ZZ-d ; My approach to Profane Koala

[NathanWalsh]

So I informed myself a bit about ZZ-d and Profane Koala, and in my opinion, Profane Koala has some great potential. I wanted some feedback but I never heard of someone putting it in practice. So I thought that maybe I could try it myself and send feedback to everyone who is interested. As you might already know, the big problem with this method is CP recognition aka the missing link. But I think that with a lot of practice, it can become easier and even be competitive with other variants/methods.

So here's the approach I will take:

Place DR corners in DR emplacements (they can be swapped, more explanation later)
Place UFL corner in its place (You can do it with UFR if you want to, just make sure you
understand the cases with UFL first)

We will denote the other three corners as follows:
-UFR=adjR
-UBL=adjL
-UBR=opp
And each case will be described as follows:
Case X:
-Left= Corner in UBL (Left of UFL)
-Right= Corner in UFR (Right of UFL)
-Swap case


Case 1:
-Left= adjL
-Right= adjR
-Ok

Case 2:
-Left= adjR
-Right= opp
-Swap UBL UFL (Left)

Case 3:
-Left= opp
-Right= adjL
-Swap UFL UFR (Front)

Case 4:
-Left= adjL
-Right= opp
-Swap UFR UBR (Right)

Case 5:
-Left= opp
-Right= adjL
-Swap UBR UBL (Back)

Case 6:
-Left= adjR
-Right= adjL
-Diagonal Swap

If DR corners are swapped, Do the inverse of the swap cases
-Swap Back -> Swap Front
-Diagonal Swap -> Ok

Algs:
-Diagonal Swap: L' U R2 U' L
-Adjacent Swap: D' R U' R' D (UF corners)

I will try to expend it in the future, maybe learn new sets or learn not to place a corner in its place but rather recognize where are the corners relative to the corner that is in X emplacement.

I will regularly update this thread to let you know my progression.

PS: I was averaging ~25 seconds at the time I wrote this thread

 

[NathanWalsh]

I did some solves, here are the results:
Number of solves: 75
Average: 35.52
Best: 26.46
Best Avg5: 30.89
Best Avg12: 33.24

My times went down from ~25 to ~32 but I'm still not entirely used to it and I don't use 2G1LLL. I can already see some potential in this variant and finishing by spamming 2Gen algs is so much fun.

 

[mDiPalma]

I have a ~15 second ZZ-d avg5 (Porky-V1), and a couple good sub-15 singles with Porky-V2. There are some videos on my channel.

ZZ-Porky-V2 is really good. Check it out.

The recognition for ZZ-d isn't the main problem, in my opinion. I can usually recognize the CP in <1 second, which is next to nothing in a 16-second solve. The main issue is that reducing the cube to a 2-gen state is not any better than keeping it 3-gen. In fact, if you run some analysis, you will see that the ~5 moves invested in reducing the solve from 3-gen to 2-gen often puts the cube FURTHER away from the solved state than it was before.

I mean, the method is still fun, and that is what cubing is all about. However, I wouldn't use ZZ-d for anything besides fun.