# An article/post on look ahead. (Broken down to extreme details - an exercise)



## rishidoshi (Mar 11, 2011)

Hello guys,
I was just randomly thinking about this and wrote a post on LOOK AHEAD. It consists of 'What is look ahead, the powers of LH, and how to practice and train for LH' with analogies to RACING (motor racing).
This is basically targeted at new cubers who aren't really speeding.
anyway it's a little longish post. 
Now im not really fast right now (~25). So do let me know what you guys think about this and also suggest corrections if any. Gramatical too  yay mods! 
Cheers!

edit: links embedded and added a MATH section.


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## Raffael (Mar 11, 2011)

nice article, i really like your analogy to a racing car approaching a corner.
two things though:
1. not all great cubers say "go slow.look ahead". some say "go as fast as you can".
2. partial edge control is a simple, yet very practical technique and should be used by people that don't know that many OLL's as it helps to avoid cases one doesn't know. imo, it's the first thing to learn after the first few basic OLL's.

apart from that, i didn't really get the part about "air cubing".


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## chris410 (Mar 11, 2011)

I like the racing references and you are correct as well. Recently I have been trying to apply the same approach I use when racing to cubing which is to essentially not rush and work on a smoother flow. At the race track we have a saying...slow is fast! What's funny is my times even though I am turning slower have improved because I am not turning quickly, pausing, turning quickly...etc...etc...

Similar to riding on a track, eventually the braking markers get pushed further and further down the track until they reach the apex point, that's when you know you're really moving! Nice write-up on look-ahead thanks!


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## stoic (Mar 11, 2011)

Good article. I'll be working on this later, looking ahead and slowing down. Good analogy about the apex on the racing line.


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## rishidoshi (Mar 14, 2011)

thanks guys!


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## Johan444 (Mar 14, 2011)

Protip: You're using way too many upper case, cursive, and bolded letters. It's really annoying to read.


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## ElectricDoodie (Mar 14, 2011)

Johan444 said:


> Protip: You're using way too many upper case, *cursive*, and bolded letters.


 What? I didn't see a single cursive letter.
Are you looking at the right page?


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## rishidoshi (Mar 14, 2011)

Johan444 said:


> Protip: You're using way too many upper case, cursive, and bolded letters. It's really annoying to read.


 
hmm... noted. will rectify. thanks!


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## Johan444 (Mar 14, 2011)

ElectricDoodie said:


> What? I didn't see a single cursive letter.
> Are you looking at the right page?


 
Maybe italic is the right term.


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## ElectricDoodie (Mar 14, 2011)

Johan444 said:


> Maybe italic is the right term.


 
Ah, yes. That's the one.


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## deadalnix (Mar 14, 2011)

Hi,

Good article, and I do agree on most f it. However, I have to disagree on the corner biased or edge biased. The point is not to find a corner or an edge and then find the coresponding piece and solve them both. This approach can lead you to solve terrible F2L cases when easier cases are available to solve.

First of all, considering edges is important. The orientation of the edge tells you if an F2L case is 2gen or not. And a 2gen F2L solve doesn't flip F2L so a correctly oriented edge will still be oriented after an F2L solve. Considering this, the approach of being corner biased is somehow broken, because it totally prevent to optimise your F2L that way.

A nicer solution is to keep trac of several pieces, preferably the easy ones, like pieces in a slot or pieces which leads to easy F2L cases like corectly oriented edges. Then pick up the correspong piece of one of these in the pieces available in front of you. That way, you'll be able to choose nice F2L cases most of the time.


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## Escher (Mar 15, 2011)

The racing analogy is great, well written post, though I second deadalnix's comments 

I'll probably be doing another write-up soon discussing lookahead aimed at mostly sub 15 cubers, I'll keep your post in mind to ensure a little continuity in concepts


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## maggot (Mar 15, 2011)

Escher said:


> The racing analogy is great, well written post, though I second deadalnix's comments
> 
> I'll probably be doing another write-up soon discussing lookahead aimed at mostly sub 15 cubers, I'll keep your post in mind to ensure a little continuity in concepts



i am looking forward to that. i dont have the luxury of going to cubemeetups or competitions so learning the f2l tricks is something im looking forward to. i agree with deadalnix because i personally have a smooth as butter f2l, but sometimes i blindly run myself into bad cases. im intuitively trying to optimize my f2l solve by looking for correctly oriented pieces for 2gen. but this is taking a long time for my brain to get used to seeing good cases. im really excited to see some of the things ive been noticing in a full on disscussion.


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## rishidoshi (Mar 16, 2011)

Ok so i have made some changes. 
Yup i too agree with deadalnix. subconsciously i think i do the same. But just for categorisation sake i had put myself in the corner biased team, reading that other post.
Thanks guys!


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