime.

But you are decently fast.

 

[Escher]

couple (well, quite a few) of bits of advice...

- your cross - you want to be able to solve this in < 3s, or lower.

- for EVERY solve you do, close your eyes when you do the cross. you dont have to keep to the 15s inspection, but thats what you should aim for.

- you'll find eventually that this is easy, and you can work on your cross/f2l transition, which imo is the most important part of the f2l. i personally find that the last two pairs, OLL and PLL are ridiculously fast compared to my first two pairs, when ive had a difficult cross, or im not concentrating. its clear that my better times (13-15s) are when the cross/f2l transitions are smooth.

- being able to do the cross BLD will massively help with this - you can track the next pair/s. i like to keep a mental note of 'stuck pairs', and i might try and preserve them, so i can track another pair, and then go back to the stuck pair (dont worry so much about doing this right now - its just another possibility).

- like others have said, practice your f2l by using slow turning solves - this means that you turn as slowly as you need to be able to have absolutely NO pauses. this will drastically improve your lookahead, meaning that when you come back to normal solves, you'll naturally lookahead, and be considerably faster. however, you need to do this VERY often

- learn a couple of f2l algs for the nasty cases, if you havent.
- go through every case, and think about it - what would be the most optimal way of solving it? what would be the 2-generator (turning 2 sides) way of doing it? how does it affect the rest of the cube?
- experiment between RU'R', RU2R', and R'FRF' - work out exactly what they do to the cube - you'll find knowing this can be very handy, particularly for OLL...

LL

- dont worry that much about learning OLL - you will probably find that once you get to sub 20 that you'll WANT to know more, as there will be a clear distinction between the times were you knew the OLL, and you didnt. that said, learning a couple of the easier cases now wouldn't hurt too much.

- do PLL time attacks. right now, i'd say you should aim for around a minute, but better is, well, better.

- work on recognition for PLL - try and learn to recognise them how Erik or Joel sets them out in their sites - using blocks of colour, and knowing which colours are opposite each other etc.

- perhaps you could learn a couple more PLLs? knowing cases from other angles can be very helpful, particularly with recognition.

- go PLL hunting - you never know, there could be a new and amazing alg that you hadn't seen before, for example, fanwuqs 'Rb' alg...

R U R'F' - RU2R'U2R'F - RURU2R'U'

the first part is like a J-perm, the second part is a bit like the first part of the other R, and the last part is simply cancellations with a sune.


however, you have noticed all of the weak spots, and well done - thats the first part of progress. anyway, good luck

PS and sorry for the absolutely humongous post.

 

[Boz]

PS and sorry for the absolutely humongous post.

Thanks for the advice Escher, there isn't anything to apologise for, the more help the better. This afternoon I have been doing some slower solves with better transitions between pairs and I think I am improving at this a bit.

Also, the three solves in the video all seemed to have terrible crosses. I can do it blindfolded, but I have to visualise the piece places. I was wondering if it is better to remember the move sequence instead? That way I might be able to just execute it and start looking for the first pair, but that sounds quite hard...

 

[Escher]

nah, dont memorise the actual 'moves' (as in R, U, B2 etc). you'll find that memo'ing the pieces etc will become really easy.

anyway, i know this isn't a complete vid (something went wrong when uploading/compressing) but the (2?) solves might give you a bit of an idea of how i solve.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=bpb6Ug5mtYM&

ill try and fix it later tonight, but i have lots of work to do now...

 

[EmersonHerrmann]

Cross just takes practice, just try and get it down to about 2-3 seconds. Any person will tell you, slow down on F2L and try to look ahead...it doesn't matter how slow you are turning, just make sure you only have 0-1 pauses during F2L. For OLL, just learn the rest of them after getting down to about 25 (or whenever you are comfortable to start learning them.) Do some PLL time attacks to improve the speed of your PLL, and remember, the PLLs you are using now may not be the best for you to use, so search around a bit if you like.

 

[pjk]

I second using a metronome to pace yourself. Set it at 1 sound per second and only move when it makes a sound. If you need to go slower, do like 1 sound every 2 seconds. You need to keep moving to minimize those delays. Although just practicing and doing averages in general will get rid of the delays. Good luck.