# New Method: Pairing First 8 Edges



## AHornbaker (Jun 17, 2013)

Hello All!

I came up with this (hopefully) new method for pairing the first 8 edges on any big cube. I haven't seen it anywhere else yet, and it seems to work pretty well for me so far. It's like the freeslice method, but is more organized and has way easier recognition. I'm not sure how the move count compares to other methods, but it's much easier than any other method i've tried. Great recognition. I feel like it has much more potential on a 7x7 than a 5x5. Let me know what you all think about this. 

Any constructive criticism is welcome. 

http://youtu.be/OBsHT-hk1ks


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## Frubix (Jun 17, 2013)

Sounds good.
I'll watch the video


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## Username (Jun 17, 2013)

What would you do if you get 2 whites in the same tredge, but the white stickers are facing one up and one down?

Or if lets say all the right pieces are already facing the same way but not the rest, you can't insert anything in that case without braking it up


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## Mike Hughey (Jun 17, 2013)

Username said:


> What would you do if you get 2 whites in the same tredge, but the white stickers are facing one up and one down?


You push down the one that's facing down, but not the other one. The other one will then probably be carried into the side as you get the next one from the side. Worst case, at the end, you have to move your last edge to the side and then bring it back. Not many extra moves, and probably a rare case (although I'm not sure about that).

I have to say I really like this method; even if it proves to not be workable as an all-out speed method (I have no idea whether it will be or not), it's fun. I love the way it works. Thanks for sharing it.


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## ben1996123 (Jun 17, 2013)

Username said:


> What would you do if you get 2 whites in the same tredge, but the white stickers are facing one up and one down?
> 
> Or if lets say all the right pieces are already facing the same way but not the rest, you can't insert anything in that case without braking it up



push 1 down, flip edge, push other down

he does it in the video


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## Mike Hughey (Jun 17, 2013)

ben1996123 said:


> push 1 down, flip edge, push other down



Most of the time you can just ignore the other edge; like I said, it goes away when you insert the next one, then you insert it when you get to it. You don't actually have to perform a flip in most cases.

I've tried it several times now; it's really fun.


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## stevecho816 (Jun 17, 2013)

This method is really cool  Wonder how fast it could be on a 7x7.


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## AHornbaker (Jun 17, 2013)

Thanks! I'm suprised with the amount of attention it's gotten already. Now for a good name...



Username said:


> What would you do if you get 2 whites in the same tredge, but the white stickers are facing one up and one down?
> 
> Or if lets say all the right pieces are already facing the same way but not the rest, you can't insert anything in that case without braking it up



This is the only problem I encountered with the method, with a quick preliminary inspection you can probably fix it. Otherwise, it's not too hard of a fix.


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## Mike Hughey (Jun 17, 2013)

AHornbaker said:


> Thanks! I'm suprised with the amount of attention it's gotten already. Now for a good name...



First thing that occurred to me...


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## Username (Jun 17, 2013)

I'm gonna start using this now while I'm still slow


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## Rubiksfreak (Jun 17, 2013)

Its a good method. It looks more like a beginners method than an advanced method though!


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## Mike Hughey (Jun 17, 2013)

Rubiksfreak said:


> Its a good method. It looks more like a beginners method than an advanced method though!



At the very least, it's definitely a viable beginner's method. I'm still terrible at it - almost no lookahead compared to what I should be doing (compounded with the fact that I'm TERRIBLE at last 4 edges, since I normally use AvG) - and yet I'm averaging sub-3 with it after just 10 timed solves. I probably average about 2:15 normally, so this speed really surprises me.

And it's SO easy to learn! Much easier than freeslice. I could easily teach my daughters this method in a few minutes. I definitely couldn't do that with freeslice. (The problem is, I would then have trouble teaching my daughters how to do last 4 edges, and that would be much harder.)

I'm astonished that a method like this could be discovered after so many years. It's always nice when we see reminders that there's still a lot to discover in speedcubing.


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## Mike Hughey (Jun 17, 2013)

After doing some counts, I realize now it's probably not viable for top speed. I'm getting around 100 moves for the first 8 edges alone, which it would seem is probably just too many moves. An ancient thread on move counts:
http://www.speedsolving.com/forum/showthread.php?4624-5x5x5-Move-Count

shows typical averages even several years ago were well under 100 moves for all 12 edges; this method seems to be around 100 for just the first 8. (Last 4 probably runs somewhere in the 20-25 range?) So it seems this is pretty high on move count.

But for beginners, it's wonderful because you practically never have to hunt for a piece. Lookahead is bound to be faster for this than for even the best methods, surely. So perhaps someone who is a really fast turner could be almost competitive with it. Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if Feliks could sub-1 with it - it's only 20 or 30 extra moves, and lookahead is definitely not slower, so why couldn't he?

(By the way, the above thread is extra-wonderful because it contains the moment when Frank Morris discovered he was a meme. Priceless.)


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## Mike Hughey (Jun 18, 2013)

This week I tried using this method for the weekly competition (2013-25) for 7x7x7. The 5 solves were my first 5 attempts with this method. I got a 7:42.24 average, which is only about a minute slower than normal for me. And I'm out of practice, so I suspect that using this method slowed me down no more than 30 seconds or so. That's really spectacular for a new method (for me, at least).

I'm so bad at lookahead normally that I really suspect I could get about as fast with this method on bigcubes as I currently am with AvG. And it is more enjoyable because you're constantly turning - you almost never get stuck trying to find a piece. I can't manage that with normal methods - I almost always get stuck for a few seconds multiple times on any given solve (especially on bigger cubes).

For sure, this is a great method for beginners - you can learn it in just a few minutes, and then get pretty proficient at it with just an hour practice or so. The learning curve is almost nonexistent compared to other methods. That's what I love most about it. The only problem for beginners is: you still have to learn another method for solving the last 4 edges.


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## Ross The Boss (Jun 18, 2013)

Mike Hughey said:


> . And it is more enjoyable because you're constantly turning - you almost never get stuck trying to find a piece. I can't manage that with normal methods - I almost always get stuck for a few seconds multiple times on any given solve (especially on bigger cubes).


but if youre averaging super fast you wont have many pauses anyway.


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## Schmidt (Jun 18, 2013)

I just watched the video, I haven´t tried the method yet. It looks easy, but the only "problem" I can see is if you put all the white in the yellow face and make the cross with R2/F2/?2 moves, all the yellows are in the yellow face,meaning all the edges you need for F2L are stuck in the E layer. Is there an easy way of doing the non-yellow pieces second and then the yellow as the last 4 edges?


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## qqwref (Jun 18, 2013)

This is a pretty interesting method. It does seem easy. I wonder if the ability to place the four cross edges on L would save a couple of seconds in the 3x3 stage.


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## AHornbaker (Jun 18, 2013)

Schmidt said:


> I just watched the video, I haven´t tried the method yet. It looks easy, but the only "problem" I can see is if you put all the white in the yellow face and make the cross with R2/F2/?2 moves, all the yellows are in the yellow face,meaning all the edges you need for F2L are stuck in the E layer. Is there an easy way of doing the non-yellow pieces second and then the yellow as the last 4 edges?



I think I understand what you're asking... You could pair the white edges and make the cross on the white side, then when you went to do the next four edges, instead you could use the same concept to do blue/green or red/orange edges. You couldn't do one color because they'd have to be opposites to get all four (white, yellow) but doing either blue/green or red/orange would still achieve the same orientation effect.

I like the idea of making the cross with the first four edges. With all the attention this has gotten, I'm going to see if I can improve upon this method. Also, the bigger the cube gets, the more efficient this method is. If you were solving a 9x9, this makes edge pairing way easier, but if you tried this on a 4x4 (if that would even work) you'd just be wasting your time. I do remember tinkering with an orientation-type method for matching 4x4 edges on a road trip though...


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## Schmidt (Jun 19, 2013)

I think this works: instead of R2 , do R' U R' to get the other colors on top.


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## Yellowsnow98 (Jun 20, 2013)

This is way better than anything I use.
And it will probably take 5 minutes off of my 7x7 average (I'm a noob at big cubes)


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## legoanimate98 (Jun 20, 2013)

> I wonder if the ability to place the four cross edges on L would save a couple of seconds in the 3x3 stage.



I was thinking the same thing. It could become a new popular method because it could give an advantage similar to the one you get from yau. I think I am going to practice this for a while and see if I can do at least as well as I usually do with normal redux.


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## Emily Wang (Jun 20, 2013)

qqwref said:


> This is a pretty interesting method. It does seem easy. I wonder if the ability to place the four cross edges on L would save a couple of seconds in the 3x3 stage.



Last four edges would mess it up, unless you make sure to preserve position and orientation of the white edges, which would probably(?) negate any time saved. 

Edit: tried a solve (2:44). Someone better at m slice pairing should probably try this out for speed. Either way it seems to be a viable beginners edge pairing. (Have you tried this out on cube sim, Michael? That would probably give everyone a better idea of the upper limit speed wise of this; after trying it, I really don't think it's as fast as free slice, but I might be wrong)


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## CarlBrannen (Jun 20, 2013)

I've been using this method for the last year, but I do all 12 edges this way. I set the world record for 7x7x7 for ages 54+ using it.

Here's my youtube on the technique from October:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVVvfKVgkqc

A difference is that I orient the edges the other way. I think the way you do it is better and I may try to switch.

As I solve the second set of 4 edges, I keep count of the orientation "parity" of the last 4 edges. Then I orient the last 4 edges using this information. This means that the "PL4E" algorithms are vastly reduced in number, I only know two algorithms.


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## stoic (Jul 11, 2013)

Just got round to trying this since it was posted, and although I'm pretty noobish at 5x5 I think it's quite cool. 
At first, I struggled a bit making tredges on the M slice, so I switched it around to the E slice and it seems to suit me better as that's what I'm used to. 
I especially like that its easy to restore centres after the first 8 tredges. 
Gonna give it a try on bigger cubes next...


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## masterofthebass (Jul 12, 2013)

This is similar to how I go about solving edges. I've been doing white->yellow for at least 3 years now and what helps me lookahead is keeping the orientation of white stickers similar so that I'm always just looking for white stickers and insert them into the pairing layer in a way that there's always pieces to pair up. I don't go so far to restrict myself to specifics like you do, but the concept of looking for white stickers still applies.



Mike Hughey said:


> http://www.speedsolving.com/forum/showthread.php?4624-5x5x5-Move-Count
> 
> shows typical averages even several years ago were well under 100 moves for all 12 edges; this method seems to be around 100 for just the first 8. (Last 4 probably runs somewhere in the 20-25 range?) So it seems this is pretty high on move count.



you didn't quite scroll down to Jon Choi's post did you 

*EFi 58 64 68 55 51

*Those were his first 8 edges counts.


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## Mike Hughey (Jul 12, 2013)

Wow, his last 4 edges were a lot more moves than I would have thought, but I guess it doesn't matter all that much since you tend to get good at those algs?

Anyway, I do remember watching your video for how you do white->yellow, and it got me to try freeslice for a while again. (I tried it for a while again, but still never got any good at it. ) It's true - it's kind of like this method in terms of searching for pieces, but move-optimized, unlike this method.


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## Pyjam (Jul 20, 2013)

I don't now if it's "new".

If I understand the method correctly, this is what I do for two years.
I exposed the method here.

At this time, nobody cares.

I started by orienting the first 8 edges then I realized that it's better to only orient the first 4, and to orient the next 4 while pairing the last 4.


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