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Why did CFOP become the go to method?

CurlyFries

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Jul 21, 2019
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When CFOP was created, why did people put work into it to develop it to the stage it is today? It is less efficient than almost every method ever invented, and hardware back then was a lot worse than it is today so it seems they would put a lot of consideration into efficiency.
 

Smiley Rhino

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Aug 1, 2019
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I'm no expert but it seams a bit untrue that CFOP is inefficient when it is used by so many world renowned cubers. I think you are a bit ill-informed, but then again I'm newbie so... That should get the conversation going =D
 

GenTheSnail

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Well, it wasn't the least efficient method, and it still isn't bad, move-count wise. When CFOP was developed, neither Roux or ZZ had been invented. Petrus was around I think, so that was a competing method.

The main reason CFOP is popular is because it is a really really good extension from LBL. The second and third steps are combined, saving a lot of time and moves, and then the orientation stages got grouped into one step as well as permutation. This resulted in a fast method with a reasonable amount of algs. It was the most obvious next step and a good one at that.
 

Smiley Rhino

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Well, it wasn't the least efficient method, and it still isn't bad, move-count wise. When CFOP was developed, neither Roux or ZZ had been invented. Petrus was around I think, so that was a competing method.

The main reason CFOP is popular is because it is a really really good extension from LBL. The second and third steps are combined, saving a lot of time and moves, and then the orientation stages got grouped into one step as well as permutation. This resulted in a fast method with a reasonable amount of algs. It was the most obvious next step and a good one at that.

Sounds like I have some homework to do. Good explanation bud. You clearly know your stuff.
 

CurlyFries

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I see. What I meant by less efficient is that it has a relatively high movecount compared to alternatives such as Roux or ZZ, about 50ish compared to 40ish. I had not realized that the other methods had not been invented at that time.
 

Hazel

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I see. What I meant by less efficient is that it has a relatively high movecount compared to alternatives such as Roux or ZZ, about 50ish compared to 40ish. I had not realized that the other methods had not been invented at that time.
It is definitely less efficient move count-wise, but TPS can get pretty high so it more than cancels out. As Gen said, it's mostly because CFOP is a very easy transition from LBL compared to Roux and ZZ, and when CFOP was first invented Roux and ZZ weren't a thing. And now, CFOP has the most resources so it just makes the most sense to people to try out CFOP first. The general consensus is that Roux is just as good as CFOP, while ZZ isn't quite as good as either.
 

efattah

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Feb 14, 2016
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The reason CFOP (53-63 moves) became a 'thing' is because Waterman's method (avg 45 moves) had too many algorithms (more than 400), and that was way too much back in the late 80's and 90's for most people. Waterman had the 'record' average of 17.70 that was set at an official German competition in 1987, and even 16 years later the CFOP solvers still couldn't beat his average at the 2003 World Championships but his method was already becoming lost and forgotten because not only did it have too many algorithms but it was not well explained in any document and the document's notation was extremely confusing and the method of recognizing the different algorithm cases was (at the time), poorly developed. When Waterman stopped competing around 1990, there was no longer even a single person who fully knew the method.
Today, all the Waterman algorithms have been re-generated and optimized and recognition method has been standardized, but still not many people are interested in it because they prefer 'popular' methods. Roux has been called 'optimized Waterman' and is currently the most similar to waterman (although LMCF is also very similar and only LMCF actually uses all the Waterman algorithms).
 
U

Underwatercuber

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Because it’s good and it’s also not that hard to learn
 

Solvador Cubi

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I think CFOP is popular because its core steps are:
intuitive learning and repetition: F2L
and memorization, recognition and execution: LL

Besides the learning curve to understand F2L and the time needed to do LL well,
there aren't many different concepts to learn.
 

Thom S.

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Sep 26, 2017
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It became popular because when online cubing started to build up, people wanted information on speedcubing that was already there to build up from, but it was very scarce back then. Jessica Fridrich's website had(and still has) a full Method description and both full OLL and PLL algorithms. The two big competitors were Petrus and a dying CF. Waterman was known, but Eric didn't have all the information up that she does. Somewhere on the Wiki there is an archived Page (Yahoo Speedsolving Group) where Ron van Bruchem asks for Information on Waterman
 
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