# How Common is Colour Neutrality?



## gundershot (May 14, 2013)

I was always under the impression that being colour neutral was a normal thing, I was able to master colour neutrality in about 2 weeks. After some searching about colour neutrality, it seems to me that most people can only start on white. Is colour neutrality really that uncommon?


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## MadeToReply (May 14, 2013)

i start on blue :3, but some people find it hard changing the way they look at the cube. For example i look for the blue pieces and you would look for an easy cross. Imagine me trying to look for an easy cross when my mindset is blueeeish.


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## cowabunga (May 14, 2013)

gundershot said:


> I was always under the impression that being colour neutral was a normal thing


Why?


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## Username (May 14, 2013)

I'm half color neutral (3 colors)

I think opposite CN is most common


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## JasonK (May 14, 2013)

gundershot said:


> I was always under the impression that being colour neutral was a normal thing, I was able to master colour neutrality in about 2 weeks. After some searching about colour neutrality, it seems to me that most people can only start on white. Is colour neutrality really that uncommon?



It's definitely not the most common way, but it's not *that* uncommon either. Most CN people started that way, or went CN very soon after they started. People who try to switch when they're more experienced tend to take a lot longer to do so, and it's debatable whether it's worth it to switch at that point.


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## Maccoboy (May 14, 2013)

i recently (last 5 months) have taught my uncle to cube, he's 25 and i gave him a zhanchi and told him every solve to use a deferent colour, now he is 100% colour neutral 

wish someone had told me to do that when i started


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## Ross The Boss (May 14, 2013)

whenever one of my friends wants to get into cubing, i tell them to solve on whichever colour has the easiest cross. they listen at first, but after they see fast people on youtube that only solve on white or yellow, they just start solving on one colour.


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## Alcuber (May 14, 2013)

Always have been colour neutral, in fact, when I started I didn't know there was such thing as not being colour neutral. I think it's easier to be CN though if you solve on a different colour every time when you first start cubing so that you don't get used to one colour in particular.


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## ySoSrs (May 14, 2013)

I'm not color neutral, although I only started cubing recently. After seeing this: http://www.cubezone.be/crossstudy.html , I decided not to do the extra effort to be color neutral since on average you only save one move. For people who are near the WR this can make the difference, for me, not so much.


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## mark49152 (May 14, 2013)

ySoSrs said:


> I'm not color neutral, although I only started cubing recently. After seeing this: http://www.cubezone.be/crossstudy.html , I decided not to do the extra effort to be color neutral since on average you only save one move. For people who are near the WR this can make the difference, for me, not so much.


Same here. I decided that I would probably gain more speed benefit from having easier recognition through using a consistent white-cross color scheme.


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## stoic (May 14, 2013)

I solve on white. I did try CN for a while but didn't have the determination to see it through. Occasionally I will solve on yellow if I happen to see a very easy cross or the opportunity to preserve a pair, but it's not often.


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## sneaklyfox (May 14, 2013)

I answered "partially" because I'm W/Y neutral.


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## ben1996123 (May 14, 2013)

i'm colour neutral on everything, apart from megaminx and higher, and bld


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## DuffyEdge (May 14, 2013)

ySoSrs said:


> I'm not color neutral, although I only started cubing recently. After seeing this: http://www.cubezone.be/crossstudy.html , I decided not to do the extra effort to be color neutral since on average you only save one move. For people who are near the WR this can make the difference, for me, not so much.



It's not the moves saved which gives CN it's advantage, it's the more efficient look-ahead which results from an easier cross


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## TheOneOnTheLeft (May 14, 2013)

ySoSrs said:


> I'm not color neutral, although I only started cubing recently. After seeing this: http://www.cubezone.be/crossstudy.html , I decided not to do the extra effort to be color neutral since on average you only save one move. For people who are near the WR this can make the difference, for me, not so much.



It may not save too many moves for just the cross, but has anyone done the maths on CN for XCross, and how many moves that saves (or theoretically could save)?


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## speedcuber50 (May 14, 2013)

I'm not colour neutral at all. I've tried it many times before, but every time I failed horribly. My mother used to say that I should be colour neutral because it would make solving the cube more interesting. Not if it gives me a slower time!!!

Having read this though, I think I'm going to try white/yellow neutrality, as it seems to be the most popular. But, what are the benefits of being colour neutral???


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## jayefbe (May 14, 2013)

I'm not CN and don't plan to be. One of these days I will work on W/Y CN but have no plans to try to be full CN. I personally think my practice time is much better spent working on other things.


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## uniacto (May 14, 2013)

jayefbe said:


> I'm not CN and don't plan to be. One of these days I will work on W/Y CN but have no plans to try to be full CN. I personally think my practice time is much better spent working on other things.



You don't really have to "work" on W/Y CN, it should be easy to do within 10 solves. 

or maybe that was just me.


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## Renslay (May 14, 2013)

I'm partially color neutral; and I think that - at least for me - it's not worth to leart full CN. There are so much more other - and easier - ways to imporve my times.


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## omer (May 14, 2013)

I was fully CN until I was on a 30-second average. Then I tried doing W/Y only and after a while my times dropped like 3 seconds, never went back to CN again. I can solve CN, it just takes a little bit more time because of recognition/look ahead, which are really bad.


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## Ross The Boss (May 14, 2013)

you could shave time of of your average by finding the easiest side to solve on.


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## Count Dracula (May 14, 2013)

Benefits:
1.easier cross
2.better look-ahead
3.better times
I am color neutral for 6 months and I suggest you when you start cubing to be CN,because it's harder to switch when you are used to only white cross(like me)!At the beginning my times were awful,but with practise I see the pairs much easier.Now my times are around 11 seconds and I am pleased with them.I really recommend you to switch CN,if you are not!


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## jayefbe (May 14, 2013)

uniacto said:


> You don't really have to "work" on W/Y CN, it should be easy to do within 10 solves.
> 
> or maybe that was just me.



And that's the only reason why I'll even do W/Y CN. If it took a significant amount of work, I'd just do something else.


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## lunari (May 14, 2013)

When I started cubing, I didn't even know that there are people who only solve the cross on one colour, so I'm colour neutral. However, some days I can't do a special colour e.g. blue...


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## gundershot (May 15, 2013)

I switched to being colour neutral only after cubing for 5 years, and as I stated in my first post, it only took 2 weeks for me to master it and be as fast on any colour as white. So it's definitely possible to switch!


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## cowabunga (May 15, 2013)

gundershot said:


> I switched to being colour neutral only after cubing for 5 years


How can you be under the impression that being colour neutral is a normal thing when you didn't start CN yourself?


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## Smiles (May 15, 2013)

when i teach people i try to get them to be colour neutral, and with the beginner method it really isn't any difference.
but once i start teaching real F2L, the colour patterns start to mix up in their minds and it becomes a lot harder to learn than regular F2L.

plus being colour neutral is not that big of an advantage, unless you get really really good to the point where any time saved doing the cross helps. i converted when my average was 20s and it really didn't take that long, plus i lacked a bit of motivation. discipline and time were the most important factors.

i never really watched youtube cubers, i just chose white at first because it was the only one there that was really different from the others (the others are rainbow colours and white is not). when i found out everyone used white i was actually a little surprised, honestly.


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## Rubiksfreak (May 15, 2013)

I am definately not color neutral, nor do i see myself trying to be. It does set yourself up for a faster cross but at the same time, you can be equally as fast as someone who is color neutral.

Sent from my LG-L38C using Tapatalk 2


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## sneaklyfox (May 15, 2013)

I think there was a lot of hype about it because Feliks Zemdegs is CN. But right now Mats Valk holds the WR single and I believe he does blue cross only. And there are plenty of people who are very very fast who are not CN.

It really depends on the person whether CN is good for them or not or if they are able to do it. Some people are able to switch to CN much faster than others even after cubing for quite some time. Maybe their minds are predisposed to colour neutrality. So yes, it's possible *for some*. Those who are CN or switched are usually happy about it. Those who make a firm decision for single colour only are happy about it too. If you're not sure, try it and see how it fits you. I did the one month thing outlined by jsklyer91 without doing white crosses for a whole month. I decided I wouldn't be CN but I stuck with W/Y neutral even though I was white only before and I'm happy with that now.


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## PianoCube (May 15, 2013)

I'd say I'm dual CN.
I do white cross in about 60-70% of my solves and yellow on the rest. I also do a CN solve about 1 out of 200-300 solves whenever I find something super easy like a 2-move cross on a non-W/Y colour.

Very easy CN solves are around the same speed as normal W/Y.


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## gundershot (May 15, 2013)

cowabunga said:


> How can you be under the impression that being colour neutral is a normal thing when you didn't start CN yourself?



Well, I knew that not all cubers were colour neutral, but I was under the impression that most of the best speedcubers were, I'm not sure why. Another thing I thought I'd mention is that I first learnt the cube on the green cross, and after a year or so I switched to white because it felt more normal.


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## MarcelP (May 15, 2013)

mark49152 said:


> Same here. I decided that I would probably gain more speed benefit from having easier recognition through using a consistent white-cross color scheme.



I think that it might save one move in reality, but the biggest advantage is that you have more options to *easy *crosses. And that not always means less moves. For me an easy cross is about seeing the 4 pieces in a manageble situation. I have been studying X-crosses and have seen people make 4 - 5 move X-crosses. But then the 4 - 5 moves are so very complex (for a noob like me) that I can do it a lot faster in normal 6 moves cross plus do a F2L pair after. I can solve F2L on white cross propably faster than on other colors. But when I solve white only I get slowere averages because I also have to do hard crosses. When solving CN I can almost always find an easy cross.


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## Dene (May 15, 2013)

Wow, I'm surprised how popular CN is now. In the past it hasn't even been close to this common (as based on the poll results so far).


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## Bestsimple (May 15, 2013)

How do you tell what colour you start on?


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## ottozing (May 15, 2013)

I've been CN for 3x3 ever since I started getting serious about cubing because it felt like a logical thing to do. I'm not sure if being CN on 3x3 is as big of a deal as people make it out to be, but I'm glad I am anyway. One thing I kind of regret though is being CN on 4x4 with Yau. Half the time when I start doing the first 3 cross edges I have no idea what colour I'm gonna go for and it usually screws me up. If I could do my 4x4 solving style over, I would've chosen just single cross Yau. But it's too late to switch imo because I have absolutely no colour bias on 4x4 at all.


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## MarcelP (May 15, 2013)

Bestsimple said:


> How do you tell what colour you start on?



jskyler has a great video on what to look for. I can't remember the direct link to the video but this is good place to start: http://www.speedsolving.com/forum/showthread.php?34655-My-Tips-for-Becoming-Color-Neutral


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## scotzbhoy (May 15, 2013)

Dene said:


> Wow, I'm surprised how popular CN is now. In the past it hasn't even been close to this common (as based on the poll results so far).


I think that's largely due to Feliks and other fast cubers being CN. It seems to me people often look to emulate whoever's on top at a given time, so when Erik had the WR, colour neutrality probably wasn't as common as a lot of people thought 'the world record holder isn't CN so it's obviously not as fast.' Since Feliks broke the WR, people may well have started thinking that this proves CN is faster and switching to it.


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## Stefan (May 15, 2013)

Dene said:


> Wow, I'm surprised how popular CN is now. In the past it hasn't even been close to this common (as based on the poll results so far).



But are you sure they all use the same definition of CN and that it's one you agree with? Already the topic starter said _"it seems to me that most people *can only start on white*"_ and I certainly *can* start on let's say orange (I just suck at it).


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## Smiles (May 21, 2013)

i really don't think the poll results are accurate, because someone who is colour neutral is way more likely to click on this thread than someone who's not.

and anyway i think a lot of people convert to colour neutrality not 100% sure what the effect will be; sure it's really cool that you can solve on any side but it only saves time on the cross (in CFOP). after that it really doesn't matter which colour you're on, so if you have a super duper fast cross it doesn't make much of a difference. even with a slow cross it's a small difference anyway.

spending a month practicing all the colours and then more months becoming actually "neutral" with all the colours is probably more work than it's worth to improve times by such a little bit. i'm not saying it's bad or you shouldn't do it, 'cause i did it, but in general i'd agree it isn't worth it to convert.

partial colour neutrality takes almost no work and gives you another option for the cross right away. i think that's definitely worth it. for example i learned roux with a fixed colour scheme just to get the hang of it (B=white, R=red) then i switched to U/D being white/yellow interchangeably, while L/R could be any of the other colours. it didn't take much time cause it's just partial colour neutrality.


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## Kirjava (May 21, 2013)

Smiles said:


> partial colour neutrality takes almost no work and gives you another option for the cross right away. i think that's definitely worth it. for example i learned roux with a fixed colour scheme just to get the hang of it (B=white, R=red) then i switched to U/D being white/yellow interchangeably, while L/R could be any of the other colours. it didn't take much time cause it's just partial colour neutrality.



It's taken me years to attain another degree of neutrility with roux, and I'm still not fully there.

It took me almost no time to switch from nonCN to full CN with CFOP.

It's not so much which method you're using as to how ingrained the colours you're using are.


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## Shortshrimp (May 21, 2013)

Maccoboy said:


> i recently (last 5 months) have taught my uncle to cube, he's 25 and i gave him a zhanchi and told him every solve to use a deferent colour, now he is 100% colour neutral
> 
> wish someone had told me to do that when i started



I know right!


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## Dene (May 21, 2013)

(Late reply because I forgot about this thread)



Stefan said:


> But are you sure they all use the same definition of CN and that it's one you agree with? Already the topic starter said _"it seems to me that most people *can only start on white*"_ and I certainly *can* start on let's say orange (I just suck at it).



Possibly, but I would think the vast majority of cubers would be familiar with what is meant by CN. I would hazard a guess that the OP simply mis-spoke (-typed) in the aforementioned quote.


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## Ross The Boss (Jun 3, 2013)

are there any colour neutral ZZ solvers? seems like CN ZZ would be pretty hard.


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## mDiPalma (Jun 3, 2013)

Ross The Boss said:


> are there any colour neutral ZZ solvers? seems like CN ZZ would be pretty hard.



In CN CFOP inspection, all you need to do in 15 seconds is find 4 edges that can slide together nicely.

In CN ZZ inspection, you have to check EO in 3 distinctly different orientations while also checking for 12 different sets of line edges. 
If I can currently identify EO and plan my line in around 3-4 seconds, it would be theoretically impossible for me to check all the possible fixed center orientations for better solutions (as well as just remember which solution was the easiest) in 15 seconds.

Also, even if it were possible, CN ZZ doesn't really accomplish much. Saving 1-2 moves on EOline is definitely NOT worth sacrificing cube awareness. 

Some ZZers like Phil Yu can solve the cube in two distinct orientations (YB & YR) to avoid terribad EOlines. He seems very fond of this idea.

Another type of ZZ color neutrality is about the z-axis. This is much simpler than full CN, because a z rotation does not affect EO.


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## aznanimedude (Jun 3, 2013)

Dominate i think is CN for ZZ, but he'd have to expand on that because i don't know much about any help or how CN he actually is for ZZ


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## cannon4747 (Jun 3, 2013)

I solve the white side on all cubes (except 2x2) and megaminx, but I'm color neutral on everything else. Whenever I get a new puzzle I learn/make a method with color neutrality simply because it makes it easier to solve.


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## cjquines (Jun 4, 2013)

Yes well. I'm not going to be color neutral since it would probably be easier for white cross recognition. White is a really standout color.


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## kp (Jun 4, 2013)

cjquines said:


> Yes well. I'm not going to be color neutral since it would probably be easier for white cross recognition. White is a really standout color.



Perhaps that's because you've probably been doing it with white ever since. Maybe if you had used, say, orange exclusively from the start, it would "stand out" more when looking at pieces. I'm sure there are people that are not colour neutral, whose main colour isn't white.


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## Ninja Storm (Jun 4, 2013)

kp said:


> Perhaps that's because you've probably been doing it with white ever since. Maybe if you had used, say, orange exclusively from the start, it would "stand out" more when looking at pieces. I'm sure there are people that are not colour neutral, whose main colour isn't white.



There are quite a few. Mats Valk uses green/blue I believe, and Kevin Costello uses Red/Orange, to name a couple fasties out there.


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## Shortshrimp (Jun 4, 2013)

sneaklyfox said:


> I answered "partially" because I'm W/Y neutral.



Yeah, same thing here.


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## Kattenvriendin (Jun 4, 2013)

I am color neutral but only on the 2x2.


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## CAFCSam65 (Jun 6, 2013)

I'm set in my ways. For 3x3 and above I always start on white. Sometimes if there is a really good alternate cross colour I will go for it, but normally my F2l suffers as a result and I end up with an average time, even with the cross advantage. I used to try and do either white or yellow, but I just gave it up in the end. 2x2 and Pyraminx I don't bother though. Any colour for those two.


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## PedroSabioni (Jun 6, 2013)

Ninja Storm said:


> There are quite a few. Mats Valk uses green/blue I believe, and Kevin Costello uses Red/Orange, to name a couple fasties out there.


Antoine Cantin uses orange


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## yamacrane (Jun 11, 2013)

I'm white/yellow/blue color neutral. It helped me at least to start with the Japanese color scheme and go to the American color scheme after that. I cant do blue for 4x4, because i solve yau, but yellow/white is nice on the 4x4


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## Spaxxy (Jun 21, 2013)

I learned on white, and I almost exclusively used that, but I have recently experimented with color neutrality on yellow, and I am about the same on both colors.


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## Johnny (Jun 23, 2013)

Color neutrality, for me, makes solving way more fun.


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## TheDubDubJr (Jun 23, 2013)

I use Color Neutral for 4x4 on Yau. It takes some getting used to but I really like it.
Depending if people are interested in it, I was thinking about making a video on my thought process and how I use CN Yau.


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## ottozing (Jun 23, 2013)

TheDubDubJr said:


> I use Color Neutral for 4x4 on Yau. It takes some getting used to but I really like it.
> Depending if people are interested in it, I was thinking about making a video on my thought process and how I use CN Yau.



Oh nice you switched 

I should probably make a video about CN yau because I really have a lot to say about it.


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