# The objectively and measurably best way to learn ZBLL. The Anki approach.



## FJT97 (May 22, 2019)

Hi


Back in 2016 i started working on an Anki deck for learning ZBLL for TH and OH rightie. Later Simon Kalhofer (@Petro Leum ) jumped on the train and added algs for OH leftie and added a nice tagging system.


Today is finally the day we share the deck.


I encourage you to read the whole post before getting started.


*What is Anki?*


Anki is a free open source app for desktop, android and iOS, mostly developed by Damien Elmes, which lets you create and learn flashcards. What makes Anki special is that it uses the spaced repetition system which makes learning stuff way more efficient than normal flashcards. You can learn more of spaced repetition here and here.




*What does the deck contain?*


The deck includes 493 notes, one for each ZBLL case.


Each note is tagged with the appropriate subsets, so you can easily sort and navigate all the cases. We also included a 2GLL and a ZZLL tag.



Each note features multiple fields:


"Picture", depicticing the case looking upon the U face.


"Alg_TH", which is the main alg used for two-handed.


"Alg_OH_rightie" and "Alg_OH_leftie" are the main algs for one-handed, for the left and right hand respectively.

Note: The rotations at the beginning of the algs refer to the pics, not to the scrambles. The pics are all in the same orientation.


"Teambld_code" can be used to assign a name to a case to learn for Team Blind. This currently features the german naming by Simon Kalhofer and Christine Brychcy . You can replace them with your own names to study. The names proved to be helpful for remembering the algs in general.


"ZBLL_Nr." is the number of the case following the scheme that is also used on algdb.net.


„Recog“ is another recognition system which is also used on bestsiteever.ru It lets you find each case easily whitout knowing its teambld code or ZBLL nr. That way the deck is a very good ressource for zblls in general. Feel free to download it and see if there are some good algs you didnt know about. And also let me know if there are good algs missing!


On the bottom of the note, scrambles are provided for each case, taken from bestsiteever.ru, as well as a separate field for alternative algs. If you want to learn a different alg, just swap it out with the one in the main alg fields at the top of the note.


A card is created for TH as well as for OH, to be learned in the same deck.



*How to get started?*


Download anki here


Open anki, select the tools menu, select Add-ons. click on Get add ons. Paste the following code, press enter and restart anki: 1835859645


That way you downloaded the addon hierarchical tags which is crucial for the zbll deck.


Download the zbll deck which you’ll find at the end of this post.


For general use of anki i encourage you to read through the manual of anki: https://apps.ankiweb.net/docs/manual.html#




*How to study the zbll deck?*





Now we are getting somewhere  For this part i assume that you read the important parts of the manual which are: The basics, studying, editing, Deck options, Browser, Filtered decks and cramming.

For starters you should suspend all the cards and only unsupend those you want to learn. So lets say you want to learn the two handed 2glls of the h set. To do this you need to: Select the H tag. Select the 2gll tag while holding down the strg, cmd key and adding card:1 to the search query. Then unsuspend the cards.


*Note: I figured that you benefit a lot(!) when you just learn the cases completely randomly. That way you won’t have the problem that you confuse cases which each other. Downside is of course that you can’t directly implement the algs in your solves. To have a compromise: Start by learning all TH ZZLLs completely randomly. That way you can at least work with them in solves. phasing is easy.*





*Note: card:1 searches for all TH cards. Card:2 searches for all OH cards.*


Thats the basic principle of selecting cards to learn. if you want to continue with another set just go about them the same way. if all cards are unsuspended some day. you are full zbll 


Anki is meant to be used to study facts or vocabulary. Learning algorithms is a different thing so we need to tweak the settings of anki a bit. I can only provide you with the settings that worked for me. Maybe you want to experiment for yourself. My general strategy: Its better if i see the card rather too often than too infrequently. That means that my options are not very likely to be the most efficient. But they worked for me.








*Deck options:*


*New cards:*


Steps: 1 2 5 5 10 10 840 (I wanna make sure that i have the alg in my muscle memory before i hit good on it. The 840 tells anki to show it me again tomorrow)


Order: random


New cards a day: That is totally up to you. But bear in mind that the more cards you do, the greater your workload for the next day will become and you will be more likely to mix stuff up.


Graduating interval: 1 day


Easy interval: 3 days


starting ease: 130% (This would be insane for vocab. but for ZBLLs i like to see my cards often.)


Bury related cards is checked








*Review cards:*


Maximum: 9999


Easy bonus: 100 (which is basically no bonus, which is fine as the ease gets buffed, which is enough bonus)


interval modifier: 66 (mostly because that’s a funny number  I am not sure how to set that value. I had it at 10 which increases your workload by a lot but you won’t forget as much. 90 % retention rate is not enough for ZBLLs that’s why this should be way below 100)


Maximum intervall 9999 (a way smaller value could be nice here, experiment with it)


Bury checked



*Lapses:*

Steps: 1 5 5 20 840 (i wanna make sure that i know that case)


New interval: 0


Minimum: 1


Leech threshold: 99 (you would have many lapses otherwise i guess)


Leech action tag only






*General preferences:*


uncheck „show next time above answer buttons“. That value would only distract you.


Select show new cards before review


Learn ahead limit: 0 mins






The cards show OH leftie algs as a default as that is more common. If you want to see the rightie cards, follow these steps:


Tools - manage note types - choose the zbll note type - click on cards - choose the second card type in the little drop down menu at the top - replace the very last line ( {{Alg_OH_leftie}} ) with {{Alg_OH_rightie}}



I think this is all you need to know. If you have any questions post them in this thread and i will try my best to answer them. If you find any mistakes or good algs that are not in the deck, please let me know aswell.


Finally you can download the deck here: https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/519917092 Note that the deck might get taken down automatically there if it doesnt get enough downloads. So if its not available there, just comment in this thread and i update the link.

Greetings

Fin Thiessen


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## Thom S. (May 22, 2019)

@pjk I remember that this is something you wished for in a post from like last summer


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## FJT97 (May 22, 2019)

Thom S. said:


> @pjk I remember that this is something you wished for in a post from like last summer



yeah, it took me a while  Better late than never.


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## PapaSmurf (May 22, 2019)

Combine this with an alg trainer (either Roman's or Tao's) and you've got a winning formula!


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## pjk (May 23, 2019)

Thom S. said:


> @pjk I remember that this is something you wished for in a post from like last summer


Good memory - yeah, having Anki decks for various sets of algs would be super useful. Thanks @FJT97 for getting this posted for ZBLL.

Also, regarding your note on moving to the resources section: I've moved this thread to the How-To, Guides. Is that what you're referring to?


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## FJT97 (May 24, 2019)

pjk said:


> Also, regarding your note on moving to the resources section: I've moved this thread to the How-To, Guides. Is that what you're referring to?




I meant this site: https://www.speedsolving.com/pages/resources/ i thought it would be fitting in the algorithms section, as the thread would probably vanish soon otherwise and nobody would think of searching for it.


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## pjk (May 25, 2019)

FJT97 said:


> I meant this site: https://www.speedsolving.com/pages/resources/ i thought it would be fitting in the algorithms section, as the thread would probably vanish soon otherwise and nobody would think of searching for it.


Good idea, added now.


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## ottozing (May 25, 2019)

Reminds me of this from Roman - https://bestsiteever.ru/zbll/

Looks cool!

Also I'm never going to forgive myself for coining the phrase "objectively/measurably optimal"


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## FJT97 (May 25, 2019)

ottozing said:


> Reminds me of this from Roman - https://bestsiteever.ru/zbll/
> 
> Looks cool!
> 
> Also I'm never going to forgive myself for coining the phrase "objectively/measurably optimal"


all the scrambles are from the site from roman. Good thing with anki is that you dont have to manually choose the algs which are hard for you. That is especially useful if you know the algs for a long time already. anki then just shows you the algs that are kinda hard, or which you might forget; easy algs are shown way less.


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