# Letter-pairs are good, m'kay?



## kralik (Mar 24, 2015)

Hello everyone!

The FAQ by Noah says:



> Always use letter pairs always. Seriously.



I find a little hard to believe that one particular memo method should be The Best for everyone.

Just to give a little background: I've been blindsolving for a couple of months now, I'm still a beginner though, plus I only do it as a hobby when I have time, which is not terribly often. My BLD PB is about 3:20 as of now. I use 3-cycles for edges and OP for corners (still haven't got the hang of corner 3-cycles enough to replace OP).

I tried to use memo similar to letter-pairs in the beginning but it was very bad, I had a hard time recalling the list. I've never been very good at remembering lists, words, sentences, etc, I'm much more visual/space/topography -oriented if you know what I mean. When I need to navigate somewhere accoring to a map, I don't remember "Turn right here, turn left there", I remember the shape of the route (visually) instead. I use the same method to memorize the targets on the cube. For each pair I picture a shape - kind of like a stripe of tape or paper - on the surface of the cube (or in a few cases going through the cube). There's a limited number of these shapes for both edges and corners, I know them all and I have a name for each, but I really only remember the shape.

So far this has worked quite well for me, but then I go online and see people claiming the letter-pairs is the only good choice and everything else is inferior. Is it really like that? Am I going in a wrong direction? I thought there'd be differences between people in terms of what memorization works for them since not everyone has strong verbal memory, for instance... Does this mean that if my verbal memory isn't too good I'm not cut out to be a blindsolver?


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## Mollerz (Mar 24, 2015)

I think it's definitely the most superior way to memorise. Just because it is bad now does not mean it will be bad in the future does it? You can train it, just like anything. When you started solving the cube did you use fingertricks like you do now, of course not, you trained it.


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## Hssandwich (Mar 24, 2015)

I use letter pairs, but really wierd ones. For example, QW is QuoW and XA is XA... followed by the next letter pair combined into that.

My point is, you don't need to have good letter pairs, you can just use wierd ones before you maybe learn some for tricky pairs.


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## tseitsei (Mar 24, 2015)

Letter pairs (or something similar that forms stories and images (like maskows method I think)) is really the superior way to go... At least for everything bigger than 3bld. For 3bld you could use something like quick audio memo but for anything bigger there is just too much info to use full audio or full visual or something like that quickly enough to compete with letter pairs. That's why all good memorysports athletes use letterpairs/images. It just is the best method there currently is...


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## SpeedCubeReview (Mar 24, 2015)

What would be a good video to describe this? I have not yet gone into the world of blind solving.


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## TDM (Mar 24, 2015)

Hssandwich said:


> I use letter pairs, but really wierd ones. For example, QW is QuoW and XA is XA... followed by the next letter pair combined into that.
> 
> My point is, you don't need to have good letter pairs, you can just use wierd ones before you maybe learn some for tricky pairs.


Or you could not use Q or X


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## Tao Yu (Mar 24, 2015)

A few pages into the BLD FAQ thread:



Maskow said:


> Damn it, I didn't know that, maybe with letter pairs instead of my numbers and random images I will be faster xD
> I my opinion letter pairs aren't optimal at all. Maybe it's not bad but it isn't the only one way to be very fast.



So yeah, letter pairs aren't the only way to go. I'm not sure about a method like yours though. I feel that with a visual method you are more likely to make mistakes and confuse things, and as a consequence of this, you're probably going to need to review more. Maskow's system and letter pairs do have one important thing in common. They _both encode *two targets* into *one image*_. This drastically reduces the information that you have to remember per solve, and I think any method that doesn't do this should be avoided.


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## Randomno (Mar 24, 2015)

Tao Yu said:


> So yeah, letter pairs aren't the only way to go. I'm not sure about a method like yours though. I feel that with a visual method you are more likely to make mistakes and confuse things, and as a consequence of this, you're probably going to need to review more. Maskow's system and letter pairs do have one important thing in common. They _both encode *two targets* into *one image*_. This drastically reduces the information that you have to remember per solve, and I think any method that doesn't do this should be avoided.



Doesn't Maskow's system use a single image for each 3 cycle?


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## Tao Yu (Mar 24, 2015)

Randomno said:


> Doesn't Maskows system use a single image for each 3 cycle?



A 3-cycle solves 2 targets - the third piece goes to the buffer. So same thing.


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## kralik (Mar 24, 2015)

Mollerz said:


> I think it's definitely the most superior way to memorise. Just because it is bad now does not mean it will be bad in the future does it? You can train it, just like anything. When you started solving the cube did you use fingertricks like you do now, of course not, you trained it.


That's a good point, maybe I could give letter pairs another chance...



Tao Yu said:


> They _both encode *two targets* into *one image*_. This drastically reduces the information that you have to remember per solve, and I think any method that doesn't do this should be avoided.



I encode two targets (one 3-cycle) into one image as well. Here's an example of how I remember two targets:



I call this one "the foot", there's about 10 cases like this for corners. Somehow it's easy for me to remember these and I don't even have to remember the direction, somehow it's automatic. I do seem to have to review quite a bit, though, but I have to do that with letter-pairs too as far as I now...


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## Tao Yu (Mar 24, 2015)

kralik said:


> View attachment 5015
> 
> I call this one "the foot", there's about 10 cases like this for corners. Somehow it's easy for me to remember these and I don't even have to remember the direction, somehow it's automatic.



Fair enough. I still feel that there's a lot of ambiguity with it though. MBLD would be really hard. Do you get many DNFs by forgetting where your shapes are or which way they go? 



> I do seem to have to review quite a bit, though, but I have to do that with letter-pairs too as far as I now...



With a lot of practice, you won't need to review your letter pairs, I can assure you of that. I don't know if this it the case with visual, as I don't know of anyone who has gotten to that level with it. Maybe it's possible, I don't know.


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## kralik (Mar 24, 2015)

Tao Yu said:


> Fair enough. I still feel that there's a lot of ambiguity with it though. MBLD would be really hard. Do you get many DNFs by forgetting where your shapes are or which way they go?


I don't think I've ever gotten a DNF because of confused direction, I don't know why, maybe because I also associate the shapes with motion. Sometimes I get DNF because I accidentally skip a pair, not too often though. Also, there is one edge shape that ocasionally causes me trouble because it's easily flipped (for exmaple I might confuse BL→LD with LB→DL). However, most of my DNFs are because of reading the cube wrong, doing the commutator/algorithm wrong or doing setup/unsetup moves wrong.

Regarding MBLD, I can see myself putting the shapes into Loci, I guess, I've never tried it though. I solved two cubes the other day (which is not much of a MBLD I suppose) and it wasn't a problem, except it took a lot of time - some 13 minutes.

I'd like to thank everyone for opinions. One thing's for certain: I need practice regardless of the memo method


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## Smiles (Mar 25, 2015)

letter pairs are good because they're super quick and never really ambiguous or jumbled. plus you can go visual or audio with memorizing them, so u can go super quick audio on 3bld then go visual on mbld or big bld


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## rybaby (Mar 25, 2015)

As Riley Woo says, "Just use letters for now."


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## CuberM (Mar 25, 2015)

You can memorize letter pairs visually... For example, if I had "QE MW" I can imagine a QuEstion mark MoWing. You may ask how I know that every time and what happens if I mix up QE and QU, but that comes along with practice. If you give me a letter pair, I automatically think whatever it is that I do in a blindsolve.


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## Tim Major (Mar 25, 2015)

You don't need to make a list of all your letter pairs. Just come up with them on the spot. Lots of people are sub 1 without having a predetermined word for every slot.

Semi related question, has anyone got a predetermined person, object and action for every letter pair? I assume that'd help multi a lot


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## cmhardw (Mar 25, 2015)

Tim Major said:


> Semi related question, has anyone got a predetermined person, object and action for every letter pair? I assume that'd help multi a lot



Ian Winokur does. I'm interested in developing such a list as well but haven't gotten very far yet.


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## Ranzha (Mar 25, 2015)

I use a similar method to OP's when I memo CP. It's pretty fast, but I would never try incorporating CO into such a system. I'd be prone to making mistakes.

A lot of people use letter pairs because it works for them and they're used to it already. Like Mollerz said, getting good at a memo system requires practice, so coming out of a purely visual system and switching to a much less familiar letter-pair system will take time. It's the price of being well-rounded in your memorisation.


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## Berd (Mar 25, 2015)

cmhardw said:


> Ian Winokur does. I'm interested in developing such a list as well but haven't gotten very far yet.


I'm working on it!


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## cmhardw (Mar 25, 2015)

Berd said:


> I'm working on it!



Ian has convinced me of how efficient and fun it is to memorize with a letter pair PAO. Coming from him it sounds like it is definitely worth the effort. He prefers it over regular letter pairs by a lot. I say stick with it if you're learning it.


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## Berd (Mar 25, 2015)

cmhardw said:


> Ian has convinced me of how efficient and fun it is to memorize with a letter pair PAO. Coming from him it sounds like it is definitely worth the effort. He prefers it over regular letter pairs by a lot. I say stick with it if you're learning it.


Positive words. Sounds as if I've got some work to do.


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## CuberM (Mar 26, 2015)

Tim Major said:


> You don't need to make a list of all your letter pairs. Just come up with them on the spot. Lots of people are sub 1 without having a predetermined word for every slot.
> 
> Semi related question, has anyone got a predetermined person, object and action for every letter pair? I assume that'd help multi a lot



I'm sub-40 and there's still cases I don't know well at all xD


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## kralik (Mar 26, 2015)

CuberM said:


> You can memorize letter pairs visually...


I think I'm gonna have to. I like Maskow's system... (If I got it right that is  )



Ranzha said:


> I use a similar method to OP's when I memo CP. It's pretty fast, but I would never try incorporating CO into such a system.


Excuse me, what's CP and CO?


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## moralsh (Mar 26, 2015)

Corner permutation and orientation


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## kralik (Mar 26, 2015)

moralsh said:


> Corner permutation and orientation


Oh, thanks!

Btw. I thought I understood Maskow's system but his thread about it confuses me, could anyone explain his memo?


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## tseitsei (Mar 27, 2015)

CuberM said:


> I'm sub-40 and there's still cases I don't know well at all xD



If you are sub-40 I'm quite sure that you actually have a complete letter pair list already. Not necessarily written anywhere but only in your head. That's what it's like for me at least. I never tried to make a letter pair list. Instead I just did a lot of solves and now I have these "standard" words for harder letter pairs that I use automatically. For easier (more common in Finnish language) letter pairs I just come up with something that fits my current memo on the spot...


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## TyrantCuberKing (Apr 25, 2015)

I am trying to learn OP/OP execution with letter pair memorization. The problems I am running into are thus:

1. In OP, you are memorizing stickers, but it is actually a piece-by-piece method. Thus, when I break into new cycles, I always have to go back and associate the stickers with the piece that was actually solved so that I know which pieces are available for cycle-breaks. This is probably the most annoying aspect. I've heard tapping helps, but it hasn't payed dividends thus far.

2. Initially, thinking of an object to correspond to each letter pair is a pain, particularly for Q, X and W. It currently takes me anywhere from 10 to 15 minutes to memorize. I am also beginning to think that the common adage of "you just need an average memory" is probably only true of being able to solve BLD at ALL, whilst memorizing the cube in less than one minute is probably a gift. What I might try is to focus on phonetics, and not spelling. Incidentally, I have been sufficiently bothered by the first issue that I have started drilling the sub-sections of Makisumi's 3OP blindfolded method, simply memorizing the digits. For me, this makes the memorization much faster. However, I know that starting with M2/OP will inevitably lead to faster times in the future, so what I could do is try to implement a 1-24 numbering system.


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## bobthegiraffemonkey (Apr 25, 2015)

TyrantCuberKing said:


> I am trying to learn OP/OP execution with letter pair memorization. The problems I am running into are thus:
> 
> 1. In OP, you are memorizing stickers, but it is actually a piece-by-piece method. Thus, when I break into new cycles, I always have to go back and associate the stickers with the piece that was actually solved so that I know which pieces are available for cycle-breaks. This is probably the most annoying aspect. I've heard tapping helps, but it hasn't payed dividends thus far.
> 
> 2. Initially, thinking of an object to correspond to each letter pair is a pain, particularly for Q, X and W. It currently takes me anywhere from 10 to 15 minutes to memorize. I am also beginning to think that the common adage of "you just need an average memory" is probably only true of being able to solve BLD at ALL, whilst memorizing the cube in less than one minute is probably a gift. What I might try is to focus on phonetics, and not spelling. Incidentally, I have been sufficiently bothered by the first issue that I have started drilling the sub-sections of Makisumi's 3OP blindfolded method, simply memorizing the digits. For me, this makes the memorization much faster. However, I know that starting with M2/OP will inevitably lead to faster times in the future, so what I could do is try to implement a 1-24 numbering system.



1. You can keep your fingers on pieces that you've already taken care of, so you can tell easily what pieces are left. You can do this easily on 3x3, and I managed to work out a version for larger cubes blindfolded, and even for megaminx.

2. At first, letter pairs will be slow, expecially if you struggle with thinking of images during solves. With some practice, and making a list of letter pairs to use in solves written down somewhere, it gets much easier and faster. I've got a rubbish memory and don't much like image memo, but it was the best option and I used it anyway. Now I'm 10th in the world for 5BLD and also have a 41.xx 3BLD single PB in comp, so you are almost certainly capable of memorising in under a minute. However, you will have to work for it like everyone else with sub-1 memo had to.


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## kbrune (Feb 12, 2016)

I'm in the process of sifting through tons of info and reading up on techniques and advice by multi blinders. Man is it overwhelming! I'm finding it difficult to figure out the best way to apply memo methods to suit my strengths and weaknesses. 

From what I've seen. Letter pairs encoded I to images while using Roman rooms will be the strongest memo technique for my Future multi attempts.

I'd like to save as much time in the research area as possible so I was hoping someone with experience could shed some light on the following. Does anyone favor using strictly images for pairs over using the person, object, action style? I can see the pros and cons of both. But the latter means organizing 3 lists of 500+ combinations. That seems impossible to me. 

Any thoughts or advice?


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## Ollie (Feb 12, 2016)

Don't list your letter pairs, yet. Try to come up with letter pairs on the fly, because a lot of the letter pairs for A-X lend themselves to obvious pairs quite nicely.

For example, if you need to remember FT PL KD, try inserting a vowel in between each pair. You'll get a few options: fat, fit, or feet? Pal, pull, pill? Or maybe not: kid?

What you're doing here is learning how to be imaginative when you're memorizing. You'll learn that some letter pairs are easy and you'll use them again, or you'll experiment and find interesting images for harder pairs.

Once you're about 95% comfortable with your mental 'list', research the hardest pairs. Maybe pick a category for them. For example, X followed by something could be code for a superhero, or Xmen, or something dead x_x

Good practice for PAO too - try to use celebrities or friends. I.e. DB could be David Beckham (person) or an action (playing football) or an object (football). 3 words for the price of one.


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## kbrune (Feb 12, 2016)

^^^

I'm so slow at coming up with an image on the fly. I often sit there for a minute stuck on one pair. I realized once I started learning blind how poor my imagination is lol.

So would it be efficient if I simply try at first to come up with an image on the fly and then keep in mind or write down the ones I couldn't find anything for and think one up afterward? 

And also. My original question was wether people used strictly images interacting with each other over using specifically a person, followed by an object, followed by an action with said object. In that order for every pair


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## Ollie (Feb 12, 2016)

Imagination can be practiced, too! It will be slow at first, but it you're just starting BLD then you might as well start with strong methods and not have to change later.

Try not writing down, you will end up reusing pairs without much effort. And you don't necessarily need to stick with PAO or POA, read the article in signature about sentences as an alternative to PAO. You could also just try learning one single image for each pair and making images with 4-8 letters.


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