# Guide to Transitioning to 3-Cycle BLD



## Noahaha (May 25, 2012)

It has occurred to me that there are very few resources available for people who want to take BLD past the Old Pochmann method. I have (for the most part) switched to 3-cycles for corners, and I feel that although I am no expert on the method, I understand the process fairly well. This guide will only address corners, but the same concepts can be applied to edges.

The problem most people have is that the idea of having 378 prepared 3-cycles is terrifying. If you are one of these people, I want you to try as hard as you can to forget that thought. Good. Now you can start learning. 

The basis of all 3-style BLD is BH. Most people who have thought about taking their BLD to the next level have gone here: 
http://www.speedcubing.com/chris/bhcorners.html
and given up immediately.

Those who are slightly more persistent have reached this tutorial:
http://www.speedsolving.com/forum/showthread.php?12268-BH-Tutorial
and gotten so confused about cyclic shifts and columns cases that they have given up. Let me tell you something. I almost completely use 3-cycles, and I have no idea what commutators are classified as cyclic shifts. 

So, many people have gotten very lost in the land of BH and given up very quickly. I was almost one of these people, but I came across this post by Mike Hughey:
http://www.speedsolving.com/forum/showthread.php?11909-Thoughts-about-the-BH-method
You should read the whole thing, but the part that got my attention was:


> ...about 3 weeks ago I decided to go ahead and learn the whole thing. I was very surprised to discover it only took me about 3 weeks! It’s really not that hard. In fact, for an experienced cuber, I suspect it will take you about the same amount of effort as it originally took you to learn Fridrich F2L. Really! So I’m saying that I think it takes about as much effort for an experienced cuber to learn BH corners as it takes for a beginning cuber to learn Fridrich F2L!!!



I found this to be completely true. Think about learning 3-style like you're learning F2L, and you'll get it very quickly.

Anyway, onto how I learned it.

The first thing you need to learn, if you haven't learned it already is how to do pure commutators. Brian's tutorial (linked above) is perfect for this. make sure you understand how to do a pure commutator backwards and forwards. This is the only new concept you will need to learn to shift to 3-cycles. 

Do you have a handle on pure commutators? Good.

Now I want you to watch byu's video on orthogonals (skip A9s for now). These cases are solved using a setup move, a pure commutator and undoing the setup move. Easy, right? You should now be able to solve any 3-cycle on the cube using a few setup moves and a pure commutator. Practice this a lot. 

At this point you can solve any 3-cycle. It might not be close to optimal, but you can solve it, and it's probably less moves than a Y-perm.

When you feel ready, I want you to chose a sticker on your cube. I use ULB as my buffer, and I chose RFD, which turned out to be very easy, so I recommend that if you use ULB as a buffer choose RFD, and if you use UBR as a buffer, choose LFD. Now come up with a commutator for every cycle involving the sticker you have chosen and your buffer. DO NOT LOOK AT A LIST OF ALGORITHMS. The whole point is that you will remember these algorithms because you came up with them yourself. You can let these commutators be sub-optimal, but try to find ones you like to execute. You can even start looking for A9s at this point, which is just when one of the setup moves cancels. Try to see similar commutators on the same interchange layer. If you're using ULB as a buffer and RFD as your chosen sticker for example, your cycles to FUL, DFL and BDL all use the same interchange layer and thus the commutators are basically the same. It is easy to find groups of three like this.

Now you have 18 commutators that you came up with and understand. I want you to learn them backwards and forwards. Just focus on those algorithms. The goal is to get to the point where any time you get your chosen sticker in a solve, you can use a commutator. Therefore you need to have these at your fingertips. Practice them in attacks. One method that helped me was having a list of the commutators, and every time I forgot one during a solve I would put an X next to it in the list. Then, I would practice the commutator forwards and backwards 5X times, so the first time I got it wrong I would practice it five times, the second time I got it wrong I would practice it 10 times, and so on. 

Now you are at the point where every time you get your chosen sticker in a solve, you use a commutator. Congratulations. It is easy from here. All you have to do is choose another sticker on that piece and do the same thing. If you chose RFD for your first one, I recommend choosing FDR for the next one since all the commutators from RFD can be mirrored for use with FDR. Learn them the same way. Good. Now do the same thing with the third sticker on that piece. Great!

You might be thinking that you are nowhere near getting rid of your Y-perms, but you would be wrong. I found that once I knew these 54 commutators (108 including inverses) I could solve any cycle on the cube. All I had to do was use a smart setup move so that one of the pieces would end up in RFD, DRF or FDR and I could solve the cycle.

From there, of course, I did a lot of cleanup (I have a lot more left to do), and I obviously use a lot of cycles that don't involve those three stickers, but that is how I worked my way up to 3-cycles for corners. Edges are next!

I hope my story helped, and good luck!

-Noah


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## Rubiks560 (May 25, 2012)

Good read, I doubt I'll ever use anything but Y perms for corners though. This guy right here still doesn't know how on earth comms work


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## Kirjava (May 25, 2012)

Noahaha said:


> DO NOT LOOK AT A LIST OF ALGORITHMS.


 
I don't think this is very important.


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## Noahaha (May 25, 2012)

Kirjava said:


> I don't think this is very important.


 
I guess it should have said not to look at a list of algorithms and memorize them.


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## Escher (May 25, 2012)

Kirjava said:


> I don't think this is very important.



Depends really.

I think there are plenty of resources out there that help you to learn BH without looking at a big alg list, but there isn't one, unified resource available yet...


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## Kirjava (May 25, 2012)

Noahaha said:


> I guess it should have said not to look at a list of algorithms and memorize them.


 
Why not? this is what aron did. he's pretty good at bld.


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## Noahaha (May 25, 2012)

Kirjava said:


> Why not? this is what aron did. he's pretty good at bld.


 
Did he? That's amazing. I'm not sure most people could do that though. It's kind of the whole point of the guide that you're learning it without the algs because that's what's scaring people away.

EDIT: also it's easier to start memorizing algs and adding them in once you can actually use the method.


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## Kirjava (May 25, 2012)

Yeah, that's fine. I'm just saying that there's nothing wrong with learning a list if you want to. Algorithmic becomes intuitive and vice versa and all that...


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## Jaycee (May 25, 2012)

Thanks to this I've decided that my first summer project will be learning 3 cycle BLD corners.


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## jeffjc (May 27, 2012)

When I learned Old Pochmann corners, I memoed in pairs. Essentially, each set of two targets was a 3-cycle. If the two targets happen to be an easy commutator, I use a commutator instead. That is now "intuitive" for me.

I think that the whole point of learning the full exhaustive list of comms is to make all of them intuitive. However, it's not intuitive if you think of each case as a separate algorithm. Hence, the best way is to fool around with the cube and discover good comms for each case by yourself, so it can become intuitive.


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## evogler (May 28, 2012)

If I could go back and teach myself commutators, I think I would say this:

Play with [R*:U,M*] and [U*:R,D*] (where * means regular or ' or 2), until you're familiar with the shapes of all of those possibilities and understand why they do what they do. Then invert and mirror and rotate. Then start solving the cube 2 pieces at a time, using setups where necessary. Then check different lists to see if you've missed anything.

I'm not saying that's the only way or the best way, but I think it's how I'd like to have had it presented to me. (I wound up writing a program to categorize all the cases on the BH list instead. It was a fun project, but more work than most people probably would want to do).


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## Jaycee (May 28, 2012)

Alright, I've decided to learn 18 a day now. First day, I did all the ULB -> RDF -> x cycles. Then, to FRD. Today(well technically yesterday because it's almost 2 AM now), DFR. I'm having a lot of trouble remembering the commutators from today. Is it because I'm so tired? I am practicing all 54 every now and then to make sure I still remember them, but I end up forgetting a lot of today's ones.  If I keep up this pace, though, I should know all 378 by June 15th, and I give myself until the 22nd to practice like crazy because I need these BLD skills by the 23rd. xD

BTW my algs are at http://tinyurl.com/jc3cycles


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## AbstractAlg (May 28, 2012)

Good luck!

18 new commutators, as easy as they can be, every day for next two weeks - I thinks it's impossible.
Create some easy-to-see commutator cases with extra set-up moves.

Again, good luck.


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## RyanReese09 (May 30, 2012)

Good idea. Must admit, never thought about the possible setup to comm. 

Though if you can go that far with comms, I doubt you really even need to do the setup to begin with, except for the weird cases such as cyclic shifts or what not.

I'm in the same boat as you, that I don't know what cases are classified as what (well, I should say that's the case only with cyclics and per specials)


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## cubedude7 (Jul 18, 2013)

Great guide, I've also learned BH commutators from your tutorials, really helpfull, and I'm practising them, but I have a question:
Would it be a good idea to start practising all the 378 commutators by just solving a scrambled cube with BH, or to just practise the 54 (or 108 with inverses) commutators for DRF/RDF/FDR? (ULB is my buffer too )


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## Noahaha (Jul 18, 2013)

cubedude7 said:


> Great guide, I've also learned BH commutators from your tutorials, really helpfull, and I'm practising them, but I have a question:
> Would it be a good idea to start practising all the 378 commutators by just solving a scrambled cube with BH, or to just practise the 54 (or 108 with inverses) commutators for DRF/RDF/FDR? (ULB is my buffer too )



Both of course!


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## Jaycee (Jul 19, 2013)

Jaycee said:


> Alright, I've decided to learn 18 a day now. First day, I did all the ULB -> RDF -> x cycles. Then, to FRD. Today(well technically yesterday because it's almost 2 AM now), DFR. I'm having a lot of trouble remembering the commutators from today. Is it because I'm so tired? I am practicing all 54 every now and then to make sure I still remember them, but I end up forgetting a lot of today's ones.  If I keep up this pace, though, I should know all 378 by June 15th, and I give myself until the 22nd to practice like crazy because I need these BLD skills by the 23rd. xD
> 
> BTW my algs are at http://tinyurl.com/jc3cycles



It's funny to see this post now because I gave up a week later and grew out of BLD (forgetting all my comms because I did a BLD solve like once a month). I picked it up again last week and am slowly learning comms now. And because I practice a lot my times have been dropping rapidly


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## tseitsei (Jul 22, 2013)

I was wondering if I'm the only one who learned comms by commutator "types" rather than just "target bt target"?

By "types" I mean something like: 
1) first cases I learned were both targets in D-layer, but not D-face
2) and 1 target at U-face and another in D-layer but not D-face

Then I just used setups to those "types" I knew and slowly but steadily added new comm-types to my solving after being fluent with the previous ones...


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## vd (Jul 22, 2013)

tseitsei said:


> I was wondering if I'm the only one who learned comms by commutator "types" rather than just "target bt target"?
> 
> By "types" I mean something like:
> 1) first cases I learned were both targets in D-layer, but not D-face
> ...



You indeed are not only one, I learned comms very similarly myself .


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## szalejot (Jun 4, 2014)

tseitsei said:


> I was wondering if I'm the only one who learned comms by commutator "types" rather than just "target bt target"?
> 
> By "types" I mean something like:
> 1) first cases I learned were both targets in D-layer, but not D-face
> ...



I am doing the same thing already... and I think it is working. Now I am able to do 3-comms only solves with speed no slower than OP.


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## JemFish (Feb 23, 2015)

The starter post is brilliant. I'm very lucky, because I did read that post by Mike Hughey, quite accidentally, and even more lucky that I stumbled upon this post!


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## Berd (Feb 24, 2015)

Wow this is great! Gonna try and switch soon...


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## SpeedCuber71 (Jan 5, 2016)

Hey guys! I have watched all of Noah's tutorials and completely understand how Corner and Edge comms work now! But i still need a list of algs of corner comms to look at. I couldn't find one anywhere. Can someone link me to one if it exists? Thanks.


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## h2f (Jan 5, 2016)

Theres few lists. I thinik Meneghetti's is one of the best: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...VmYleiLUnWuUUIWf4aTPQkj0bg/edit#gid=985782076


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## SpeedCuber71 (Jan 5, 2016)

h2f said:


> Theres few lists. I thinik Meneghetti's is one of the best: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...VmYleiLUnWuUUIWf4aTPQkj0bg/edit#gid=985782076



Thanks!


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## SpeedCuber71 (Jan 5, 2016)

Hey the list is great but a bit confusing. I there any list with targets written as "UFR" instead of a letter? because my lettering scheme is different.


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## h2f (Jan 6, 2016)

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...hSy3jcapQ6s/pub?single=true&gid=0&output=html


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## SpeedCuber71 (Jan 6, 2016)

No worries i found an amazing list on Tim Wong's website where i could actually type in my lettering scheme which makes learning the comms much easier


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## Meneghetti (Jan 6, 2016)

SpeedCuber71 said:


> No worries i found an amazing list on Tim Wong's website where i could actually type in my lettering scheme which makes learning the comms much easier



that's a really awesome feature! can you link me to his site? 
i'm interested in developing something like that... thanks!


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## the super cuber (Jan 6, 2016)

Meneghetti said:


> that's a really awesome feature! can you link me to his site?
> i'm interested in developing something like that... thanks!



http://wong-tim.com/#/

here you go


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## h2f (Jan 7, 2016)

Meneghetti said:


> that's a really awesome feature! can you link me to his site?
> i'm interested in developing something like that... thanks!



I like your list of algs. But can you give an alg for GJ. In your list it's written it's mirror of OL. But there's no OL and in LO that it's mirror of GJ. There's a lot such loops in your list.  I try to learn edge comms and figured out a trick like z' D; [M', U' R U] but don't know if there's somethin better.


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## Meneghetti (Jan 7, 2016)

h2f said:


> I like your list of algs. But can you give an alg for GJ. In your list it's written it's mirror of OL. But there's no OL and in LO that it's mirror of GJ. There's a lot such loops in your list.  I try to learn edge comms and figured out a trick like z' D; [M', U' R U] but don't know if there's somethin better.



lol thanks for pointing that out, Grzegorz! I was afraid loops like these could end up happening... fixed it!

The good side of having a list with algs written like that, instead of the full sequence of moves that we execute, is that we are forced to understand what's happening in the commutator. It makes it easier to study the list as a whole and to understand the similarities between the cases. I know it sucks when you are only looking for one specific case and you get in those cycles of setups, though...

For "GJ" edges, I used to use the commutator you mentioned, but then I switched to this one: *[Uw L2; U' M' U, L]*
The Uw move sets up "J" to "F", which makes it a "GF" case. Then, L2 makes it a pure commutator as in the "EH" case, cancelling out one move.

I also noticed my "GJ" corners comm wasn't updated. Now I set it up to "GB" using an R move, instead of setting it up to "VI" with an F' move. 

I'm glad you are using my list!


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## h2f (Jan 7, 2016)

Meneghetti said:


> lol thanks for pointing that out, Grzegorz! I was afraid loops like these could end up happening... fixed it!
> 
> The good side of having a list with algs written like that, instead of the full sequence of moves that we execute, is that we are forced to understand what's happening in the commutator. It makes it easier to study the list as a whole and to understand the similarities between the cases. I know it sucks when you are only looking for one specific case and you get in those cycles of setups, though...
> 
> ...



Thank you Diego for fixing it. I knew corner comms for a year and use it for few months. And I think I got how edge comms work - a lot of them seems much easier than corners comms but sometimes I'm not sure how to make a setup and solve a case. I got my list too - it's finished for corners and now I'm adding edges but only ones I've understood. The trick you used for GJ is easy when you know it but I could never figure it earlier by myself.  Same the trick for GB for corners is very nice. I use sometimes U as a setup to create easier cases but never tried it in this case. 

Your list is very usefull!


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## h2f (Feb 29, 2016)

Meneghetti said:


> lol thanks for pointing that out, Grzegorz! I was afraid loops like these could end up happening... fixed it!
> 
> The good side of having a list with algs written like that, instead of the full sequence of moves that we execute, is that we are forced to understand what's happening in the commutator. It makes it easier to study the list as a whole and to understand the similarities between the cases. I know it sucks when you are only looking for one specific case and you get in those cycles of setups, though...
> 
> ...



I'm slowly transitioning to 3style and I was looking through your list again. Another loop in edges: HP = mNF = no NF but it's a inv of FN = mHP...


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## Meneghetti (Feb 29, 2016)

h2f said:


> I'm slowly transitioning to 3style and I was looking through your list again. Another loop in edges: HP = mNF = no NF but it's a inv of FN = mHP...



Thanks again! Fixed it!

I solve "FN" edges doing an R' setup, which makes it an "FM" case. Then, a cancelling U move makes it a pure "FI".
11 moves, no regrips.
[R' U; U L' U', M']


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## h2f (Feb 29, 2016)

Thanks. I got your idea - setup is better than regrip. This is what I started to use for corners.


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