What am I doing wrong?

YddEd said:
Do I exaggerate stuff? I'm 11 :P
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He's newer to the forum (albeit by less than I expected), and seems not to realise yet that people will call him out for it. Maybe he's genuinely deluded, or at the very least unclear with what he's saying e.g. saying he turns at 5 TPS when that's really the speed of his algs, not average in his solves.
 
speedcuber50 said:
And yes, it takes 6 seconds for just the PLL, not the whole last layer.

In response to windhero, I'm quite happy with the algs I've got.
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It might help if you stop looking at the timer during a solve.
Also, you might be happy with your current algs, but that's because you haven't found ones you REALLY like, yet. I guarantee you will change your algs several times before you're fast.
 
speedcuber50 said:
I know what lookahead is; it's my LL that's way too slow.
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I thought this too - I was wrong. I found improving my PLLs helped my averages, because previously I had some 1.5s PLLs and some like 6 seconds. When a 6 second PLL was paired with a dot OLL (i.e. basically 3 OLL algs using 2-look), my LL could be maybe 10+ seconds! If I had an easy OLL, (any edges oriented case), followed by a T or easy J PLL, my LL could be sub 3. Now I have some PLLs that I can sub-1, most are 2-3 seconds. I know a few more 1-look OLLs, but basically the discrepancy between my LL times has reduced from >10 to <3 to maybe >6 to <2 (barring lockups).

All this has knocked my average down by a few seconds, but my 'fastest' solves still range between 15 and 19 seconds. This is because, on those solves, it's still my lookahead that limits me.

IMHO, lookahead is the most important thing to work on at almost any stage of cubing. I just don't get it though - going to work on disciplined, slow turning, but I really struggle not to try to go fast. Sometimes I see the pieces, and get a 16 second solve; other times I rush an insert and waste 3 seconds looking for my next pair. :-(
 
pipkiksass said:
All this has knocked my average down by a few seconds, but my 'fastest' solves still range between 15 and 19 seconds. This is because, on those solves, it's still my lookahead that limits me.
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I've seen something similar, my LLs are really bad (2-look OLL and 3-look PLL), and this adds a lot of variance to my solve times. I wonder if there's a way of estimating this by using the variance of a cuber.

So if your variance is too high a percentage of your times, then you need to learn more LL algorithms, and if your variance is too low, then you need to work on F2L.

As it is, I've been working only on my F2L speeds for quite some time. And one thing I've noticed is that I learn stuff about the LL just by repetition. So I am beginning to know what to expect at the end of the first PLL look, stuff like that.
 
pipkiksass said:
IMHO, lookahead is the most important thing to work on at almost any stage of cubing. I just don't get it though - going to work on disciplined, slow turning, but I really struggle not to try to go fast. Sometimes I see the pieces, and get a 16 second solve; other times I rush an insert and waste 3 seconds looking for my next pair. :-(
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imo, and from my past experience, lookahead is not just about turning slow. you should also be able to track pieces whilst turning fast. so the way i did it to get to sub 15 is to turn as fast as i want, a reasonable, fast speed and try to track the pieces as much as i can. i did this on a smaller cube, namely the zhanchi 55mm. and it really helped. i dunno if this is helpful to you tho, everyone is different you see. :)
 
KongShou said:
imo, and from my past experience, lookahead is not just about turning slow. you should also be able to track pieces whilst turning fast. so the way i did it to get to sub 15 is to turn as fast as i want, a reasonable, fast speed and try to track the pieces as much as i can. i did this on a smaller cube, namely the zhanchi 55mm. and it really helped. i dunno if this is helpful to you tho, everyone is different you see. :)
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Absolutely - it's not about turning slow, practicing lookahead is about turning slow. Applying lookahead is about turning as fast as possible while still tracking the pieces! I'm just too impatient to do the practice. I'm starting to track pieces a bit more, I guess it just comes to everyone in a different way.

My main is, and has been for a long while, a 55mm Zhanchi I bought from a certain UK-based cube store! ;-)

@Yockee - I love that video, probably the only 40 minute cubing video I've ever watched... TWICE! Another advocate of slow practice, which I really must get round to one day. I just constantly want to time myself, and totally lack discipline!!! :P
 
A tip I use, excute each F2L pair very fast but slow down the insert to about 2 TPS, just to catch a breather for half a second and find the next pieces.

This isn't applicable to people who are sub-15 but it certainly helps you improve your lookahead and the flow of the solve. I find myself solving with no pauses much more often now.

Secondly, track corners as they are much more visible. Your cross colour will flash in front of you. The moment you see that you should be able to work out what edge to go for.

Rinse and repeat for each pair.
 
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