Nice tips on the F2L look-ahead. I'm going to try putting a 2x2 block in the back by default next time I solve. That's a cool idea, even though it's the first one that's hardest to find.
Getting better at EOLine is really helping my transition. It will be great when I'm able to almost always fully plan the full move sequence during inspection. I can still only do that about a third of the time, but it's awesome when it happen.
I have a couple ZZF2L execution tips that I think are worth sharing (especially for others coming from a CFOP background):
1) Discover and learn to recognize nice patterns for forming 1x2x2 blocks. When you first start there will be times when you're just trying to make a corner edge pair and you'll make a happy discovery that the second edge "magically" made its way to the right spot. When this happens, stop, undo your moves, and take a look at the three piece pattern that caused this happy accident. Now you'll be able to recognize and eventually work to form these nice three piece patterns, which are often much easier and faster than forming the pair and then positioning the second edge in sequence.
One position that I've come to love early in the F2L is the "broken corner" position. This is the position where the D-sticker of the corner faces up and the side sticker matches the adjacent edge (the one that every new CFOPer hates until he learns an alg for it). You're probably familiar with the R2 U2 R' U' R U' R2 alg used to solve it. It's extremely useful to know the position after the initial R2 U2 (perform R2' U R' U R on a solved cube), because it's very easy to recognize get directly into this position early in the F2L. Then it's just five moves to go from a "bad" situation (mis-formed pair + edge on wrong side) to a solved and positioned 1x2x2 block.
Also learn to recognize it with the edges switched (generated by R' U R' U R).
2) Similar to #1, also backtrack when you have a case where making the pair puts the second edge in an especially bad spot, so you can recognize and avoid this. Sometimes you'll find that doing just one move before forming the pair will turn a bad situation into a very nice one.
3) Use of free "slots" is important in CFOP, but it's even more important in ZZ because a) it gets back some of the lost flexibility from having F and B fixed, and b) early on you have a free slice rather than just a slot, so it's even more "free".
3) Learn and become comfortable with the block breaking algs that you didn't really need in CFOP because of the ability to use F and B. This is probably obvious, but I went weeks using cludgy tricks to avoid block breaking, which wasn't worth it.
Getting better at EOLine is really helping my transition. It will be great when I'm able to almost always fully plan the full move sequence during inspection. I can still only do that about a third of the time, but it's awesome when it happen.
I have a couple ZZF2L execution tips that I think are worth sharing (especially for others coming from a CFOP background):
1) Discover and learn to recognize nice patterns for forming 1x2x2 blocks. When you first start there will be times when you're just trying to make a corner edge pair and you'll make a happy discovery that the second edge "magically" made its way to the right spot. When this happens, stop, undo your moves, and take a look at the three piece pattern that caused this happy accident. Now you'll be able to recognize and eventually work to form these nice three piece patterns, which are often much easier and faster than forming the pair and then positioning the second edge in sequence.
One position that I've come to love early in the F2L is the "broken corner" position. This is the position where the D-sticker of the corner faces up and the side sticker matches the adjacent edge (the one that every new CFOPer hates until he learns an alg for it). You're probably familiar with the R2 U2 R' U' R U' R2 alg used to solve it. It's extremely useful to know the position after the initial R2 U2 (perform R2' U R' U R on a solved cube), because it's very easy to recognize get directly into this position early in the F2L. Then it's just five moves to go from a "bad" situation (mis-formed pair + edge on wrong side) to a solved and positioned 1x2x2 block.
Also learn to recognize it with the edges switched (generated by R' U R' U R).
2) Similar to #1, also backtrack when you have a case where making the pair puts the second edge in an especially bad spot, so you can recognize and avoid this. Sometimes you'll find that doing just one move before forming the pair will turn a bad situation into a very nice one.
3) Use of free "slots" is important in CFOP, but it's even more important in ZZ because a) it gets back some of the lost flexibility from having F and B fixed, and b) early on you have a free slice rather than just a slot, so it's even more "free".
3) Learn and become comfortable with the block breaking algs that you didn't really need in CFOP because of the ability to use F and B. This is probably obvious, but I went weeks using cludgy tricks to avoid block breaking, which wasn't worth it.
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