# color neutral cubers



## guitardude7241 (Jan 31, 2010)

who here is color neutral, do you know anybody that's color neutral, and how fast are you/they?

please don't say anything about feliks zemdegs.
we already know about him.

i am, and check my sig for my speed.


----------



## TheMachanga (Jan 31, 2010)

I am.


----------



## dillonbladez (Jan 31, 2010)

phillip wong is colour neutral.
he averages low 20's

i'm not


----------



## Robert-Y (Jan 31, 2010)

Rowe Hessler, he's pretty fast...


----------



## Toad (Jan 31, 2010)

Robert Yau, he's pretty fast...


----------



## Logan (Jan 31, 2010)

I am. I avg~33.46 seconds. PB is 25.xy.


----------



## Shack (Jan 31, 2010)

well Felix is 

im sub 17 on a good a day and i am color neutral


----------



## Sherwood (Jan 31, 2010)

Does color neutral help you? Did it come natural to you guys or did you have to practice it?


----------



## guitardude7241 (Feb 1, 2010)

Sherwood said:


> Does color neutral help you? Did it come natural to you guys or did you have to practice it?



natural to me.


----------



## Ranzha (Feb 1, 2010)

I was.
Now, alas, I am not.
Now, I'm going to get a miniC, sticker it with random colours, and become colour neutral.


----------



## Edward_Lin (Feb 1, 2010)

I am


----------



## Zane_C (Feb 1, 2010)

I'm not, but I'm starting to practice with blue cross, (I normally use green).
After I've mastered green and blue at the same level, I may look into colour neutral.


----------



## AndyRoo789 (Feb 1, 2010)

Tristan Wright (a.k.a Thrawst on youtube) is color neutral.


----------



## Thomas09 (Feb 1, 2010)

Zane_C said:


> I'm not, but I'm starting to practice with blue cross, (I normally use green).
> After I've mastered green and blue at the same level, I may look into colour neutral.



That's known as partial colour neutral. I'm also it.


----------



## amostay2004 (Feb 1, 2010)

Haixu Zhang. I believe he is about the same speed as Feliks. I heard he did a sub-9 avg 12, not sure though. But definitely had a low 9 avg 12.


----------



## Dene (Feb 1, 2010)

I am.


----------



## jazzthief81 (Feb 1, 2010)

About 3 months ago I committed myself to become fully color neutral and these days I practice starting on different colors on a regular basis. 

I found that after you get over the initial scare, it becomes natural very quickly and it's a lot of fun!

My main ambition is to get a fully color neutral average of 12 on video (doing 2 solves on each color) that is close to my normal average (15s).


----------



## CharlieCooper (Feb 1, 2010)

I am completely colour neutral with every puzzle and I always have been. I've tried always starting with the same colours but it just feels odd. Also, using Petrus, it's far easier to make use of good cases if you are colour neutral. I average around 17-18 at home on an average day, but sometimes it's as high as 22 (usually on a competition day  ) or as low as 15/16 (never on a competition day  )


----------



## Dene (Feb 1, 2010)

jazzthief81 said:


> About 3 months ago I committed myself to become fully color neutral and these days I practice starting on different colors on a regular basis.
> 
> I found that after you get over the initial scare, it becomes natural very quickly and it's a lot of fun!
> 
> My main ambition is to get a fully color neutral average of 12 on video (doing 2 solves on each color) that is close to my normal average (15s).



I think you misunderstand the point of being colour neutral. Either that, or you are going about proving it to yourself in completely the wrong way. If I get 10 crosses on white in an average of 12, I'm still colour neutral. White just happens to stick out to me in those 10 solves.
Forcing yourself to use a particular colour on a particular solve is not being colour neutral.
Finding a cross that looks nice to you and being able to solve it, whichever colour it happens to be, without that particular colour having a positive or negative effect in general on your solving times, is being colour neutral.


----------



## CharlieCooper (Feb 1, 2010)

Dene said:


> jazzthief81 said:
> 
> 
> > About 3 months ago I committed myself to become fully color neutral and these days I practice starting on different colors on a regular basis.
> ...



That's true actually! Unless Lars means that it would be the "perfect" colour neutral average if he just happened to solve 2 of each colour in an average of 12....?


----------



## jazzthief81 (Feb 1, 2010)

Dene said:


> Finding a cross that looks nice to you and being able to solve it, whichever colour it happens to be, without that particular colour having a positive or negative effect in general on your solving times, is being colour neutral.


I totally agree. Color neutral is color neutral and the notion of having a preferred starting color becomes totally irrelevant.

What I said about the color neutral average is just an exercise or a goal I set myself. Of course, I'm limiting my freedom of choice by forcing myself to do 2 solves on each color, but to me that's missing the point of the exercise. If you're color neutral you should be able to start with any color, even if it doesn't have the best start.

Making the decision of what the best start is out of a number of possible starts, is one thing. Being able to start with any color and execute the solve quickly is another thing. I think both skills are necessary and to me, making the decision as to what the best start is, becomes trivial once you're able to execute solves on any color.


----------



## jazzthief81 (Feb 1, 2010)

Dene said:


> Forcing yourself to use a particular colour on a particular solve is not being colour neutral.


Ultimately you do though, _after _you've made up your mind which color is the best to start on.


----------



## Alifianto.Adi (Feb 1, 2010)

I was


----------



## endless_akatsuki (Feb 1, 2010)

Dan Brown actually taught me to be color neutral 

I average....about 14-16, depending on my mood.




jazzthief81 said:


> I think both skills are necessary and to me, making the decision as to what the best start is, becomes trivial once you're able to execute solves on any color.



So you're saying that you'd just pick a random side to do your cross?


----------



## jazzthief81 (Feb 1, 2010)

endless_akatsuki said:


> jazzthief81 said:
> 
> 
> > I think both skills are necessary and to me, making the decision as to what the best start is, becomes trivial once you're able to execute solves on any color.
> ...



I could if I decided to and that strategy shouldn't average out slower than starting with a fixed color all the time.


----------



## Yes We Can! (Feb 1, 2010)

CharlieCooper said:


> I am completely colour neutral with every puzzle and I always have been. I've tried always starting with the same colours but it just feels odd. Also, using Petrus, it's far easier to make use of good cases if you are colour neutral. I average around 17-18 at home on an average day, but sometimes it's as high as 22 (usually on a competition day  ) or as low as 15/16 (never on a competition day  )



But you can get 10.xy-singles at competition days


----------



## CharlieCooper (Feb 1, 2010)

Yes said:


> CharlieCooper said:
> 
> 
> > I am completely colour neutral with every puzzle and I always have been. I've tried always starting with the same colours but it just feels odd. Also, using Petrus, it's far easier to make use of good cases if you are colour neutral. I average around 17-18 at home on an average day, but sometimes it's as high as 22 (usually on a competition day  ) or as low as 15/16 (never on a competition day  )
> ...



Singles, no problem  That's actually my only good single ever. I've never had a lucky pyraminx solve (my best event... or at least it used to be ) in a competition, which is so annoying, because it would almost certainly be sub 3.5 if not 3, as they frequently are at home


----------



## Muesli (Feb 1, 2010)

*raises hand*


----------



## Dene (Feb 1, 2010)

jazzthief81 said:


> Dene said:
> 
> 
> > Forcing yourself to use a particular colour on a particular solve is not being colour neutral.
> ...



Then why not just use the one that you decided is the best to start on?

I'm trying to figure out exactly what you are saying here:



> Making the decision of what the best start is out of a number of possible starts, is one thing. Being able to start with any color and execute the solve quickly is another thing.



In the second point are you saying that you desire the ability to pick any colour before the solve, and for it to have no effect on solving time?
The problem I have with this is that the main idea of being CN is to avoid bad starts. So the first point you make is pertinent (being able to choose the best start), but the second is not (starting on a chosen colour).
Of course if you are looking for a different skill to being CN, for example a skill for no inspection solving in which you can solve the cube on whichever face is on F or U, then the second skill becomes relevant.

If the second point is instead trying to say that you desire the ability of a CN cuber, in which the colour cross that you choose as the best will then have no effect on solving time (positive or negative), this will not be fulfilled by your goal which as you said is to get an average of 12 with 2 solves on each colour cross.


----------



## Feryll (Feb 1, 2010)

I used to be a green-crosser due to Dan, but I thought I was the only one who couldn't do it with other sides back then >.< So around 1:30 ish I forced myself to use others until I was CN at sub minute.


----------



## Cyrus C. (Feb 1, 2010)

I started ~2 hours ago, I've done ~30 solves & it's pretty natural already.


----------



## CubesOfTheWorld (Feb 1, 2010)

i am on the 2x2, of course. i am semi color neutral on the 3x3


----------



## jazzthief81 (Feb 1, 2010)

Dene said:


> ...


Dene, I think the way you and I see color neutral solving is not different in any way. I'm not going to argue about this.

What I said about the color neutral average was just a fun idea I had, a goal I could work to that in my eyes is already a big step ahead towards becoming color neutral. I don't see how you can feel so strongly against it. Don't you think that it would at least be a good indication that you're color neutral?

I was also trying to present a practical approach to learning color neutral solving to people who come from a fixed color mindset, just as I do. I think that goes way further than suggesting that being color neutral is something horribly complex that only a select number of people can understand. 

I can assure you: it's not.


----------



## MichaelP. (Feb 1, 2010)

[About] How long does it take you to identify which color you'll be solving the cross on during inspection, and do you still have time to plan your cross once you've decided?


----------



## Stefan (Feb 2, 2010)

Lars vs Dene:

*Dene is right about cross.* Forcing yourself to use a certain cross color misses the point of CN.

*Lars is right about the rest of the solve.* Once you've chosen the best cross color, you're stuck with it for the rest of the solve. And for someone not yet CN, this is difficult with unfamiliar cross colors. Lars' experiment idea allows him to measure his progress towards CN, because an average containing six solves with his usual start color simply is incomparable to an average containing just one.


----------



## Robert-Y (Feb 2, 2010)

Any CN Roux users out there? Whenever I use Roux for fun, I find it a bit hard to start on any colour. I wouldn't really say I'm CN with Roux.


----------



## Stefan (Feb 2, 2010)

StefanPochmann said:


> *Lars is right about the rest of the solve.* Once you've chosen the best cross color, you're stuck with it for the rest of the solve. And for someone not yet CN, this is difficult with unfamiliar cross colors. Lars' experiment idea allows him to measure his progress towards CN, because an average containing six solves with his usual start color simply is incomparable to an average containing just one.



Hmm, actually this also applies to the cross. But I think there it matters less. I'm only guessing, but I'm guessing that becoming neutral for cross is much easier than becoming neutral for the rest of the solve. Finding the best cross by checking six possibilities rather than one sounds like more work, but the easy ones probably stick out somehow and so are easier to see. Also, you get to do it all in inspection, unlike the rest of the solve.

Alternative experiment suggestion for Lars (or anyone else): Allow yourself to freely choose the cross color... except the cross color(s) you're familiar with already. Especially if you're just used to one cross color, you'll then train 5-color-neutrality. That's pretty close to full color neutrality and prevents results from being distorted by too many or too few solves with the color(s) you're used to.


----------



## cincyaviation (Feb 2, 2010)

Dene said:


> I am.



well of course it would be dene...


----------



## MichaelP. (Feb 2, 2010)

MichaelP. said:


> [About] How long does it take you to identify which color you'll be solving the cross on during inspection, and do you still have time to plan your cross once you've decided?


----------



## Stefan (Feb 2, 2010)

MichaelP. said:


> [About] How long does it take you to identify which color you'll be solving the cross on during inspection, and do you still have time to plan your cross once you've decided?





MichaelP. said:


> MichaelP. said:
> 
> 
> > [About] How long does it take you to identify which color you'll be solving the cross on during inspection, and do you still have time to plan your cross once you've decided?



Impatient?



http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html#id383575 said:


> *If You Can't Get An Answer*
> 
> If you can't get an answer, please don't take it personally that we don't feel we can help you. Sometimes the members of the asked group may simply not know the answer. No response is not the same as being ignored, though admittedly it's hard to spot the difference from outside.
> 
> In general, simply re-posting your question is a bad idea. This will be seen as pointlessly annoying. Have patience: the person with your answer may be in a different time-zone and asleep. Or it may be that your question wasn't well-formed to begin with.


----------



## Dene (Feb 2, 2010)

Oh dear I'm sorry Lars! I didn't mean to make it sound like I was arguing. I was merely trying to help. I just think you are going about becoming colour neutral completely the wrong way if you force yourself to use other colours, even if they are not convenient at the start.
I think colour neutrality is something that you have to let come naturally. You just have to do solves on whichever cross looks nice and the rest will follow. However it might be a good idea to ignore the colour that you are used to solving on. But don't ignore it entirely, lest you become "5-colour neutral"  .



MichaelP. said:


> [About] How long does it take you to identify which color you'll be solving the cross on during inspection, and do you still have time to plan your cross once you've decided?



Seeing as you're being impatient I'll answer: not very long. The two cues that I use to decide my cross are: 1. The centre with the most connecting edges; and 2. The centre with the most opposite edges (i.e. F2 to place edge).
These two cues stand out the most I think. In cases of conflicting possible crosses it takes longer to pick. In this case you need to decide which will be the better between the two. Usually there is an obvious one to eliminate, like with a flipped edge or something in an awkward place. If this happens it takes longer to decide on the colour, but when you have you already know the cross. 

I just did a quick experiment, and it seems that it takes me about 7-8 seconds to plan the cross. The time it took to decide on which colour cross varied a lot more.


----------



## guitardude7241 (Feb 2, 2010)

MichaelP. said:


> [About] How long does it take you to identify which color you'll be solving the cross on during inspection, and do you still have time to plan your cross once you've decided?



me?
5 or 6 secs, then a few more to plan that cross out, if some of it's already not done.


----------



## eastamazonantidote (Feb 2, 2010)

I've had fun times solving on red and orange. Note that time there doesn't refer to good solving times, but minutes of entertainment.

I am completely color neutral on any even-numbered cube (even teh legendary 0x0x0). I just start where the cube left off.

I've worked on becoming partially CN (W/Y like everyone in the world) on the 3x3x3 and odd-numbered cubes in general (don't know why. psychological?). I also have green down alright and blue is coming along. I feel that once I get that third option down comfortably, the others will just fall into place.

I'm working on it, and this thread has gotten me more motivated. Though ZBLL also takes up a lot of time...CNZB sounds like a news channel.


----------



## Faz (Feb 2, 2010)

MichaelP. said:


> [About] How long does it take you to identify which color you'll be solving the cross on during inspection, and do you still have time to plan your cross once you've decided?



Few seconds at the most. I look for edges.


----------



## guitardude7241 (Feb 2, 2010)

fazrulz said:


> MichaelP. said:
> 
> 
> > [About] How long does it take you to identify which color you'll be solving the cross on during inspection, and do you still have time to plan your cross once you've decided?
> ...



lolz thats what 4/5 of the cross composes of


----------



## DavidWoner (Feb 2, 2010)

Robert-Y said:


> Any CN Roux users out there? Whenever I use Roux for fun, I find it a bit hard to start on any colour. I wouldn't really say I'm CN with Roux.



Thom always has white/yellow on L/R. This way he can easily place L/R edges during l6e, even if he is using non matching blocks. Austin always has red on bottom, I'm not sure if he has fixed L/R colors though.


----------



## jazzthief81 (Feb 2, 2010)

StefanPochmann said:


> Lars vs Dene:
> 
> *Dene is right about cross.* Forcing yourself to use a certain cross color misses the point of CN.



So Lars is right about the cross too. I never said anything that contradicted this. 

Also, remember this? http://www.cubezone.be/crossstudy.html Do you think I went through all that effort without knowing what I was doing?

I repeat: the color neutral average was just a *fun idea*. Of course I know that you're restricting your choice. 

So what? I don't care!


----------



## jazzthief81 (Feb 2, 2010)

Dene said:


> I just think you are going about becoming colour neutral completely the wrong way if you force yourself to use other colours, even if they are not convenient at the start.


I never said that I would do that. I only mentioned this in reply to someones remark on my *fun idea* to record a video where I would do 2 solves on each color. I never claimed that being able to do that is the point of being color neutral.

However, I think it's still is a good measure of your color neutrality and... it's a fun idea. 


Dene said:


> However it might be a good idea to ignore the colour that you are used to solving on..


...and forcing myself not to use a particular color? Are you joking? :confused:


----------



## nathanajah (Feb 2, 2010)

Ando (Heribertus Ariando) and Jihan Khalillurahman are color neutral.
I think both of them are sub-15.


----------



## Dene (Feb 2, 2010)

jazzthief81 said:


> Dene said:
> 
> 
> > However it might be a good idea to ignore the colour that you are used to solving on..
> ...



Just temporarily. Just to try to wash down the influence that white might have on your solving. It might be best to give it a short break so that the other colours have time to catch up.


----------



## brunson (Feb 2, 2010)

MichaelP. said:


> [About] How long does it take you to identify which color you'll be solving the cross on during inspection, and do you still have time to plan your cross once you've decided?


Two or three seconds, then I commit and don't look back.


----------



## miniGOINGS (Feb 2, 2010)

DavidWoner said:


> Robert-Y said:
> 
> 
> > Any CN Roux users out there? Whenever I use Roux for fun, I find it a bit hard to start on any colour. I wouldn't really say I'm CN with Roux.
> ...



I don't think I know anyone that is fully neutral speedsolving Roux, but I know Waffle is partially (I think he uses black or yellow on U, other than that, neutral). That gives his consistant recog for CMLL and EO.


----------



## Kirjava (Feb 2, 2010)

DavidWoner said:


> Robert-Y said:
> 
> 
> > Any CN Roux users out there? Whenever I use Roux for fun, I find it a bit hard to start on any colour. I wouldn't really say I'm CN with Roux.
> ...



This is true, but to clarify; I'm neutral with regard to opposite colours - that is, L can be white/yellow, and U can be blue/green (sometimes both ). 

This gives me four blocks to pick from when I start, and after the first block, I can choose between another two to build as the second.

So it's like half neutral with some additional deep magic - I've never come across someone who is CN with Roux, at least not fully.


----------



## CharlieCooper (Feb 2, 2010)

*I just did an average of 12 using colour neutrality (petrus) and had 17.82s*
This is a fairly normal average for me, it's the result I'd expect.
*
I then did 12 solves making my first 2x2x2 block always red, blue and white for which I had an average of 21.45*
This is considerably slower. Without being able to take advantage of easy blocks, it's impossible to build efficiently and quickly. For me at least!

*The next thing I tried was always ensuring I finished with a yellow top, i.e. starting with the 2x2x2 RBW block, but extending in such ways that I would be able to have a yellow top and averaged 19.32* 
I used to do this when I was learning trickier F2L cases for the "last pair" as fridrich users would call it, and I found that it was a lot easier to spot the cases when I was always looking for the same colour patterns.

So that pretty much illustrated my point well. Complete colour neutrality, even with the more difficult last pair situation, is by far the quickest for me. The time it takes me to build difficult blocks but always on the same colour wastes a lot of time for me. This combined with a random last pair colour pattern to recognise makes it pretty difficult to sub 20. Even when I limit but don't completely restrict my colour choice, i.e. in the third average, and even with the benefit of the last layer always being the same colour, it's still barely sub 20. It would appear that a fast initial block, at least in my case, is absolutely imperative to a good solve, even if that means wasting maybe a second (sometimes two) identifying the final pair case.

I would be interested to see how other sub 20 petrus users did with this task.


----------



## joey (Feb 2, 2010)

Are harder blocks harder to build than hard crosses are hard to build?
(I think so)


----------



## rcnrcn927 (Feb 2, 2010)

I'm color neutral, only because it helps my cross more than it hurts my F2L. I average ~24 seconds. It's easy if you from the start of your cubing career you do the cross on the easiest side, but if you're only accustomed to White, you have to learn to like the other sides.


----------



## Muesli (Feb 2, 2010)

My thoughts on the matter, or me yapping on and on for 7:33 depending on how you see it.


----------



## jazzthief81 (Feb 2, 2010)

joey said:


> Are harder blocks harder to build than hard crosses are hard to build?
> (I think so)


It's kind of hard to tell. If you look at move count, building a 2x2x2 block on a fixed corner takes 6.03 moves on average with a maximum of 8 moves. For building a cross on a fixed side the average is 5.82 with a maximum of 8 moves.

We know that for a color neutral cross the average drops to 4.81 moves but the worst case is still 8 moves. 

Stefan Pochmann did some some computer studies in his thesis where he did 10000 random solves with different F2L strategies and he worked out that building a 2x2x2 block on any corner requires about 5.27 moves on average and the worst case he encountered was 7 moves.

Here's a link to Stefan's thesis:
http://www.stefan-pochmann.de/hume/

A recommended read if you want to get a good comparison between block building and cross+pair building!


----------



## BigGreen (Feb 5, 2010)

DavidWoner said:


> Robert-Y said:
> 
> 
> > Any CN Roux users out there? Whenever I use Roux for fun, I find it a bit hard to start on any colour. I wouldn't really say I'm CN with Roux.
> ...



L/R blocks are yellow or white for me
Ive tried different bottom colors before but i never stick with it

also CN + roux would be pretty incredible to see


----------



## ElderKingpin (Feb 5, 2010)

Musli4brekkies said:


> My thoughts on the matter, or me yapping on and on for 7:33 depending on how you see it.



British accent. Ftw.

---

I am semi-color neutral, i can only solve yellow and white cross without going slower. I never thought i would need to be color neutral.


----------



## miniGOINGS (Feb 6, 2010)

BigGreen said:


> also CN + roux would be pretty incredible to see



Any 1 of 24 FB's, then any 1 or 4 blocks, NMCMLL, LSE. That would be beast.


----------

