# Possibilities of Compound OLL



## dChan (May 22, 2007)

Lucas Garron(of http://www.garron.us) has proposed a very interesting idea in tackling OLL with one-look without knowing all 56 algorithms for orientation. In fact only 16% of the 56 algorithms are required(9 algorithms). It challenges the traditional 2-look, 9 algorithm process that OLL learners use. 

It still requires two algorithms, but you can apply these algorithms without looking twice, only once. You need to note which edges are flipped and which corners need orienting and what direction they are facing then you apply an algorithm to flip the edges that does not affect corner orientation and then you can orient corners with the usual 7 algorithms but without have to look at the corners again as their orientation is preserved.

This is the method I would teach to a beginner and will probably use myself. But does anyone see any pitfalls of this method to learning OLL? It teaches you to recognize OLL patterns and apply essentially a 1 algorithm chain made up of x + y. It is just a longer algorithm to solving OLL that is formulated on the fly so I see no reason why this shouldn't be a good method to OLL, but what do you think?


----------



## Me (May 22, 2007)

i know Lucas in person and he's never told me this idea, unless you're just using too many words to describe it. are you talking about Mini-ZB -> OLL?
Where did you read it on his website?


----------



## Inferno.Fighter.IV (May 22, 2007)

> _Originally posted by Me!_@May 21 2007, 11:06 PM
> * i know Lucas in person and he's never told me this idea, unless you're just using too many words to describe it. are you talking about Mini-ZB -> OLL?
> Where did you read it on his website? *


 Have you tried browsing his site? (-.-") try this link... http://cube.garron.us/algs/compOLL/index.htm


----------



## pjk (May 22, 2007)

This is pretty common for people who don't know all OLLs yet get sub-20 or so. You do certain cases so many times that you know what the next case will be and solve it without even recognizing it, so it basically becomes 1 long alg.


----------



## Inferno.Fighter.IV (May 22, 2007)

> _Originally posted by PJK_@May 21 2007, 11:23 PM
> * This is pretty common for people who don't know all OLLs yet get sub-20 or so. You do certain cases so many times that you know what the next case will be and solve it without even recognizing it, so it basically becomes 1 long alg. *


I think I'm happy just learning the 57 OLL's, he he (^_^). It seems like you would get faster just learning all the OLL's.


----------



## dChan (May 22, 2007)

Yeah, but I'm saying this is a good learning tool though. It requires you to look at all the pieces in the LL rather than just edges tehn corners.


----------



## Erik (May 22, 2007)

After a while with the normal 2 look OLL (O edges O corners) you know which corner case you'll get even before doing the edge algo, you automaticly learn it without noticing you know it, so I think this is not that handy...


----------



## dChan (May 22, 2007)

Yeah, but that is "after a while" as you said. It also still doesn't teach you to recognize OLL patterns. 2-look OLL only teaches you to recognize one-type piece patterns such as only edges OLL or only corners OLL.

My fastest time with this so far is 21 after implementing it yesterday. Maybe faster today since I am more used to it. I'll use it for this week's comp.


----------



## tenderchkn (May 23, 2007)

Yeah it does. If after doing your FRU, you end up a case that you don't like, trust me, you'll remember that case.


----------



## Erik (May 23, 2007)

> _Originally posted by dChan_@May 22 2007, 04:24 PM
> * Yeah, but that is "after a while" as you said. It also still doesn't teach you to recognize OLL patterns. 2-look OLL only teaches you to recognize one-type piece patterns such as only edges OLL or only corners OLL.
> 
> My fastest time with this so far is 21 after implementing it yesterday. Maybe faster today since I am more used to it. I'll use it for this week's comp. *


 No, I said that you will know the Corner Case even BEFORE you've done the EOLL case. That's the trick, you recognize the whole OLL and you do it as one algorithm which indeed takes a bit of time, but the EOLL algorithms for the normal 2 look are faster.
So I think it could maybe be handy for the lazy man who doesn't want to learn full OLL, but in that case I suggest you learn the 6 algorithms needed to orient the edges while inserting the last pair...


----------



## Me (May 23, 2007)

Oh yea now i remember him showing me that. Yea its a really good idea i've been very compelled to learn it but i'm lazy about learning new algs


----------



## dChan (May 23, 2007)

Not to be rude but so what if after a while you know what the next case is after doing EOLL. What does that teach you? You'll never be doing an OLL case where you need to know what the next case is. You just do it in one look and go straight into PLL. And so far I've seen no real problem with its speed than just getting used to looking at the whole LL unlike before where you look at edges, perform alg, look at corners, then perform alg. In Comp OLL you look at edges AND corners and perform two algorithms without looking at LL any more. You could do Comp OLL blindfolded unlike 2-look OLL. I really don't see where your guys' reasoning is. It is a great way to tackle OLL and learn at the same time. The only downside is getting used to applying one-algorithm for cases after learning all OLLs, but then again its better than 2-look OLL where you are not even used to looking for OLL patterns besides EOLL and the seven COLL cases.

Me!: Oh, you just need to know the H-OLL and the reverse and that's pretty much it. As long as you already know the 7 corner OLLs you'll be fine.


----------



## tenderchkn (May 24, 2007)

The thing is...when you recognize an OLL, you don't separate it into edge case and corner case - you see it as a whole. When you're fluent, it becomes as easy as recognizing which edge flip alg you have to do. So basically, there's no "educational" value here, and as such, not much value at all. It's just another way to do a 2-look OLL.


----------



## Erik (May 24, 2007)

> _Originally posted by dChan_@May 23 2007, 05:34 PM
> * Not to be rude but so what if after a while you know what the next case is after doing EOLL. What does that teach you? You'll never be doing an OLL case where you need to know what the next case is. You just do it in one look and go straight into PLL. And so far I've seen no real problem with its speed than just getting used to looking at the whole LL unlike before where you look at edges, perform alg, look at corners, then perform alg. In Comp OLL you look at edges AND corners and perform two algorithms without looking at LL any more. You could do Comp OLL blindfolded unlike 2-look OLL. I really don't see where your guys' reasoning is. It is a great way to tackle OLL and learn at the same time. The only downside is getting used to applying one-algorithm for cases after learning all OLLs, but then again its better than 2-look OLL where you are not even used to looking for OLL patterns besides EOLL and the seven COLL cases.
> 
> Me!: Oh, you just need to know the H-OLL and the reverse and that's pretty much it. As long as you already know the 7 corner OLLs you'll be fine. *


Let's look at it from the other side, what does compound OLL teach you, you recognize a case, and do 2 algorithms. What I do/did was also recognize the whole OLL case and knowing what case you'll get after it. There is no difference besides that you'll do a different Corner OLL case and that the Edges Orientation is faster. You don't recognize the case differently than the Compound OLL you also don't recognize it differently as normal OLL you just handle it differently but all is in one algorithm. You are probably thinking about that if you do a different corner algorithm you won't deal with the OLL in the way you 'should', please correct me if I'm wrong, its just a hunch. It all comes down to:

what I did:
1. recognize the whole OLL case and know which corner case you'll get (takes practise)
2. do an Edge OLL (fast)
3. do the Corner OLL directly after it
4. PLL or whatever

compound OLL
1. recognize the whole OLL case and know which corner case you'll get (takes less practise)
2. do the Edge OLL (slightly slower than above)
3. do the Corner OLL directly after it
4. PLL or whatever

As I see it the only difference is that I do a different corner OLL then what compound OLL does, and the length of the Edge OLL is different.

Edit: you might want to know a 4 flip too (either method)


----------



## dChan (May 24, 2007)

Very well explained Erik. But in OLL you are not supposed to be learnng to predict. Maybe you can learn to predict PLL, but you are not supposed to be learning to predict the next OLL case you'll get. In Comp OLL you learn to take on the OLL case as if you knew the algorithm just a longer version of it. Instead of the usual 10 moves you might do 18 instead. In regular 2-look, it IS a quicker sequence in terms of the length of the move sequence, but it does not teach you to do OLL as if it were one case. It teaches you to do edges then corners and as you say, with practice 'predict' the corner OLL after EOLL. I do not debate that, but what is its usefulness? You'll never need to predict in an actual OLL case. I am not debating speed, I am debating the fact that it is not as useful in learning OLL and Comp OLL.


----------



## Erik (May 24, 2007)

> _Originally posted by dChan_@May 24 2007, 05:16 PM
> * Very well explained Erik. But in OLL you are not supposed to be learnng to predict. Maybe you can learn to predict PLL, but you are not supposed to be learning to predict the next OLL case you'll get. In Comp OLL you learn to take on the OLL case as if you knew the algorithm just a longer version of it. Instead of the usual 10 moves you might do 18 instead. In regular 2-look, it IS a quicker sequence in terms of the length of the move sequence, but it does not teach you to do OLL as if it were one case. It teaches you to do edges then corners and as you say, with practice 'predict' the corner OLL after EOLL. I do not debate that, but what is its usefulness? You'll never need to predict in an actual OLL case. I am not debating speed, I am debating the fact that it is not as useful in learning OLL and Comp OLL. *


 Still, I don't see the difference, in both approaches you actualy use a longer algorithm and you both do them as one, so you handle it as one case, you merely use different algorithms. I don't see how you are 'supposed' to do anything for the OLL to be honest and you 'predict' the case, you indeed know what's coming, but what is the difference? In the Comp OLL you also predict the corner case, only you preserve the corners the way they are now so you won't have to learn the case that comes after the edge OLL, and in the other 2 look case you change them and will only learn after a while what you should do next which is a bit inconvenient. Also the fact that Comp OLL is more usefull is a bit far fetched in my opinion. The 'usefullness' is the same I think, with both ways you achieve the same goal: go OLL in 2 steps but in 1 algorithm, and also in both ways the goal is achieved although it takes some practise on one of them. 
I don't see why you are so negative about the other way and so positive about the compound. I agree the compound is easier to learn, but apart from that I don't see any differences...


----------



## tenderchkn (May 24, 2007)

Where are you getting this "supposed" stuff from? If intention is all that matters, then what's to say that someone doesn't intend to use the regular 2-look OLL to predict corner cases?

Look at it from still another angle. When you do a 2-look PLL, you do corner permutation, then edge permutation using algs that don't affect the other set. Did that teach you to recognize PLL patterns, or did you just disregard edges and just did your corner alg? Maybe it was because it wasn't "supposed" to teach you to do that? Like I said above, intention can be moded to be anything you want.


----------



## Erik (May 24, 2007)

I don't want to be rude but wasn't this topic about stuff that allows you to look ahead for the next step during a 2 look OLL and discuss some new tricks which speed things up?


----------



## tenderchkn (May 24, 2007)

Umm, yeah. And I'm saying that compound OLL doesn't speed things up.


----------



## Erik (May 24, 2007)

Why not? It saves you one time recognizing something.


----------



## tenderchkn (May 24, 2007)

After wasting time executing.


----------



## pjk (May 24, 2007)

> *Umm, yeah. And I'm saying that compound OLL doesn't speed things up.*


It does, if don't know all the OLLs.


----------



## tenderchkn (May 24, 2007)

> _Originally posted by PJK_@May 24 2007, 03:12 PM
> *
> 
> 
> ...


 But as compared to what?

Preserving CO while flipping edges is slower and does not offer any additional values that are not already present in doing it any other way.


----------



## dChan (May 25, 2007)

As I keep saying, it teaches you to evaluate the whole LL situation. As compared to edges first then look at corner orientation. Comp OLL makes you handle OLL as if it were ONE case.


----------



## pjk (May 25, 2007)

> *But as compared to what?
> 
> Preserving CO while flipping edges is slower and does not offer any additional values that are not already present in doing it any other way.*


It is quicker over time as if you just treated each new situation as a new case. If you have done the algs enough to know the effect, then you can treat a multiple look OLL stage as 1 look.

I am not understanding where preserving CO comes from... I must be missing something.


----------



## dChan (May 25, 2007)

The H-OLL and inverse of the H-OLL are used to flip edges and preserve CO.


----------



## tenderchkn (May 25, 2007)

Alright, so everyone seems to be a little confused. Let me summarize the case and the arguments for both sides.

"Traditional" 2-look OLL
-Faster EO
-Longer recognition for CO
-Slighty faster overall?

Compound OLL
-Slower EO
-No recognition for CO
-Slightly slower overall?
-Helps one "learn" to recognize OLL?

Items without question marks are pretty much agreed upon; questioned-marked items are speculations. The summary of my argument is that 1) there is no gain in speed from using compound, and quite possibly a lost in speed, and 2) compound does not really teach you how to recognize the entire OLL, nor does it help you transition into a 1-look. I, for one, do not see the OLL as a combination of edge case + corner case, but as an entire shape. And "over time" you're going to learn to recognize the following corner case whether you consciously learn it or not. It's just a matter of repetition. So therefore, my conclusion is that compound OLL does not offer anything over the traditional approach.


----------



## Erik (May 25, 2007)

I'm a bit baffled about the fact that you guys keep saying that it doesn't learn anything and that it doesn't let you treat OLL as ONE. With both systems (let's call it the 'advanced 2 look') and the compound OLL you treat it as ONE case. Treating something as one case means: you recognize the whole thing, you execute it as one thing, you merely use 2 connected algorithms which merge in to one long. I still have for instance an OLL case I perform as: FURU'R'F' R'U2RUR'UR. I also use the reverse of this case. Although I know about all other OLL cases.


----------



## pjk (May 25, 2007)

That is exactly what I would say, Erik.


----------



## dChan (May 25, 2007)

But that is still after a lot of practice. And secondly, you may treat it as one case but say you have 2 edges flipped and 0 corners oriented. You would flip the 2 edges and end up have 3 corners oriented. Or two corners, etc. This means you are treating it as two DIFFERENT cases in one look. And you honestly wouldn't look at the whole LL in a 2-look would you? You'd just do the edges then sort of 'predict' what the next case is. And that is still with lots of practice. But when you are supposed to be learning OLL you don't need a lot of practice on a 2-look LL, right? If you are serious about learning OLL you'll probably never get to the point where you are actually predicting the next case of CO. 

With Comp OLL you have 56 algorithms for each case made up of two algorithms which makes it slightly longer. But it is better than the 2-look algorithm where you need to predict the next case. In reality you will never have a case where you look at edge orientation and predict what case you'll get afterwards for CO. Isn't that right? I see no arguement the can possibly formulate against that because it is a FACT. OLL is supposed to be a one-look thing with no such thing as predictions in it. You look at a case apply the rule/algorithm and you are finished. None of this predicting goes around. And Comp OLL isn't slower than 2-look OLL. When you look at it from an objective poitn-of-view it saves you one-look and you know exactly what to do unlike in 2-look where you are predicting what to do. But what if you predict wrong? Then you have to look at the case again and figure out the next algorithm. And it requires a lot more practice that should be focused on learning OLL. I think this really can't be argued.


----------



## tenderchkn (May 25, 2007)

> _Originally posted by Erik_@May 25 2007, 03:19 AM
> * I'm a bit baffled about the fact that you guys keep saying that it doesn't learn anything and that it doesn't let you treat OLL as ONE. With both systems (let's call it the 'advanced 2 look') and the compound OLL you treat it as ONE case. Treating something as one case means: you recognize the whole thing, you execute it as one thing, you merely use 2 connected algorithms which merge in to one long. I still have for instance an OLL case I perform as: FURU'R'F' R'U2RUR'UR. I also use the reverse of this case. Although I know about all other OLL cases. *


 I'm not saying anything different. I use the same algs. But it's not like you do FRUR'U'F' to flip the edges then the sune to orient corners - granted, it's a compound algorithm, but it's still one algorithm.

When you do a 2-look, it's a 2-look. It really doesn't matter how you go about doing it. When you get fluent to the point where you can see the OLL and close your eyes and do it in two algorithms, then it becomes a 1-look. It seems to be the goal of both of these methods to eventually achieve a 1-look, correct? Now, the argument that dChan is making is that using the compound method allows you to reach this 1-look stage faster and teaches you something that the traditional approach does not. My counter to that is that no matter what algs you use, it takes the same amount of time to learn to recognize the OLL as a whole and learn to combine two algorithms and execute them as one. It does not matter what algorithms you choose to use.

Even if you do remember and preserve the corner orientation, the resulting case is probably not going to be in the angle that you like, so you'd have to put a U turn in there on the fly. Is anybody (a beginner, especially) really expected to be able to combine algorithms like that on the fly? It takes learning either way, and there's no empirical evidence that one method has a easier learning curve over the other.


----------



## Erik (May 26, 2007)

Ah finaly, you totaly understand it  :lol: 
However on the last part: the compound OLL is easier to master, cause you already know how the corner orientations will be, in the advanced 2 look OLL thing you only know that after practise... :lol:


----------



## shadowclad002 (Jan 13, 2009)

tenderchkn, have you tried using it (ComOLL)?
I use compound OLL. 
IF you use the finger trick versions by Macky (as suggested in the link on the first post) , the algs are pretty fast, for me about as fast as the conventional 2 look OLL. 


> My counter to that is that no matter what algs you use, it takes the same amount of time to learn to recognize the OLL as a whole and learn to combine two algorithms and execute them as one. It does not matter what algorithms you choose to use.


I believe it does not take the same amount of time... I actually sat down and tried to figure out what would happen to the corners in the normal 2 look OLL before i learned ComOLL. IT was terribly hard(for me, that is). 
Now which is a better stepping stone to full OLL? A 2 look that takes more time to learn *..after practice*.., or a two look which gives you almost instantly a one look OLL feel and at the same time teaches you an extra 3 algorithms?
I think it should be this way: First learn 2look OLL, then Compound OLL, then Full OLL.


----------



## mazei (Jan 13, 2009)

I have around 10 more OLL algs to learn so I do them like this. I'm starting to get too comfortable with it and I might not even learn them


----------



## d4m4s74 (Jan 13, 2009)

I combined the 3 beginner OLLs I know to get a very-long-alged 2look oll
as soon as I know all 2look OLL algs I will probably combine those to a long 1look oll

I bet after that I will combine the OLL and PLL algs I know for a 1lll


----------

