# I just solved a 4x4x4 blindfolded!



## Jason Baum (Jan 3, 2008)

Hey guys,

I just had my first successful 4x4x4 BLD! This was my second full attempt at this, my first one was way off. The total time was about an hour exactly. I memorized in about 35 minutes and solved in about 25. Nothing was really that hard in this solve; I didn't have parity or anything and most of my commutators were pretty easy. Still, I'm so excited right now. I seriously thought I could never do this, and it felt amazing to take the blindfold off and see my 4x4x4 completely solved.

HUGE thanks to Chris Hardwick, Daniel Beyer, and Mike Hughey for helping me out and teaching me how to do this. I couldn't have done it without you guys!


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## tim (Jan 3, 2008)

very nice, jason . keep practicing and once you get fast at it, 4x4 bld is so much fun.


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## Stefan (Jan 3, 2008)

Darn, nowadays I wouldn't even make it into the top 20 anymore. What happened to the good old days when only a handful of people were able to do this?


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## Mike Hughey (Jan 3, 2008)

Congratulations! Since you had such early success, you of course had a slow first time. Like me! (I think my first success was my third attempt, so you did better than me in that regard.)

Your times will drop fast as you gain confidence, I'm sure.

As Chris Hardwick likes to say, welcome to the addiction! (It does feel pretty amazing, doesn't it?)


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## ExoCorsair (Jan 3, 2008)

Congrats, Jason!


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## AvGalen (Jan 3, 2008)

StefanPochmann said:


> Darn, nowadays I wouldn't even make it into the top 20 anymore. What happened to the good old days when only a handful of people were able to do this?


I think some people have actually gotten their first succes at big-blind during an official competition. They also had to figure at most/all of it.

Now we have a weekly competition, tutorials and discussions about the tutorials.

(It was just months ago when I was nr. 7 with 2/2 in 26 minutes. I am pretty sure that by the end of 2008 that wouldn't be top-50)


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## cmhardw (Jan 4, 2008)

Jason congrats! I knew you would get one soon!

I wholeheartedly agree with Mike's statement, welcome to your new addiction ;-)

Chris


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## dbeyer (Jan 4, 2008)

*chk chika bow wow*
Good Job Jason. I am glad to hear of your success. Now can your first succesful 5x5 be faster than your first successful 4x4??


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## hait2 (Jan 4, 2008)

grats jason! 

i keep putting off my 4x4x4 bld adventures ever since i did my proof of concept solve (executing blind while reading cycles off of a paper)

im lazy to create a memory system for this T_T; ill get around to it eventually.. i hope


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## Caio Lafetá (Jan 4, 2008)

congratulations Jason!


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## joey (Jan 4, 2008)

Good work! 
There is always the thought of trying 4x4 BLD, but I still havn't gotten round to it! Multibld is next on my list!


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## Tomarse (Jan 4, 2008)

Congrats mate :]


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## hait2 (Jan 12, 2008)

i haven't timed it (i wasn't expecting a solve. it was my 3rd attempt. only 2nd resembled a work in progress, the first was just like a freshly scrambled one), it was well over an hour though. probably closer to 2 because of painfully slow memorization and terrible execution (store bought, non-lubed cube)

BUT I DID IT!

i really love commutators. its actually quite empowering to know how they work hehehe. i have solved 3x3x3's entirely with freestyle commutators now too, it's a lot of fun


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## Mike Hughey (Jan 12, 2008)

Congratulations, hait2! I agree - the coolest part for me of doing big cubes BLD is the commutators. And you're probably faster than you think. It'll improve quickly.


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## pjk (Jan 12, 2008)

Congrats Jason.


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## jackolanternsoup (Jan 12, 2008)

I've fantacised about doing this a lot... would it be a good idea to do 3x3x3 bld first? lol


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## pajodaep (Jan 12, 2008)

StefanPochmann said:


> Darn, nowadays I wouldn't even make it into the top 20 anymore. What happened to the good old days when only a handful of people were able to do this?



hmmm.. come on, you're a legend in BLD, being the first successful solver of th 5x5 BLD, no one will ever forget that. also, you're BLD tutorials are pretty good . there are a lot of BLD solvers here in the Philippines, and most of us learned BLD using one of your methods.


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## Mike Hughey (Jan 12, 2008)

jackolanternsoup said:


> I've fantacised about doing this a lot... would it be a good idea to do 3x3x3 bld first? lol



Hey - why not be the first to solve a 4x4x4 BLD before you ever solve a 3x3x3 BLD? It would be fun.


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## joey (Jan 12, 2008)

Mike Hughey said:


> jackolanternsoup said:
> 
> 
> > I've fantacised about doing this a lot... would it be a good idea to do 3x3x3 bld first? lol
> ...



Along the same lines as your friend I think


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## Mike Hughey (Jan 14, 2008)

Exactly. Maybe I should try to find some poor soul that I can convince to solve a 4x4x4 BLD before they ever solve a 3x3x3 sighted.


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## jackolanternsoup (Jan 17, 2008)

Mike Hughey said:


> Exactly. Maybe I should try to find some poor soul that I can convince to solve a 4x4x4 BLD before they ever solve a 3x3x3 sighted.




haha. good luck with that... But maybe you should start off with teaching me how to solve 4x4x4 BLD before 3x3x3 BLD.. that's still an accomplishment


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## Mike Hughey (Jan 17, 2008)

jackolanternsoup said:


> Mike Hughey said:
> 
> 
> > Exactly. Maybe I should try to find some poor soul that I can convince to solve a 4x4x4 BLD before they ever solve a 3x3x3 sighted.
> ...



That would be fun. You really should try it. You can start by learning r2 (Erik's site is good for explaining that), and get where you can do that, first sighted, then blind. Then you can learn centers, using my explanation. I guess you also need to figure out corners, so you'll be able to do a 2x2x2 BLD. But if you go in that order, you should still be essentially incapable of doing a 3x3x3 BLD, so you'll have pulled it off - r2 won't work for 3x3x3 edges; M2 is a little different. So it would be legitimate.

(Betcha didn't think I was serious, did you? I am serious.)


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## Lt-UnReaL (Jan 17, 2008)

pajodaep said:


> StefanPochmann said:
> 
> 
> > Darn, nowadays I wouldn't even make it into the top 20 anymore. What happened to the good old days when only a handful of people were able to do this?
> ...



I thought Richard Carr and 1 or 2 other guys were before him?


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## Mike Hughey (Jan 17, 2008)

Stefan was the first one to solve 5x5x5 BLD in competition, though. Richard Carr and Dror Vomberg both tried at that competition, but failed. (At least, according to the WCA database.)


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## Stefan (Jan 18, 2008)

Mike Hughey said:


> Stefan was the first one to solve 5x5x5 BLD in competition, though. Richard Carr and Dror Vomberg both tried at that competition, but failed. (At least, according to the WCA database.)



Once I get control over the unofficial database as well, I'll make it look like I was the first unofficially, too. Mwuahahahaha. Just kidding, actually I'd like to show more history than just everybody's latest record.


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## jackolanternsoup (Jan 19, 2008)

Mike Hughey said:


> jackolanternsoup said:
> 
> 
> > Mike Hughey said:
> ...



haha i thought you were. And I'm serious too... Just that i need to get a new 4x4x4 or replace the center so that i can start. Cubesmith's been out for at least the past 2 weeks... (i don't think I've ever seen them carry stock for it since i started visiting their site since October)

I'll probaably buy a new one sometime next month when i get my allowance if cubesmith doesn't have stock yet.


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## Jason Baum (Jan 24, 2008)

I crushed my old PR earlier tonight: 14:59.74. This solve was amazing. I memorized in 6:30, and I've never been able to do sub 10 memo before. I basically tried to memorize and solve as quickly as I can with minimal review. I think I was able to memorize so quickly because my story actually made some sense. A lot of times my stories are very random, but this one flowed together quite nicely. My previous record was 36:xx, but I had 10 consecutive DNFs before this attempt, and they were all low to mid 20s. Anyway I'm thrilled to have gotten a sub 15 already! 4x4x4 BLD is awesome.


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## Tim Reynolds (Jan 24, 2008)

Wow, nice Jason! Maybe I should try that, just rushing through memo, it seemed to work for you!


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## Jason Baum (Jan 24, 2008)

Yeah, I think rushing through memo is actually quite effective. I read some tips on how to increase your reading speed a few years ago, and one of the things they mentioned is to actually read slightly faster than what your comfortable pace is. The reason for this is that your brain naturally responds when it is challenged, so if you read slightly faster you will naturally retain more information. Obviously you don't want to just blaze through the text, but force yourself to read just slightly faster than normal. I think this is very applicable to blindfold solving as well. I'm not by any means an authority on BLD, but I've found that whenever I force myself to memorize slightly faster than normal, I have no problem retaining the information. I've been doing this with the 3x3x3 recently and I've been able to memorize in as fast as 45 seconds on some solves, which is a massive improvement for me. This was the first time I tried this approach on the 4x4x4, and it obviously produced a great result. So I definitely think rushing through memo is a good way to approach any BLD solve, you just have to know what your limits are in terms of how fast you can go.

Edit: I just did another attempt, again with memorizing slightly faster than what's comfortable, and I got a 15:25.xx, but I was off by a 3 center cycle. Still, this has clearly dropped my times considerably, so it definitely works!


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## joey (Jan 24, 2008)

Woah Jason, thats improvement. I was happy when I broke my 3x3 BLD by 17s!


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## Mike Hughey (Jan 24, 2008)

Awesome, Jason. See, you caught up to me in just a matter of weeks - I knew you would. You'll probably be sub-10 in just another month or two. (And I'll probably be happy with getting sub-13 at about the same time.) 

I've been having a rough time with my 4x4x4 BLD lately as well. I'm getting a little more than half successful solves, but they're really mostly disasters even when I solve them - I've been having a lot of attempts over 20 minutes lately. I'm memorizing the wrong pieces, getting confused and having to go back over my memorization before I even pull on the blindfold, etc. The actual solving phase is usually going well, but the memorization phase is just a mess lately for me. I'm hoping this is just a passing thing before a new personal best, like it apparently was for you.


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## ROOT (Mar 31, 2008)

a bit late but congrats, ive gotten close, but no cigar. just right now i was off by 5 edges and 2 centers.


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