# ZZ is Better Than CFOP



## voidrx (Jul 28, 2022)




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## Luke Solves Cubes (Jul 28, 2022)

Well ZZ is harder to learn and there is less tutorials and tips then on CFOP


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## Filipe Teixeira (Jul 28, 2022)

please take this survey








Are you dumb?


poll




www.speedsolving.com


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## Luke Solves Cubes (Jul 28, 2022)

Filipe Teixeira said:


> please take this survey
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Meanie

Just kidding


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## voidrx (Jul 29, 2022)

Luke Solves Cubes said:


> Well ZZ is harder to learn and there is less tutorials and tips then on CFOP


If we are talking about top level, which you should when comparing methods, then difficulty to learn is irrelevant.
As to your second point, again, that just makes it harder to learn, but few things are easier and better at the same time. Also, some ZZers have been working on some resources to help with different aspects of ZZ. When those are released, idk when dont ask me, this point will be even more moot.


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## turtwig (Jul 29, 2022)

Who is currently the fastest ZZ solver (3x3 or OH)?


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## voidrx (Jul 29, 2022)

turtwig said:


> Who is currently the fastest ZZ solver (3x3 or OH)?


Dale Palmares is currently sub-8 in 2h, John Smith, also known as RadicalMacaroni, was sub7 before he quit. I'm not sure about OH


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## xyzzy (Jul 29, 2022)

voidrx said:


> If we are talking about top level, which you should when comparing methods


So all of the rest of us who aren't "top level" can just quit speedcubing because we're irrelevant? Okay.


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## turtwig (Jul 29, 2022)

xyzzy said:


> So all of the rest of us who aren't "top level" can just quit speedcubing because we're irrelevant? Okay.


Yep, this is definitely what he's trying to say.


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## Timona (Jul 29, 2022)

Or you can just use ZB


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## Kaedenthecuber (Jul 29, 2022)

zz is better than cfop but harder to learn


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## Swagrid (Jul 29, 2022)

xyzzy said:


> So all of the rest of us who aren't "top level" can just quit speedcubing because we're irrelevant? Okay.


Yeah honestly you can get to like around sub 10 with almost any method so method comparison has to be held to a higher standard than that, therefore everyone who isn't sub 8 should just instantly quit the hobby. Myself included. Typing my resignation as we speak.


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## Luke Solves Cubes (Jul 29, 2022)

Swagrid said:


> Yeah honestly you can get to like around sub 10 with almost any method so method comparison has to be held to a higher standard than that, therefore everyone who isn't sub 8 should just instantly quit the hobby. Myself included. Typing my resignation as we speak.


Hope you're not serious.


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## ruffleduck (Jul 29, 2022)

voidrx said:


>


As a high priest of the ZZ method I don't like your comparion. ZZ's advantage over CFOP is LSLL, but CFOP wins when it comes to F2L-1. Essentially, the real question when comparing ZZ to CFOP is: is having EO solved worth being an _entire _pair behind? The amount of moves spent and the difficulty planning solving EOcross is as much as solving an xcross/cross+1.
CFOP is a respectable method which has its trumps in its versatility.


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## Swagrid (Jul 29, 2022)

Luke Solves Cubes said:


> Hope you're not serious.


fear not, tis sarcasm
(well, you can get to around 10 with most methods. Doesn't mean everyone should quit.)


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## voidrx (Jul 29, 2022)

Timona said:


> Or you can just use ZB


ZBLS isnt very good.


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## Timona (Jul 29, 2022)

voidrx said:


> ZBLS isnt very good.


With enough practice, it probably can be.


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## OreKehStrah (Jul 29, 2022)

Timona said:


> With enough practice, it probably can be.


No. ZBLS algs are just bad lol. You can find people that use CFOP, ZZ, and ZB all day that a lot of ZBLS sucks to the point you probably don’t even save time by doing ZBLL because you made LS so much worse. Combine that with the fact most people won’t learn the sunes sets and sometimes H and Pi and now you’ve made LS worse to not even have 1LLL every time.


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## Timona (Jul 29, 2022)

OreKehStrah said:


> No. ZBLS algs are just bad lol. You can find people that use CFOP, ZZ, and ZB all day that a lot of ZBLS sucks to the point you probably don’t even save time by doing ZBLL because you made LS so much worse. Combine that with the fact most people won’t learn the sunes sets and sometimes H and Pi and now you’ve made LS worse to not even have 1LLL every time.


What of VHLS?


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## ruffleduck (Jul 29, 2022)

Timona said:


> What of VHLS?


That is even worse because it is two step ZBLS


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## abunickabhi (Jul 30, 2022)

Mehta is such more fancier than ZZ method imo.


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## IsThatA4x4 (Jul 30, 2022)

abunickabhi said:


> Mehta is such more fancier than ZZ method imo.


Unfortunately fancier methods tend to be slower which is sad...
Unless you use RUS U perms in which case you are fancy and fast and I will love you


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## Thom S. (Jul 30, 2022)

Timona said:


> What of VHLS?


As someone, who actually uses VHLS for years, Knowing when to sledgehammer on Slots 3 and 4 is important and things like F U F' before R U' R' are good EO tricks, but most Split Paur Cases are not worth it that much. Doing most of EO on Slot(s 2 and) 3 so you end up with these 3 good cases is a bit better


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## Timona (Jul 30, 2022)

IsThatA4x4 said:


> Unfortunately fancier methods tend to be slower which is sad...
> Unless you use RUS U perms in which case you are fancy and fast and I will love you


If sub-10 is what qualifies a method to be called fast, then Mehta is Gucci because sub-10 Mehta is achievable.


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## voidrx (Jul 30, 2022)

Timona said:


> If sub-10 is what qualifies a method to be called fast, then Mehta is Gucci because sub-10 Mehta is achievable.


That's a terrible way to determine if it's one of the best methods. You could probably achieve sub10 with a large number of methods.


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## PiKeeper (Jul 30, 2022)

voidrx said:


> That's a terrible way to determine if it's one of the best methods. You could probably achieve sub10 with a large number of methods.


I bet max park could get sub-10 with RUPM and it's a very fancy method, therefore RUPM is one of the best methods.


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## Kyoobies (Jul 30, 2022)

turtwig said:


> Who is currently the fastest ZZ solver (3x3 or OH)?


This is some of the fastest zz solving I've ever seen personally. They're not a zz solver anymore more though as they fully switched to cfop and are faster with it/set all their PRs with it; but they still do zz for fun.


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## Klaudiusz Szyprocinski (Jul 30, 2022)




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## SuperDuperSir (Jul 30, 2022)

Klaudiusz Szyprocinski said:


>


eoline is garbage
he compares eoline to cfop
in the case of eoline, it may be slightly slower
but eocross with full zbll is probably better

eoline user here lol


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## turtwig (Jul 30, 2022)

SuperDuperSir said:


> eoline is garbage
> he compares eoline to cfop
> in the case of eoline, it may be slightly slower
> but eocross with full zbll is probably better
> ...


He touches on eocross in the last few minutes


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## Swagrid (Jul 30, 2022)

turtwig said:


> He touches on eocross in the last few minutes


yeah he basically says "it's hard but optimal" which is quite funny because it
1) disregards it for being hard, when the step is considered to be of equal difficulty to cross+1, which Jay is an advocate for
2) admits that he knows eocross was optimal but decided to spend half an hour arguing suboptimal zz vs optimal cfop anyway lol


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## SunnyCubing (Aug 8, 2022)

Luke Solves Cubes said:


> Well ZZ is harder to learn and there is less tutorials and tips then on CFOP


I think cfop is better tho


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## voidrx (Aug 8, 2022)

SunnyCubing said:


> I think cfop is better tho


Why


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## SunnyCubing (Aug 9, 2022)

voidrx said:


> Why


cuz its easier to find tutiorals on the internet annnd feliks and jperm usees it


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## Swagrid (Aug 9, 2022)

SunnyCubing said:


> cuz its easier to find tutiorals on the internet


This doesn't relate to the quality of the method? 


SunnyCubing said:


> feliks and jperm usees


and?


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## SunnyCubing (Aug 9, 2022)

Swagrid said:


> This doesn't relate to the quality of the method?
> 
> and?


Hi Hagrid


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## voidrx (Aug 9, 2022)

SunnyCubing said:


> cuz its easier to find tutiorals on the internet annnd feliks and jperm usees it


I literally addressed this point earlier in this thread.
Just because two popular people use it, doesn't mean ZZ is worse than CFOP. Jperm isnt even worldclass so idk why you were using him as an example.


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## turtwig (Aug 9, 2022)

The fact that almost no one fast uses ZZ is evidence that it's not as good as CFOP, though. It's not very convincing to say that ZZ is better than CFOP when there's literally no one who's actually gotten good (official) times with it. ZZ is pretty similar to CFOP, so surely if it were actually much better there would be at least a couple of fast CFOP solvers who experiment with and see it's potential (and thus switch)? The theory is that a few extra moves during cross is worth getting RUL gen F2L and 1LLL, but people have been using these same arguments for why ZZ is good/better since at least 7 years ago when I started cubing and apparently no one has actually been able to use ZZ to show that the trade-off is worth it, which suggests strongly to me that it is not (or at least that the difference is not appreciable).


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## Thom S. (Aug 9, 2022)

turtwig said:


> The fact that almost no one fast uses ZZ is evidence that it's not as good as CFOP, though. It's not very convincing to say that ZZ is better than CFOP when there's literally no one who's actually gotten good (official) times with it.


I don't want to discuss, because you know I don't like to talk about this subject but I don't like that argument.
Almost noone fast drives a Bugatti or a Koenigsegg, doesn't automatically mean there are faster cars.

CFOP got popular in the 90s,00s because it was available (on the internet), information and algs were already there and it essily caught on.
Roux wasn't as content back then since M moves were not a one finger flick, Petrus lost popularity even back then and once ZZ hit the scene, CFOP was the popular way for years already.

Sure, you can say that a cars top speed is easily measurable but a solve time has way more parameters and you'd be right, but top speed doesn't define which car is better. Otherwise the method which allows you to do an R4 move the quickest would win and that doesn't make sense either. 
Handling, weight, type of gearbox, gear ratios, type of shifting mechanism, aerodynamics, clutch sensitivity are all parameters that define a good car. Some of which are objectively defineable as the best, some can only be defined by what the driver feels more comfortable in. Same with methods. Despite CFOP using almost 20 moves more than Heise, the community uses CFOP for speedsolving.
And you can't say that the most used car of all time, the Ford Model T(records vary) is the best car just because it has the most users.


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## OreKehStrah (Aug 9, 2022)

turtwig said:


> The fact that almost no one fast uses ZZ is evidence that it's not as good as CFOP, though. It's not very convincing to say that ZZ is better than CFOP when there's literally no one who's actually gotten good (official) times with it. ZZ is pretty similar to CFOP, so surely if it were actually much better there would be at least a couple of fast CFOP solvers who experiment with and see it's potential (and thus switch)? The theory is that a few extra moves during cross is worth getting RUL gen F2L and 1LLL, but people have been using these same arguments for why ZZ is good/better since at least 7 years ago when I started cubing and apparently no one has actually been able to use ZZ to show that the trade-off is worth it, which suggests strongly to me that it is not (or at least that the difference is not appreciable).


Here’s the problem with this argument. For most of ZZ’s life people were using EOLine because they thought the efficiency was good (and honestly probably just wanted to be quirky and more different from CFOP). EOLine is kinda oof. EOCross is part of what makes ZZ good and that didn’t really take off in the ZZ world until 2018-2019 ish.

Now, there’s also way less people using ZZ than CFOP so there’s way less people who have the potential to get fast using it. Just look at CFOP. There are WAY more cubers using CFOP but so far only 1 person has pulled a sub5 avg. Why? It’s hard. Does that make CFOP bad because it’s hard to sub5 ? No of course not. It just means it requires the right kind of person. In a similar vein, ZZ also requires the right kind of person. RadMac has a 5.14 Ao5 at home iirc and that’s without full ZBLL. I really suspect we may never see many faster ZZ solvers because almost everyone in this community immediately dunks on ZZ because they repeat sentiments about Old EOLine ZZ and never even try what people are doing with the method these days, like EOCross and full CN.


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## turtwig (Aug 9, 2022)

OreKehStrah said:


> Now, there’s also way less people using ZZ than CFOP so there’s way less people who have the potential to get fast using it.


Obviously. But what I said was that there were no good solvers, not that there are not many. From what I can tell, there are only a handful of Roux solvers in the top rankings of 2H, yet I believe that it is competitive with CFOP since I understand that there are fewer Roux users in general and adjust my expectations accordingly. When I asked for the fastest ZZ solvers, the examples given were Dale Palmares (who is currently ranked 634) and John Smith, who seems to have world class times at home, but seems to not have competed officially. If x% of people used ZZ and ZZ was better than CFOP, we would expect at least x ZZ solvers in the top 100 of the rankings (we assume talent is evenly distributed among the methods). And from the people on this forum, people on YouTube, etc., it seems like the proportion of ZZ solvers is much higher than 1%, yet John Smith is the only ZZ solver that could arguably place in the top 100. It's very hard to accurately estimate the proportion of ZZ users in the "population," so we could never know for sure whether ZZ is underrepresented in the top rankings, but in my estimation, it is.

On top of that, the theoretical reasons that people say ZZ is better than CFOP are not that strong in my opinion. The idea is adding a few moves to your cross to get RUL gen F2L and 1LLL. On the surface, it is entirely possible that this trade off is worth it. But it is an entirely empirical question, and ZZ has failed to demonstrate, in my opinion, that the trade off is worth it. There are many examples of new methods being proven to be better. For example, there are many Roux solvers in the top rankings of OH and Ciaran and Janos are getting CRs with Yau on 6-7. I think this is what you would actually see if ZZ were better than CFOP - a few adventurous CFOP solvers would switch to ZZ with eocross, see their times drop significantly, and subsequently ZZ solvers would make up more and more of the top solvers. Yet this has not happened. And before it happens, people talking about ZZ are merely asserting that eocross is worth it. Apparently it took like 10 years to figure out that eocross is better than eoline, but now it's just obvious that with eocross, ZZ is competitive or even better than CFOP.


Thom S. said:


> I don't want to discuss, because you know I don't like to talk about this subject but I don't like that argument.


"I don't want to discuss, but here's 2 paragraphs on why you're wrong."


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## OreKehStrah (Aug 9, 2022)

turtwig said:


> Obviously. But what I said was that there were no good solvers, not that there are not many. From what I can tell, there are only a handful of Roux solvers in the top rankings of 2H, yet I believe that it is competitive with CFOP since I understand that there are fewer Roux users in general and adjust my expectations accordingly. When I asked for the fastest ZZ solvers, the examples given were Dale Palmares (who is currently ranked 634) and John Smith, who seems to have world class times at home, but seems to not have competed officially. If x% of people used ZZ and ZZ was better than CFOP, we would expect at least x ZZ solvers in the top 100 of the rankings. And from the people on this forum, people on YouTube, etc., it seems like the proportion of ZZ solvers is much higher than 1%, yet John Smith is the only ZZ solver that could arguably place in the top 100. It's very hard to accurately estimate the proportion of ZZ users in the "population," so we could never know for sure whether ZZ is underrepresented in the top rankings, but in my estimation, it is.
> 
> On top of that, the theoretical reasons that people say ZZ is better than CFOP are not that strong in my opinion. The idea is adding a few moves to your cross to get RUL gen F2L and 1LLL. On the surface, it is entirely possible that this trade off is worth it. But it is an entirely empirical question, and ZZ has failed to demonstrate, in my opinion, that the trade off is worth it. There are many examples of new methods being proven to be better. For example, there are many Roux solvers in the top rankings of OH and Ciaran and Janos are getting CRs with Yau on 6-7. I think this is what you would actually see if ZZ were better than CFOP - a few adventurous CFOP solvers would switch to ZZ with eocross, see their times drop significantly, and subsequently ZZ solvers would make up more and more of the top solvers. Yet this has not happened. And before it happens, people talking about ZZ are merely asserting that eocross is worth it. Apparently it took like 10 years to figure out that eocross is better than eoline, but now it's just obvious that with eocross, ZZ is competitive or even better than CFOP.
> 
> ...



About the CFOP part, look at how many people use CFOP vs how many people have the potential to sub5. The ratio is a very large number of solvers vs a very very small portion that have a high enough skill cap. Let’s say we take that same ratio and apply it to ZZ. You’ll find that due to the smaller user base, the chances of someone reaching that level of skill is far lower. 


The other half of the equation on why there are not officially world class ZZ solvers is that most ZZers are too lazy to actually get good. So many ZZ solvers make claims about how good rotationless ZZf2L and ZBLL is while not looking ahead, improving their EOCross, working towards full CN or learning ZBLL. Seriously, there are more CFOP solvers that know even just TUL Zb than there are ZZ solvers than do lol. 

ZZ has potential. It’s very clear that it does. ESP considering that the 3.47 WR is accidental ZZ. I just wish ZZ solvers would do things to actually improve and make a name for the method like Alexander, Kian, Sean, and now Fahmi are doing with Roux. I also wish the cubing community would stop perpetuating the idea ZZ sucks when in reality it’s a viable method.


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## turtwig (Aug 9, 2022)

OreKehStrah said:


> that most ZZers are too lazy to actually get good


Unless you're saying that using ZZ makes people not want to get good or that people who were already lazy about getting good are more likely to switch the ZZ, than the proportion of "lazy" and not "lazy" people using ZZ and CFOP should be the same. Thus, representation in the top 100, say, should be equal to the proportion of ZZ solvers in the general population. I argue that this is the case, so that even considering much less people use ZZ, I still think that the numbers suggest it is not a better method.


OreKehStrah said:


> ESP considering that the 3.47 WR is accidental ZZ.


All this shows is that CFOP users sometimes get the benefits of ZZ without even trying, which is a marginal reason to not use ZZ, if anything.


OreKehStrah said:


> ZZ has potential. It’s very clear that it does.


Like, I don't get where this confidence comes from. Why is it clear that it has potential? If it were clearly better than CFOP, there would be a huge incentive for CFOP solvers to switch. Obviously there is inertia, but there are a lot of people who are open-minded about new methods, and they would be able to show others that it is a viable method. Apparently Roux has a lot of people who did this, but I guess people who use ZZ are just lazy?


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## PiKeeper (Aug 9, 2022)

It's absolutely certain that cfop and zz are almost equal. Whichever method is faster is only faster by a slight, slight margin. I personally think CFOP is faster by maybe 0.1 seconds at the top level because it lets you plan more pairs in inspections and still gives decent chances for a 1LLL with Tymon-level influencing. 

The argument that zz must be worse because it doesn't have comp results and people haven't switched to it is faulty. People aren't switching to it because most cubers prefer to stick with CFOP and ZZ is not significantly faster. And because of this low sample size of cubers using zz, there are much fewer cubing prodigies that can take it to the next level. We know ZZ and CFOP are almost equal in speed because of basic logic, so saying that any method is significantly worse than the other is simply wrong.


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## OreKehStrah (Aug 9, 2022)

turtwig said:


> Unless you're saying that using ZZ makes people not want to get good or that people who were already lazy about getting good are more likely to switch the ZZ, than the proportion of "lazy" and not "lazy" people using ZZ and CFOP should be the same. Thus, representation in the top 100, say, should be equal to the proportion of ZZ solvers in the general population. I argue that this is the case, so that even considering much less people use ZZ, I still think that the numbers suggest it is not a better method.
> 
> All this shows is that CFOP users sometimes get the benefits of ZZ without even trying, which is a marginal reason to not use ZZ, if anything.
> 
> Like, I don't get where this confidence comes from. Why is it clear that it has potential? If it were clearly better than CFOP, there would be a huge incentive for CFOP solvers to switch. Obviously there is inertia, but there are a lot of people who are open-minded about new methods, and they would be able to show others that it is a viable method. Apparently Roux has a lot of people who did this, but I guess people who use ZZ are just lazy?


Did I ever say it was better than CFOP? No.
I said it has potential as a method.

Just looking at the sample size of 1, RadMac has put down spectacular times with ZZ at home (since they improved over they pandemic with no comps to go to) and that's with partial ZBLL and a few random LS tricks.

Very few ZZ solvers are using full CN and full ZBLL, and that's just the surface of some of the extras ZZ has to offer with options to use more OLS, TTLLs, and multislotting more often due to having eo just to name a few.


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## Thom S. (Aug 9, 2022)

turtwig said:


> why you're wrong


I don't quite see how I said that you are wrong, I said how this is an idiotical argument, not that what it says is wrong.
But if you insist

There was a time in 2013(?) When Feliks had the Ao100 UWR, being the world record holder for 3x3 single, but fow a few Months, Alex Lau took the Ao100 UWR. Would that meam the Roux was better for a few months because it left vonsistently good times?


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## SuperDuperSir (Aug 10, 2022)

also remember that obama uses zz and that the wr single is with zz so cope


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## turtwig (Aug 10, 2022)

OreKehStrah said:


> Did I ever say it was better than CFOP? No.
> I said it has potential as a method.


It’s literally the title of this thread though, so forgive me if I’m trying to address that point even if it’s not what you’re trying to say.


Thom S. said:


> There was a time in 2013(?) When Feliks had the Ao100 UWR, being the world record holder for 3x3 single, but fow a few Months, Alex Lau took the Ao100 UWR. Would that meam the Roux was better for a few months because it left vonsistently good times?


I don’t think you understand what I’m trying to say. I’ll give a simple example to illustrate my point:
If you flipped 100 coins and got 51 heads, would you automatically assume the coin was biased? Probably not. By the same logic, if we say that CFOP and Roux are similar, we would expect that Roux overtake CFOP sometimes. Obviously that doesn’t mean Roux suddenly becomes better than CFOP for a few months. Even if Alex Lau was slightly worse than Feliks, it is not unexpected that there would be some times where he had a better average of 100.

Now, if we flipped a coin 100 times and got 30 heads, would you suspect that the coin was biased? It would obviously be a much more likely possibility. Obviously there’s a spectrum. You can never say for sure that the coin is or is not biased, unless you know more information about it. But clearly merely observing its outcomes can provide strong evidence either way.

Let’s just ignore the actual numbers for now. Say that there was a method X that people said was the best method. But no one has ever gotten sub-10 with this method. We can say this is like the scenario where someone gets 30 heads out of 100. Is that not at least evidence that the method is not as good as people claim? Or is it just an “idiotical argument”?

Now, the people who claim that ZZ is better than CFOP are like someone claiming they have a coin that gets heads 55% of the time. Yet whenever we go to flip the coin it’s only showing heads 50% of the time. I can’t prove what they’re saying is false, but it’s certainly evidence that it is.

The example you gave and my argument are qualitatively different. I’m not saying CFOP is better than ZZ because Max and Tymon use CFOP or because the UWR average of 100 is with CFOP. I’m saying that in a large group of the top solvers, ZZ users seem underrepresented. It’s an inference based on a large sample size, not a few outliers.


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## GodCubing (Aug 10, 2022)

I feel the need to add to the debate in that ZZ does add a few moves to the cross to force a great 1LLL and ergonomic easier to lookahead through F2L. Because of these few moves added to cross it is difficult to plan further in inspection and as Tymon has shown inspection is a very important part of the solve that is often over looked. Just something to consider. Also, ZZ is more efficient than CFOP with higher TPS cap from 1LLL and more ergonomic easier to lookahead through F2L

As for why there are no x amount of ZZers in top 100 it's because that's not how effing math works. If you look at the proportion of CFOPers to CFOPers in the top 100 that should be compared to the number of ZZers in the top 100 vs the total number of ZZers


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## SuperDuperSir (Aug 10, 2022)

GodCubing said:


> I feel the need to add to the debate in that ZZ does add a few moves to the cross to force a great 1LLL and ergonomic easier to lookahead through F2L. Because of these few moves added to cross it is difficult to plan further in inspection and as Tymon has shown inspection is a very important part of the solve that is often over looked. Just something to consider. Also, ZZ is more efficient than CFOP with higher TPS cap from 1LLL and more ergonomic easier to lookahead through F2L
> 
> As for why there are no x amount of ZZers in top 100 it's because that's not how effing math works. If you look at the proportion of CFOPers to CFOPers in the top 100 that should be compared to the number of ZZers in the top 100 vs the total number of ZZers


Yeah
Out of the 100000+ Members in the wca about 50 or so use ZZ maybe even less
It’s simple math
If you pick 50 random people in the wca what is the chance that one is sub 7 or something like that


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## OreKehStrah (Aug 10, 2022)

turtwig said:


> It’s literally the title of this thread though, so forgive me if I’m trying to address that point even if it’s not what you’re trying to say.
> 
> I don’t think you understand what I’m trying to say. I’ll give a simple example to illustrate my point:
> If you flipped 100 coins and got 51 heads, would you automatically assume the coin was biased? Probably not. By the same logic, if we say that CFOP and Roux are similar, we would expect that Roux overtake CFOP sometimes. Obviously that doesn’t mean Roux suddenly becomes better than CFOP for a few months. Even if Alex Lau was slightly worse than Feliks, it is not unexpected that there would be some times where he had a better average of 100.
> ...


Again, Just looking at the top 100 solvers or whatever and seeing no ZZers is in no way indicative of whether the method is good or not, as way fewer people have used ZZ in competition, thus less of a chance for ZZ to show up.


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## S1neWav_ (Aug 10, 2022)

turtwig said:


> It’s literally the title of this thread though, so forgive me if I’m trying to address that point even if it’s not what you’re trying to say.
> 
> I don’t think you understand what I’m trying to say. I’ll give a simple example to illustrate my point:
> If you flipped 100 coins and got 51 heads, would you automatically assume the coin was biased? Probably not. By the same logic, if we say that CFOP and Roux are similar, we would expect that Roux overtake CFOP sometimes. Obviously that doesn’t mean Roux suddenly becomes better than CFOP for a few months. Even if Alex Lau was slightly worse than Feliks, it is not unexpected that there would be some times where he had a better average of 100.
> ...


sure but you're ignoring the fact that everyone saying zz bad actively discourages people from trying zz and even causes some zzers to switch off of the method. the low representation is largely due to the opinion on the method. people haven't given new zz the opportunity to prove itself (full zbll, cn, eocross)


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## ruffleduck (Aug 10, 2022)

ZZ is a strange method. On the surface, it is respectable and well-developed, undoubtedly a rival to other top methods. The issue is that its (already very small) community is overall unfit for mastering doing ZZ fast.
Why would you concede the use of a well documented method with a large community? To experiment. By the nature of the method, you are tempted to experiment. The reduction to RUL opens up way more viable techniques because of the smaller state sets.
That is the charm of ZZ. To experiment. But when it comes to actual speed improvement, it emanates a nasty negative aura. To actually squeeze all the speed potential of ZZ, you must use EOcross and ZBLL. No one likes this, because those that come to the method come to experiment. EOcross and ZBLL is a pain to learn and is feels rather uninspired.


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## DuckubingCuber347 (Aug 10, 2022)

ruffleduck said:


> ZZ is a strange method. On the surface, it is respectable and well-developed, undoubtedly a rival to other top methods. The issue is that its (already very small) community is overall unfit for mastering doing ZZ fast.
> Why would you concede the use of a well documented method with a large community? To experiment. By the nature of the method, you are tempted to experiment. The reduction to RUL opens up way more viable techniques because of the smaller state sets.
> That is the charm of ZZ. To experiment. But when it comes to actual speed improvement, it emanates a nasty negative aura. To actually squeeze all the speed potential of ZZ, you must use EOcross and ZBLL. No one likes this, because those that come to the method come to experiment. EOcross and ZBLL is a pain to learn and is feels rather uninspired.











Just a little 3x3 survey.


PB: 3.64 Primary method: CFOP Secondary method(s): LBL I guess Number of algs you know: Around 200 Your main cube: Weilong WRM 2020 When you started cubing: Around mid-2015 What's more useful, color neutrality or method neutrality?: Color neutrality, which I am currently working on. Right now...




www.speedsolving.com


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## ruffleduck (Aug 10, 2022)

DuckubingCuber347 said:


> View attachment 20317
> 
> 
> 
> ...


redemption arc: i reacted this obsolete post with "Angry"


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## Yoruba (Aug 11, 2022)

turtwig said:


> ZZ users seem underrepresented. It’s an inference based on a large sample size, not a few outliers.


Here's why ZZ is underrepresented and doesn't have that much good results:
Because of the aforementioned lack of results, most people switched to ZZ either from trying to explore new methods and ideas or from being quirky. Generally, not from a speed-oriented reason.
Then when they realized the lack of resources for improvement, variants, the difficulty of the eostep and the broad theorycrafting that comes with the method, there is not really that much motivation to switch from exploration to wanting to get fast with the method. Especially when the people in the group i just mentioned were typically older, so they might not even had that much time to speedsolve since they had work and other stuff.

Why there were no good results with ZZ for a long time? I think it's because people were just doing unnecessary BS. So when CFOP was becoming mainstream with Feliks and the rest, and Roux solvers were also doing progress with solvers like Alexander Lau, ZZ solvers were to busy trying to find the "missing link" or the "optimal variant". Basically focusing too much on the already optimized ZZ LSLL instead of trying to improve EOLine or ZZF2L. Phil managed to get WR2 OH and Hyeon got some singles (one of them being NR for an hour), but that's pretty much it for the competitive history of ZZ.

Basically, it wasn't the method that was bad. It was the development with it. Now that people use EOCross, there are plenty of sub 10 solvers, and a few of them are even sub 8 (best of them being Radmac with sub 6.5). I think that's really impressive considering the very low popularity, and that EOCross ZZ has been the meta for only 3-4 years now. ZZ just needs time to get it's first good official results, then it could get slowly on to the mainstream.



turtwig said:


> When I asked for the fastest ZZ solvers, the examples given were Dale Palmares (who is currently ranked 634)


Just saying that my 7.98 zz average is ranked 441.


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## Nevan J (Aug 11, 2022)

Yoruba said:


> Why there were no good results with ZZ for a long time? I think it's because people were just doing unnecessary BS. So when CFOP was becoming mainstream with Feliks and the rest, and Roux solvers were also doing progress with solvers like Alexander Lau, ZZ solvers were to busy trying to find the "missing link" or the "optimal variant". Basically focusing too much on the already optimized ZZ LSLL instead of trying to improve EOLine or ZZF2L.


I think i can agree on this, plus i really think what we are waiting for is that one person who gets the first official sub 6 average with ZZ, then it will come into the 3 MAIN METHODS.

Now the problem with ZZ is that people say it's bad qualities outweigh it's good qualities, and i agree. But what if there was a way to make it better? Now CFOP has a lot of bad qualities, but they don't outweigh it's good qualities.

Overall i think there has to be atleast one person who takes ZZ atleast comparable and probably main worthy method by putting in enough effort making it good and practicing it, but as i mentioned earlier, i don't think anyone will consider even thinking about switching to ZZ until either a WR gets broken or a UWR. And if not, then it will just be good as a concept and nothing else


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## Xatu (Aug 15, 2022)

voidrx said:


>


agree


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## Klaudiusz Szyprocinski (Aug 15, 2022)

good luck on getting sub3 single and sub5 average with zz


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## hyn (Aug 15, 2022)

Klaudiusz Szyprocinski said:


> good luck on getting sub3 single and sub5 average with zz


Thanks


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## Xatu (Aug 15, 2022)

voidrx said:


>


totally agree


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## Luke Solves Cubes (Aug 15, 2022)

Swagrid said:


> fear not, tis sarcasm
> (well, you can get to around 10 with most methods. Doesn't mean everyone should quit.)


Even Beginners,

EDIT: Just realized you said most.


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## PapaSmurf (Aug 15, 2022)

As someone who has made ZZ a little bit more popular, and helped make EOCross the mainstream, I can confirm that for the first four years of cubing, I had no idea what I was doing. I ended up getting about sub 13 with EOLine and didn't learn a lot of ZBLL. When I switched to EOCross and learnt some ZBLLs, I got better. I now average low 9s (I was sub 9 for a little period, but more important life things happened), but I'm pretty sure I could be averaging low 7s if I started now. The amount of development that has gone into EOCross ZZ is insane. The F2L solutions, strategies for planning CN EOCross, the ZBLLs algs - every aspect of the solve has been developed. The fact that RadMac improved to low 6 so quickly is just one of many proofs that this method has potential. Yoruba has mentioned his 7.98 average, and I can confirm that that has come from proper practicing. If Hyeon switched to ZZ now, he would probably be a bit faster, as there is more advice, more development. What ZZ needs is RadMac to compete and also one person to do ZZ justice. It's not that ZZ is bad, it's that there simply hasn't been the development nor the people to push it. The few examples we have are proof that there is that potential to compete at the top level. You can now choose to be a normie and continue with CFOP, or you could be an absolute chad and be cracked with ZZ.


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