# ZZ Cubers



## JohnnyA (Dec 28, 2008)

I'm gradually switching my main method from Fridrich to ZZ. It's a great method once you get used to EOLine - I can now do it in about 3-5 seconds consistently and my average for the entire ZZ solve is about 25.

I don't think ZZ gets enough attention on this forum. I was wondering how many people use ZZ as a speedcubing method, how many are learning it and if there are people still working on developing it. Post here with times/averages/advice etc. if you are a ZZ cuber and lets try and convert more people to ZZ.


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## suhas2112 (Dec 28, 2008)

Sorry to be a noob, but what is ZZ? Is it the zebrowski(spell check) method?


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## Escher (Dec 28, 2008)

use the search function!!!

i use ZZ, but not as a speedsolving method. 

im really rubbish at EOLine, but when its easy (check the weird/hard/funny scrambles thread for a good ZZ scramble i posted a while ago) or i do it before i start timing, i get very fast times - as good as or better than my fridrich times.
i average about 17s with fridrich (after a bit of warmup), and i couldnt really say what i average with ZZ, as my preinspection is more like 2 minutes than 15s, so it doesnt really count (in that time i could plan double or triple x-crosses for every fridrich solve...). but my single pb is 14.66 (including EOLine and normal preinspection) anyway.


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## JohnnyA (Dec 28, 2008)

suhas2112 said:


> Sorry to be a noob, but what is ZZ? Is it the zebrowski(spell check) method?



This is the main article on ZZ: http://www.emsee.110mb.com/Speedcubing/ZZ speedcubing system.html



Escher said:


> use the search function!!!
> 
> i use ZZ, but not as a speedsolving method.
> 
> ...



EOLine takes a lot of getting used to. The way I do it is to put a finger on every piece that needs to be reoriented, and from there I can see the "shape" of the bad pieces and find the first move. I can normally get the 5-7 moves (avg) it takes to do eoline in 15 seconds, although if I want to actually plan the time it takes about 30.

The F2L I find awkward having never practiced fingertricks on my left hand (left handed, oddly enough) but it's improving.


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## yurivish (Dec 28, 2008)

i switched to ZZ when the thread about it appeared on this forum. At the time, I was averaging around 25 with Fridrich. Now my best average with ZZ is 19.10. 

I still don't fully preispect the EOline, I just look for the orientation and sometimes keep track of the two edges. I also end up doing EOCross quite often—It's more moves, I think, but the F2L is easier and more fun.


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## Escher (Dec 28, 2008)

you dont have to use your LH - just finish the RH block, and then put the f2l in your left hand - a z rotation (?), so you can finish the 'LH' part with RU, but you have to get used to f2l on your left first...
i too am awful with my LH, so i feel your pain!

my EOLine is pretty slow, but generally quite efficient. being opposite Line neutral is useful too


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## yurivish (Dec 28, 2008)

Escher said:


> you dont have to use your LH - just finish the RH block, and then put the f2l in your left hand - a z rotation (?), so you can finish the 'LH' part with RU, but you have to get used to f2l on your left first...
> i too am awful with my LH, so i feel your pain!
> 
> my EOLine is pretty slow, but generally quite efficient. being opposite Line neutral is useful too



I recommend just sticking with using your left hand. It gets easier after a while. One of the ups of ZZ is that you don't have to do any cube rotations at all. I do my F2L irregularly, with both sides done simultaneously. Then I don't rotate for the COLL, nor for the PLL.


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## Escher (Dec 28, 2008)

yurivish said:


> I recommend just sticking with using your left hand. It gets easier after a while. One of the ups of ZZ is that you don't have to do any cube rotations at all. I do my F2L irregularly, with both sides done simultaneously. Then I don't rotate for the COLL, nor for the PLL.



perhaps you're right.
ill probably just practice two-gen solves with LU to get things better, and keep the z plane rotation as a stopgap solution as i train my LH...

i have a friend who only recently started fridrich, and i think im going to try and convert him to ZZ once he's a bit more experienced. he will be my experiment!! mwa ha ha. 
but seriously, i have to start recommending this to the newer cubers - it has so much potential as a method!

apart from zborowski, are there any pure (or mostly) ZZ users who are sub 18/17?


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## JohnnyA (Dec 28, 2008)

I would say doing a cube rotation isn't a great idea for ZZ. The point of the method when the "link" is found is to be 2gen, but for now the method is to keep it 3gen and using rotations in f2l ruins that. Fingertricks for left hand are taking a while but will be worth it I think


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## Lord Voldemort (Dec 28, 2008)

I accidentally deleted my post somehow.
anyway, is recognition for 800 algorithms really practical?
The 300 to put in the last F2l pair seems ok, but the 500 to get 1LLL seems sort of iffy. If it's so great, then why hasn't anyone done that with Petrus?
(You have edges oriented already)


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## Escher (Dec 28, 2008)

Lord Voldemort said:


> I accidentally deleted my post somehow.
> anyway, is recognition for 800 algorithms really practical?
> The 300 to put in the last F2l pair seems ok, but the 500 to get 1LLL seems sort of iffy. If it's so great, then why hasn't anyone done that with Petrus?
> (You have edges oriented already)



errrrrr what?

you are mixed up.

the ZZ method does away with ZBF2l (those three hundred algs you talk about), as you orient edges already, so once you have finished f2l, then ZBF2l has already been 'done'.
then ZBLL is solving EP, CP and CO at the same time, hence 500 algs (or whatever).
you can use ZBLL with ZZ.
COLL splits up ZBLL - solve CO and CP at the same time, and then finish EP with 4 more algorithms.

read that link, so you really know what ZZ is...


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## Lord Voldemort (Dec 28, 2008)

I was confused between the full ZZ and the Z-b I think.


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## blah (Dec 28, 2008)

I just tried ZZ for the first time today, and I got 21.xx average of 12 for my first 12 solves. I average 17.xx with Fridrich. Should I switch?

I tried ZZ for OH, it's kinda awkward at the moment, and I'm way slower than my Fridrich average, but I think I'll see some progress soon enough


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## bamman1108 (Dec 28, 2008)

I don't get how to do it from that link on the first page. Can anyone explain it at all?


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## yurivish (Dec 28, 2008)

blah said:


> I just tried ZZ for the first time today, and I got 21.xx average of 12 for my first 12 solves. I average 17.xx with Fridrich. Should I switch?
> 
> I tried ZZ for OH, it's kinda awkward at the moment, and I'm way slower than my Fridrich average, but I think I'll see some progress soon enough



That's kinda crazy.

How are you so good at.. Never mind. Just looked at your sig. 

For me, edge orientation was the killer for a while. My EOLine/cross step still isn't that good.

But yeah, if you like the feel of the F2L then switch away! That's a pretty damn good time to get at the very outset. I was averaging from 40 seconds to a minute when I first started (I was new both to edge orientation and blockbuilding), and 25 with Fridrich.


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## blah (Dec 28, 2008)

I'm too used to _my_ Fridrich F2L rhythm  It goes something like: bunch of right-handed moves, y rotation, some more right-handed moves, another y rotation, even more right-handed moves, probably a y' rotation, finish off the last slot. My left hand's as good as dead.

Now this stupid ZZ is forcing me to use my left hand and it's killing me  and I've gotta relearn some F2L algs too, some optimal ones are not 2-gen.

I don't know how long my inspection is, probably 30 seconds or so. I don't plan EOLine, I just plan EO, which can be as fast as cross inspection if I get 4 or fewer bad edges, or it can take up to 30 seconds if I've got 6 or 8, I've only got one or two 10's so far, which I just gave up and did pure Fridrich 

My universal average (of about ~50) is about 23-24 now. Guess I got lucky during the first 12 

I'm consistently getting sub-35 for OH now, with occasional ~45-second bad cases  My Fridrich average is about 30, I imagine myself getting much faster once I learn COLL  Any opinions?

Edit: @yurivish: I just got what you meant by "just looked at your sig"! Umm, no, my err... what do you call that? "Proficiency"? My proficiency(?) in EO has nothing to do with BLD, I do M2  I just did a bit of homework for about an hour before I started ZZ, so I got the whole "intuitive feel" for EO, that's all. I'll post something up in this thread once I've done enough homework, it's probably gonna do beginners _some_ good if they're lost at EO.


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## a small kitten (Dec 28, 2008)

Yurivish got me into it, so I'm gradually switching from color neutral Fridrich to ZZ. I would assume that ZZ is good for one hand since it eliminates awkward rotation and reduces move count. And lol, I'm the opposite of you. My left hand is very fast but my right hand is slow. However, I practiced the sexy move and now it's a lot better.

I don't fully plan the EO line either, because once the edges are oriented the line is easy to make anyway. I'm still working on that. Also trying to get the hang of block building and not making the EO cross every time.


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## blah (Dec 28, 2008)

Does anyone have any concrete evidence that ZZ has a lower move count than Fridrich? So far my experience tells me no, at least up to the completion of F2L, it _definitely_ takes more moves than Fridrich.

EOLine > cross, RUL-F2L > 6-gen F2L. I don't see how ZZ's move count can be lower than Fridrich.

What happens after F2L is a different story, because there are lots of 1-look LL theories going on, but I don't think anyone's learned full ZBLL yet? Nor "the 1-look LL with UF and UB solved"-thingy?


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## a small kitten (Dec 28, 2008)

Or maybe it just appears to be faster for me because I can RUL fast lol. I don't have any evidence, but if you are going to block build I'm assuming that it's going to be lower move count. The ZZ page says 47 moves for 1LLL. When you say

EOLine > cross, RUL-F2L > 6-gen F2L.

are you making a full cross or just the EO line? You just need the EO line.


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## blah (Dec 28, 2008)

Optimal cross takes a maximum of 8 moves. Optimal EOLine takes 9. And if I remember correctly, the average number of moves for EOLine is slightly higher than cross.

About this: RUL-F2L > 6-gen F2L. My bad. I was assuming everyone did Fridrich style F2L for ZZ, like I do  I guess block building does reduce the move count.

And I just did a non-RA of 12 for OH using ZZ: 31.95 = 33.51, 31.62, 35.80, 32.62, 39.86, (25.23), 32.16, (46.41), 27.66, 27.12, 27.96, 31.16. And I got 2 OLL skips among those, and lots of sunes/antisunes. ZZ pwns. I average 30 with Fridrich. This calls for change!


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## JohnnyA (Dec 28, 2008)

Doing Fridrich F2L on a ZZ solve makes no sense. It will just misorient the last layer edges. The strength of ZZ I think is not so much the move count but the super fast F2L after eoline/cross, since it is 3-gen f2l. Also don't forget intuitive phasing of the LL leads to 130 (correct?) 1LLL cases.


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## a small kitten (Dec 28, 2008)

I think he means cross, and then slot everything like Fridrich with RUL. I'm still doing that a little because it does eliminate awkward slotting cases that I hated. I think it's 167 cases for 1LLL. 

"The main difference lies in so called "phasing". Just when finishing F2L, one must permute two opposite LL edges, usually UF and UB. It takes 2-4 moves on average and can be done on the fly (of course after proper training). Phasing style is individual to each speedcuber, as it depends on F2L techniques. However, you can see basic approach to this problem in Phasing section in Practical notes.

After ZZF2L comes the standard 1-look LL. However, fact of two opposite edges permutted correctly drastically decreases a number of possible LL cases. It's 80 distinct algorithms. When we count inversions and symmetries, it gives us 167 sequences. This is 2x that of Fridrich, but it's still a reasonable number that can be learned and recognized quickly"


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## JohnnyA (Dec 28, 2008)

a small kitten said:


> I think he means cross, and then slot everything like Fridrich with RUL. I'm still doing that a little because it does eliminate awkward slotting cases that I hated. I think it's 167 cases for 1LLL.
> 
> "The main difference lies in so called "phasing". Just when finishing F2L, one must permute two opposite LL edges, usually UF and UB. It takes 2-4 moves on average and can be done on the fly (of course after proper training). Phasing style is individual to each speedcuber, as it depends on F2L techniques. However, you can see basic approach to this problem in Phasing section in Practical notes.
> 
> After ZZF2L comes the standard 1-look LL. However, fact of two opposite edges permutted correctly drastically decreases a number of possible LL cases. It's 80 distinct algorithms. When we count inversions and symmetries, it gives us 167 sequences. This is 2x that of Fridrich, but it's still a reasonable number that can be learned and recognized quickly"



Ah well. I'm still a long way away from learning the 1LLL algs. I do EOCross too, and Fridrich style slots, but I thought he meant doing cross with EO and then doing regular Fridrich, i.e. with rotations.

Does anybody here use block building for F2L after eoline? Can you give examples of how you do this? (never used any blockbuilding xD)


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## fanwuq (Dec 28, 2008)

I like ZZ, but there are 2 things that are keeping me away from it.

1. I like to see my blocks during inspections. 
2. I like building my blocks without rotation or move restrictions. 

Funny thing is that much of the time when I use Fridrich, I can build an extended cross, and use less than 2 rotations during the whole solve.
When I try ZZ, I can get the EO line in 5 seconds or so, that's not an issue, but for some odd reason, I'm tempted to rotate during my F2L and my lookahead for F2L is just ruined. 
For ZZ's LL, I suggest to use MGLS and PLL. MGLS is 2gen and PLL is fast anyway.


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## Stefan (Dec 28, 2008)

blah said:


> Does anyone have any concrete evidence that ZZ has a lower move count than Fridrich?


A while back I did some statistics suggesting the opposite, though I lost track of the thread afterwards:
http://www.speedsolving.com/forum/showthread.php?p=69583#post69583


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## JohnnyA (Dec 28, 2008)

I thought it was that ZZ f2l with "3gen fridrich" took more moves, but 3gen blockbuilding of F2L took less?

I find lookahead difficult in ZZ, with the result that I try harder and actually get the same sort of lookahead. I also found that doing a lot of ZZ solves using all my effort in lookahead improved my normal lookahead by quite a lot, so I would suggest all cubers to at least learn ZZ to see if they can improve their main method too.

I think I will keep ZZ as a sub-method until after the French Open since I want to do as well as I can in that, but after the French Open I am going to concentrate on ZZ because I believe it is a better speedcubing method.


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## Matthew (Dec 28, 2008)

Hello guys

I've been using ZZ method (precisely the ZZ-VH method - I do EOLine -> ZZF2L -> COLL -> EPLL) since december last year...



Escher said:


> apart from zborowski, are there any pure (or mostly) ZZ users who are sub 18/17?



Yes 

My records:

single: 10.53
avg12: 13.99
mean of 100: 15.78
mean of 1000: 16.33

If someone was not convinced to this method I think this can change his view about this method 



blah said:


> Does anyone have any concrete evidence that ZZ has a lower move count than Fridrich? So far my experience tells me no, at least up to the completion of F2L, it _definitely_ takes more moves than Fridrich.



Lower moves count is not everythig.. ZZ in my opinion and after my tests has a lower moves count but what is important - it has also a 1LLL, no cube-rotations and easier F2L 

Now I'm working about full b variation..


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## JohnnyA (Dec 28, 2008)

Matthew said:


> Escher116123 said:
> 
> 
> > yurivish said:
> ...



Wow! A real ZZ user. Tell me do you blockbuild F2L?


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## Matthew (Dec 28, 2008)

JohnnyA said:


> Wow! A real ZZ user. Tell me do you blockbuild F2L?




Yes - I use blockbulding - it is a bit more difficult but much more cost-effective...


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## Escher (Dec 29, 2008)

matthew, im surprised that you havent made yourself more known - you may well be the fastest ZZ user in the world!

anyway, clearly ZZ can be extremely, extremely fast

- i thought that EOLine averaged 5 or 6 moves, whereas cross avgs 7/8, and the worst possible cross case was 10/11 moves, whereas the worst EOLine was 9 or 10? opposite cross doesnt make them even either.

- to those who get 8 or 10 misoriented edges, why not just do a y/y'?

- i'd practice doing 2 gen solves to get used to the 'awkward' f2l cases.


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## yurivish (Dec 29, 2008)

blah said:


> I'm consistently getting sub-35 for OH now, with occasional ~45-second bad cases  My Fridrich average is about 30, I imagine myself getting much faster once I learn COLL  Any opinions?
> 
> Edit: @yurivish: I just got what you meant by "just looked at your sig"! Umm, no, my err... what do you call that? "Proficiency"? My proficiency(?) in EO has nothing to do with BLD, I do M2  I just did a bit of homework for about an hour before I started ZZ, so I got the whole "intuitive feel" for EO, that's all. I'll post something up in this thread once I've done enough homework, it's probably gonna do beginners _some_ good if they're lost at EO.



Keep at it with the left hand. I'm still not anywhere near ambidextrous, but I can comfortably do L U L' U'-type things now. Eventually I want to be completely comfortable with both hands.

COLL—I highly recommend it. I was skeptical, as well as slow, when I first started COLL. But now I use it for all the cases except for Sune/Antisune.

I use all M-slice-based edge PLL's, so the last part of a solve is always quick and fun.


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## Matthew (Dec 29, 2008)

Escher said:


> - i thought that EOLine averaged 5 or 6 moves, whereas cross avgs 7/8, and the worst possible cross case was 10/11 moves, whereas the worst EOLine was 9 or 10? opposite cross doesnt make them even either.



0 moves : 1 case
1 : 9
2 : 91
3 : 851
4 : 6831
5 : 41703
6 : 130239
7 : 88683
8 : 1927
9 : 1

Statistic made by Grzegorz Luczyna

9-move case is when we have a 12 misoriented edges and the DF and DB edges are in their places..



Escher said:


> - to those who get 8 or 10 misoriented edges, why not just do a y/y'?



This not solve completely our problem (edges orientation) - in some cases this can be helpful but in some.. this can disturb.. and we have only 15s preinspection


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## bamman1108 (Dec 29, 2008)

The numbers of moves for EOLine and the cross are about the same.


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## Escher (Dec 29, 2008)

bamman1108 said:


> The numbers of moves for EOLine and the cross are about the same.



if you read the link given earlier in the thread, and go to the EOLine section, youll see that 48% of the time, it takes 6 moves, 32% of the time it takes 7 and and 15% of the time it takes 5.

then if you go to vandenbergs site -cubezone.be - the statistical analysis of the cross shows that only 8% of crosses are 5 moves, 30% are 6 moves, 48% are 7, and 11% are 8. 

so if we are going to be accurate (which we should be) EOLine is, on average, one move less than cross, and more likely to be fewer moves than 7.

using opposite colour neutrality for cross and f2l vs standard EOLine, you can see that it becomes a bit more even, but EOLine still wins out.

using colour neutrality on cross only, cross wins. i would imagine that colour neutrality on EOLine makes things significantly better for EOLine.


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## Stefan (Dec 29, 2008)

Escher said:


> if you read the link given earlier in the thread, and go to the EOLine section, youll see that 48% of the time, it takes 6 moves, 32% of the time it takes 7 and and 15% of the time it takes 5.
> 
> then if you go to vandenbergs site -cubezone.be - the statistical analysis of the cross shows that only 8% of crosses are 5 moves, 30% are 6 moves, 48% are 7, and 11% are 8.
> 
> *so if we are going to be accurate (which we should be)* EOLine is, on average, one move less than cross, and more likely to be fewer moves than 7.



Just preserving this so you can't hide your shame...
I won't explain it just yet, rather I give you the chance to rectify your attempt to deceive or honest utter failure, whatever it is.


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## Escher (Dec 29, 2008)

lol, okay.

what i really meant was...

EOLine takes less moves than cross. what i said wasnt being accurate, it was generalising from two tables.

if i was really going to be accurate, i would put up both of the tables comparing the two in QUARTER turn metric, without colour neutrality or opposite cross or whatever. you could draw your own conclusions.

am i ok now?


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## Stefan (Dec 29, 2008)

No you're still utterly wrong.


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## Escher (Dec 29, 2008)

damn...
well. i like being wrong...
erm...
i honestly can say i have no idea.
tell me!


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## Stefan (Dec 29, 2008)

Please do show us those two tables for comparison.


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## Escher (Dec 29, 2008)

Quarter turn metric

Depth # cases Distribution
0	1 0.00% 
1	10 0.01% 
2	73 0.04% 
3	500 0.26% 
4	3,078 1.62% 
5	15,528	8.17% 
6	57,180	30.08% 
7	91,654	48.22% 
8	2,1849	11.49% 
9	207 0.11% 
Average: 6.59 moves
is the first, from cubezone.be, on the cross, with quarter turn metric, with the cumulative percentages omitted...


from

http://www.emsee.110mb.com/Speedcubing/ZZ speedcubing system.html#id4

no. of moves for EOLine
0 : 1
1 : 9
2 : 91
3 : 851
4 : 6831
5 : 41703
6 : 130239
7 : 88683
8 : 1927
9 : 1

In percentages...
0 : 0.00037%
1 : 0.00329%
2 : 0.03366%
3 : 0.31479%
4 : 2.52686%
5 : 15.42636%
6 : 48.17671%
7 : 32.80473%
8 : 0.71282%
9 : 0.00037%

sorry about the first table, can't seem to get the formatting right.


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## Stefan (Dec 29, 2008)

Escher said:


> i would put up both of the tables comparing the two in *face turn metric*





Escher said:


> (table)
> is the first, from cubezone.be, on the cross, with *quarter turn metric*



Epic.


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## Escher (Dec 29, 2008)

well. before this i had not had the experience of being fully pochmann-owned.

ouch.

lol, ill change that then 

wait - how was i utterly failing in the reply to bamman? i realise that saying 'if we are going to be accurate' was wrong, because i was lying, but the 'discrepancy' between me saying face turn metric and quarter turn metric came in a later post. you only explained/demonstrated the second failing, not the first. unless ive already answered it for myself here...


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## Stefan (Dec 29, 2008)

That 'discrepancy' was already there, in the numbers you provided. The "utter" stems from you making that mistake while boldly being like "Let's do this the right way, shall we?".

Btw, at first I wasn't sure the EOLine stats were HTM. Can you tell how to tell they are?


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## JohnnyA (Dec 29, 2008)

I don't think one or even two moves between the cross and eoline average will make a significant difference, especially since you can plan the entire step in inspection. What I was thinking was that in many cases, having 10 or 12 edges misoriented makes an easy eoline because often you can use one F or B turn and get rid of four, without having to worry about those 4 edges any more. Sometimes I have had both the F and B layers full of misoriented edges after scrambling and I can get rid of all eight edges with just a slice turn.


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## Matthew (Dec 29, 2008)

StefanPochmann said:


> Btw, at first I wasn't sure the EOLine stats were HTM. Can you tell how to tell they are?



EOLine stats are in the HTM



JohnnyA said:


> I don't think one or even two moves between the cross and eoline average will make a significant difference, especially since you can plan the entire step in inspection. What I was thinking was that in many cases, having 10 or 12 edges misoriented makes an easy eoline because often you can use one F or B turn and get rid of four, without having to worry about those 4 edges any more. Sometimes I have had both the F and B layers full of misoriented edges after scrambling and I can get rid of all eight edges with just a slice turn.



Yes - but cross also has easier and more difficult cases..

I don't think that difference between cross and eoline is significant.. key for this is practise - after one year i average with eoline about 2.5s - in neaxt 'season' i'm going to go with this to around 2s - but IMO it is a down-limit... 

Key for almost everything is prety F2L in ~30 moves and quickly recognition in LL case in my opinion..


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## JohnnyA (Dec 29, 2008)

Matthew could you post up an average? I want to see really fast ZZ solves ;P and an explanation of basic block building would help us people still using 3gen fridrich.


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## Escher (Dec 29, 2008)

StefanPochmann said:


> That 'discrepancy' was already there, in the numbers you provided. The "utter" stems from you making that mistake while boldly being like "Let's do this the right way, shall we?".
> 
> Btw, at first I wasn't sure the EOLine stats were HTM. Can you tell how to tell they are?



fair enough, i did deserve that.

and no, im not sure. i have an idea but its probably wrong... how can you tell?


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## Stefan (Dec 29, 2008)

JohnnyA said:


> I don't think one or even two moves between the cross and eoline average will make a significant difference


Little in execution time, but perhaps more in look-ahead difficulty.



Matthew said:


> StefanPochmann said:
> 
> 
> > Btw, at first I wasn't sure the EOLine stats were HTM. Can you tell how to tell they are?
> ...


I know. That was not the question.
Btw, I'm interested in the QTM statistic for EOLine. I could imagine this being not much more, since most of the time double turns don't help.



Escher said:


> StefanPochmann said:
> 
> 
> > Btw, at first I wasn't sure the EOLine stats were HTM. Can you tell how to tell they are?
> ...


What's that idea?
And a hint: Have a close look at the numbers in the "no. of moves for EOLine" table.


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## Escher (Dec 29, 2008)

StefanPochmann said:


> What's that idea?
> And a hint: Have a close look at the numbers in the "no. of moves for EOLine" table.



they are all odd numbers?


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## Stefan (Dec 29, 2008)

Escher said:


> they are all odd numbers?


Hmm, interesting. Though not really directly helpful, I think. But I'm curious about this nevertheless...
Have a look at one particular number in that table.


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## Escher (Dec 29, 2008)

the fact that there is only one 9 move case/one move case?


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## blah (Dec 29, 2008)

Matthew said:


> Escher said:
> 
> 
> > - to those who get 8 or 10 misoriented edges, why not just do a y/y'?
> ...



Exactly.


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## blah (Dec 29, 2008)

StefanPochmann said:


> Escher said:
> 
> 
> > they are all odd numbers?
> ...



1:9, the 9 solutions are [ F ], [ B ] and [ D ], where [ X ] denotes X, X' and X2. (Simple enough, because doing R, U and L moves won't flip any edges, nor will it put DF/DB in place.)

If it were in QTM, there'd only be 6 1-move solutions.

That's probably not the answer you're looking for, but it still shows that the figures are in HTM nevertheless


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## Stefan (Dec 29, 2008)

Yes, what blah said is what I meant. Except [noparse][[/noparse]B] instead of * (ah, he fixed it by now, but differently than I did).
Now, who can explain the all-odd numbers, and who can show QTM distribution and average for EOLine?*


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## Escher (Dec 29, 2008)

blah said:


> Matthew said:
> 
> 
> > Escher said:
> ...



but it only takes a second to tell whether 8/12 are correct or incorrect...


----------



## Stefan (Dec 29, 2008)

Oh and I'd also be interested in the distribution and average for "EOLine ignoring LL edge orientations". Has this been considered already? If so, what are the results of it?


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## blah (Dec 29, 2008)

StefanPochmann said:


> Yes, what blah said is what I meant. Except [noparse][[/noparse]B] instead of * (ah, he fixed it by now, but differently than I did).
> Now, who can explain the all-odd numbers, and who can show QTM distribution and average for EOLine?*


*
I actually wanted to ask you how you un-un-capitalized the B, but I'm staring at the answer right now, so never mind 

About your two other questions, do you have the answers yourself? Just wondering 



Escher said:



but it only takes a second to tell whether 8/12 are correct or incorrect...

Click to expand...

Not me, I just started ZZ yesterday  Besides, what if you do y/y' and still get 8 or 10 bad edges? I'd just get p***ed and resort to normal Fridrich 

Edit:


StefanPochmann said:



Oh and I'd also be interested in the distribution and average for "EOLine ignoring LL edge orientations". Has this been considered already? If so, what are the results of it?

Click to expand...

!!! I've just been experimenting with that this afternoon! But I realized something after a few tries: If you start with 0 oriented U edges, you end with that, and that's not nice, unless you know stuff like CLLEF of course *


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## Stefan (Dec 29, 2008)

blah said:


> About your two other questions, do you have the answers yourself? Just wondering


No I don't.



blah said:


> If you start with 0 oriented U edges, you end with that


Are you sure?


----------



## Escher (Dec 29, 2008)

blah said:


> Not me, I just started ZZ yesterday  Besides, what if you do y/y' and still get 8 or 10 bad edges? I'd just get p***ed and resort to normal Fridrich



that cant really happen... i think.

you are essentially choosing the better of two evils. if you count 8 bad edges, straight away you can do a y or y', and are faced with the 4 good ones you left now being bad.

the way i recognise 8 so quickly is by looking at the yellow/white stickers first - they are easy to see. i know that any white or yellow sticker on a L or R 'slice' is correct, and any white or yellow sticker on the U or D faces is correct. a white or yellow sticker on an F, R, L or B _face_ is bad.
recognition for the 4 E slice edges takes a bit longer, i dont really have a method for that.


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## Stefan (Dec 29, 2008)

Escher said:


> if you count 8 bad edges, straight away you can do a y or y', and are faced with the 4 good ones you left now being bad.


You might want to double-check that...


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## Escher (Dec 29, 2008)

damn you pochmann!

i didnt have a cube to hand. 

and now i do.

and i am wrong.

EDIT

what IS correct, is if the bad edges are on the F and B slices, not faces, and you do a y rotation.


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## Stefan (Dec 29, 2008)

Escher said:


> what IS correct, is if the bad edges are on the F and B slices, not faces, and you do a y rotation.


You might want to double-check that... (and clarify what you mean with "on the F and B slices, not faces").


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## Escher (Dec 29, 2008)

what...

okay. if 4 BAD EDGES ARE ON THE E SLICE, AND ON THE F AND B SLICES THEN DO A y.

i think i might just give up this whole posting lark.
... or just make sure what i say is exactly correct.
... or completely ignore stefan.


----------



## Stefan (Dec 29, 2008)

Escher said:


> if 4 BAD EDGES ARE ON THE E SLICE, AND ON THE F AND B SLICES THEN DO A y.



And that achieves what?

Consider the superflip. All 12 edges have wrong orientation. Do y rotation. Still all 12 edges have wrong orientation.


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## Matthew (Dec 29, 2008)

Escher said:


> what...
> 
> okay. if 4 BAD EDGES ARE ON THE E SLICE, AND ON THE F AND B SLICES THEN DO A y.
> 
> ...



If this edges are from U/D slice ok - move y/y' "orient" them.. but if this edges are from the E-slice.. it don't make a expected effect

Btw I have a 15.06 avg on the video - I will post this in the next couple of hours...


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## JohnnyA (Dec 29, 2008)

Yellow/white edge stickers can be on U and D of course, but they can also be on F or B. Am I wrong here?

In terms of rotations, it's more complicated than we are thinking. If the edge has a U/D sticker and is in the middle layer, y/y' will change it's orientation. If it is in the top layer, no rotation will change it's orientation. However if it has no U/D sticker, y/y' will change orientation only if it is in the U/D layer.

So there is no "mathematical" way to determine how y/y' will affect orientation unless you count how many of each type (with U/D or without U/D) are in middle and U/D layers.

EDIT: On second thoughts, maybe it would be possible to do that - possibly by counting how many U/D stickers are in the middle layer, then you know how many are in U/D layer by subtraction, and you also know that the same number of middle layer edges are in the U/D layers. Would this be practical/workable?


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## Matthew (Dec 29, 2008)

JohnyA said:


> Matthew could you post up an average? I want to see really fast ZZ solves



My 15.06 avg of 12:


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## bamman1108 (Dec 29, 2008)

Old, but, if you look at both EOLine and the cross using half turn metric, wouldn't they be _close_ to the same?

I'm not really one to talk though since I have no knowledge of edge orientation whatsoever, which is stopping me from learning ZZ as of now.


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## yurivish (Dec 29, 2008)

Matthew—I noticed that you're using COLL for the sune case as well. Right now I use COLL for everything but sune and antisune. I wanted to learn those cases as well, but some of the algorithms were really slow. 

Are the ones you use any good? I looked on a few sites and couldn't find any nice ones for some of the cases.


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## JohnnyA (Dec 29, 2008)

Wow, those are some great solves Matthew. Hopefully I'll be able to get that fast with my ZZ when I work on it after French Open. For EOLine, are you colour neutral or do you always start with the same orientation of the cube?

Also, what do you do for blockbuilding? Do you fill in one half and then use petrus approach?


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## Matthew (Dec 29, 2008)

yurivish said:


> Matthew—I noticed that you're using COLL for the sune case as well. Right now I use COLL for everything but sune and antisune. I wanted to learn those cases as well, but some of the algorithms were really slow.
> 
> Are the ones you use any good? I looked on a few sites and couldn't find any nice ones for some of the cases.



I collect algs for many sites - but you're right - some algs for Sune and a-sune coll's cases are horrible.. 



JohnnyA said:


> Wow, those are some great solves Matthew. Hopefully I'll be able to get that fast with my ZZ when I work on it after French Open. For EOLine, are you colour neutral or do you always start with the same orientation of the cube?



Yes - I always solve with blue on front and yellow on top.. (oc while f2l and LL - in EOLine i rotate the cube)


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## yurivish (Dec 29, 2008)

Matthew said:


> yurivish said:
> 
> 
> > Matthew—I noticed that you're using COLL for the sune case as well. Right now I use COLL for everything but sune and antisune. I wanted to learn those cases as well, but some of the algorithms were really slow.
> ...



That's cool, you use the same color orientation as me. I know that ZZ himself uses red in front.

Have you noticed that doing Sune-COLL + ePLL is better than Sune + PLL? If a sune is faster than your average COLL and a PLL is slower than your average ePLL, then it should be roughly equal. Have you noticed any speed difference either way?

It seems that Sune + PLL would give some spike times, when you get Sune + easy PLL, and some worse times – when you get an N or an E.


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## Matthew (Dec 29, 2008)

yurivish said:


> Have you noticed that doing Sune-COLL + ePLL is better than Sune + PLL? If a sune is faster than your average COLL and a PLL is slower than your average ePLL, then it should be roughly equal. Have you noticed any speed difference either way?



I don't know but.. using coll we have a higher possibility to EPLL-skip  I don't say even about ZZLL


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## blah (Dec 30, 2008)

StefanPochmann said:


> Escher said:
> 
> 
> > if 4 BAD EDGES ARE ON THE E SLICE, AND ON THE F AND B SLICES THEN DO A y.
> ...



Exactly.

Keep this in mind:
After a y/y' rotation,
U/D edges on U/D are not flipped
U/D edges on E are flipped
E edges on U/D are flipped
E edges on E are not flipped

Yes I know that's extremely trivial, but I'm surprised by the number of people who don't realize this. Somehow people tend to think that doing a y/y' rotation is sort of a "black becomes white, white becomes black" move - it's actually a "gray" move, in which you have nonzero probabilities of getting more, fewer or the same number of bad edges.

I did a lot of calculations last night, probabilities and stuff. And this is what I found: If you have exactly 8 bad edges, the probability of you getting 6 or fewer bad edges after a y/y' rotation is 67.953%, which is somewhat considerably higher than 50%. The probability of you still getting 8 bad edges after that rotation would be 27.825%. Add those 2 figures up, and you can be *pretty* sure that after a y/y' rotation, you won't be worse off. But it's worth knowing this fact: P(10 or 12 bad edges after y/y' rotation | exactly 8 bad edges before y/y' rotation) = 4.222%; P(10 or 12 bad edges on a random scramble) = 3.271%.

I don't know about anyone else, but 68% just doesn't seem convincing enough to me. I think I'll stick to flipping those 8 edges when I get them. Should I get some numbers for cases when there are 10 bad edges as well? 

By the way, can someone do an independent calculation as well, just to confirm these figures? I may be completely wrong 

P/S: Should I start this in a new thread? Anyone interested in discussing this?


----------



## JohnnyA (Dec 30, 2008)

blah said:


> StefanPochmann said:
> 
> 
> > Escher said:
> ...



I figured you could work out the best orientation for your cube by counting the number of U/D pieces in the middle layer, which tells you how many of each type (U/D or Middle Slice) pieces are in each layer. But then I realised you need to know their current orientation in order to make any concrete decisions about whether to turn or not.


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## Matthew (Dec 30, 2008)

JohnnyA said:


> I figured you could work out the best orientation for your cube by counting the number of U/D pieces in the middle layer, which tells you how many of each type (U/D or Middle Slice) pieces are in each layer. But then I realised you need to know their current orientation in order to make any concrete decisions about whether to turn or not.



But remember that we have only 15s of preinspection!

In 15s isn't easy to see a good solution to the full-EOLine - and you want to look even from two views - isn't better have in pinky the EOLine from one-view?

Apart from this - I don't like only cases when I have 10 or 12 flipped edges - but when I have 8 or 6 or low.. always is the way to see solution <=10 moves in 15s


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## JohnnyA (Dec 30, 2008)

Matthew said:


> JohnnyA said:
> 
> 
> > I figured you could work out the best orientation for your cube by counting the number of U/D pieces in the middle layer, which tells you how many of each type (U/D or Middle Slice) pieces are in each layer. But then I realised you need to know their current orientation in order to make any concrete decisions about whether to turn or not.
> ...



I personally find 10 and 12 edges easier than 6. 6 is the most difficult for me. When I get 6, I almost always rotate to get 8 or 4 or a different number ... it's because I don't like having just 2 edges left over to solve with some variation of F'UF. I don't think rotations are useful, unless you are like me and hate having a certain number of edges to orient.

Also, how about ignoring U edges during orientation and doing OLL+PLL if you don't know COLL yet?


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## yurivish (Dec 30, 2008)

JohnnyA said:


> Matthew said:
> 
> 
> > JohnnyA said:
> ...



You can still gain from orienting the top-layer edges even if you don't know COLL, since you're always left with an easy cross OLL. And it increases the chance of an OLL skip to 1/27, which is actually noticeable.


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## Matthew (Dec 30, 2008)

JohnnyA said:


> I personally find 10 and 12 edges easier than 6. 6 is the most difficult for me. When I get 6, I almost always rotate to get 8 or 4 or a different number ... it's because I don't like having just 2 edges left over to solve with some variation of F'UF. I don't think rotations are useful, unless you are like me and hate having a certain number of edges to orient.
> 
> Also, how about ignoring U edges during orientation and doing OLL+PLL if you don't know COLL yet?



Hmm.. problem is not to find a flipped edges.. a problem is to plan a comfort and quick and low-move count EOLine.. 

IMO finding flipped egdes should take You ~2-4s... rest of the time You should spend at planing your solution for EOLine..

And try solving EOLine blind - this should make your lookahead (findind first block pieces) better ;]


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## JohnnyA (Dec 30, 2008)

I can do EO blind, but I can almost never get the red/orange edges (i.e. line) done without looking again ;[


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## McWizzle94 (Dec 30, 2008)

JohnnyA said:


> Matthew said:
> 
> 
> > JohnnyA said:
> ...



If you get 6 misoriented, flip 3 of them plus an oriented edge and you are left with 4 misoriented edges.


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## JohnnyA (Dec 30, 2008)

Oh! I like that ... but it seems a waste of moves by misorienting one that is already oriented. Surely that is a waste of moves?


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## Matthew (Dec 30, 2008)

JohnnyA said:


> Oh! I like that ... but it seems a waste of moves by misorienting one that is already oriented. Surely that is a waste of moves?



Everything depends of the case you have... Sometimes it is a great profit, sometimes it is non-cost-effective


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## blah (Dec 31, 2008)

JohnnyA said:


> Oh! I like that ... but it seems a waste of moves by misorienting one that is already oriented. Surely that is a waste of moves?



There's almost always more than one optimal solution for cases with 6 bad edges. For a specific case, one optimal solution may involve flipping 4, then 2; and another may involve flipping 3 (+1 good edge), then 4. Pick the variation that allows you to solve at least one of DF/DB, or at least the one that allows you to keep track of both pieces easily after EO.

I know, whatever I've just said is trivial, but I have a feeling that people tend to focus more on EO than on Line. Line, imo, should be the priority, because it requires tracking two specific pieces, which is harder than flipping "general" (i.e. non-specific) edges.

Again, I may be completely wrong. I've only had half a week's experience with ZZ


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## yurivish (Dec 31, 2008)

blah said:


> JohnnyA said:
> 
> 
> > Oh! I like that ... but it seems a waste of moves by misorienting one that is already oriented. Surely that is a waste of moves?
> ...



I think you're right. I still plan out EO and then track edges, but it is quite a lot to do each solve if you want to orient them AND solve the 2 at once. I've only been using ZZ for a few months, so I've still got loads of room for improvement. 

I don't know how people who do XCrosses/crosses quickly plan, but I just have a mental model of what pieces need to be oriented that I update with each move; I don't plan out the sequence (e.g. R U F' D B') of moves; is that what most people do? It seems like it would lend itself better to quick execution, but it seems rather harder.

What do other people do when they preinspect? Do they just note where the pieces are, or actually figure out the "algorithm" needed, so that they can execute it as quickly as they can when they start?


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## JohnnyA (Dec 31, 2008)

When I preinspect I memorize a quick sequence to orient four edges, and make sure I know where the next four will be. Often I plan the next four/two as well. Then I'll find the red and orange pieces so I can try to track them while solving EO.


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## Stefan (Dec 31, 2008)

JohnnyA said:


> it seems a waste of moves by misorienting one that is already oriented. Surely that is a waste of moves?



Exactly how do you orient two bad edges? Please provide an example.


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## blah (Dec 31, 2008)

StefanPochmann said:


> JohnnyA said:
> 
> 
> > it seems a waste of moves by misorienting one that is already oriented. Surely that is a waste of moves?
> ...



@JohnnyA: I disagree that it's a waste of moves to flip 3+3 (of the "original" bad edges, if you know what I mean). For some cases, the optimal EO (note: _not_ EOLine) solution is 4+2, for others, it's 3+3.

Take a look at the following cases (just came up with these examples off my head, don't have a cube right now so I might be wrong):

If you have FU, FD, FR, FL, BR, UL flipped, (one of) the optimal solution(s) is obviously y L R U R' (4 HTM). That's the lowest number of moves you can get if you flip 4+2.

If you have FU, FR, FL, BU, BD, BL flipped, (one of) the optimal solution(s) is obviously F' R2 B (3 HTM). And this is the lowest number of moves you can get if you flip 3+3.

Keep in mind that it takes a minimum of 1 move to flip 4 edges, but a minimum of 3 to flip 2. This should be enough to convince you that 4+2 is not always better than 3+3, I hope 

@Stefan: I'm not sure what you mean. Is it really as simple a question as I think it is?


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## blah (Dec 31, 2008)

To answer Stefan's "simple" question (if it really _is_ that simple), I'll provide something I've worked on when I started ZZ a couple of days ago, it's probably gonna be useful for ZZ beginners (well it helped me, at least).

There are 12C2 = 66 cases with 2 bad edges, including all isomorphic cases. Of the 66, there are only 9 unique cases:
UF-UR UF-BR UF-DR (optimal solution 3 HTM)
UF-FL UF-DF UF-DB UR-UL UR-DL (optimal solution 4 HTM)
UF-UB (optimal solution 5 HTM)

The first 3 are the most basic cases, they all have the common "template":
[F/B] {U/D/R/L} [F/B], where [X] denotes X or X', {X} denotes X, X' or X2

I won't give the solutions to the first 3 cases, just mess around your cube for a while and it shouldn't take you more than a minute to start seeing how things work.

The cases in the second row require 1 setup move, and the case in the third requires 2 setup moves, just avoid it, 5 moves to orient 2 edges really isn't very economical at all.

Notice that this also means there are only 9 unique cases with 10 bad edges, just learn them all and 10 bad edges wouldn't seem so bad after all 

Should I start working on all 495 cases with 4/8 bad edges?


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## Stefan (Dec 31, 2008)

If that's your answer to my question, then the question is much simpler than you think. I'm still hoping for his answer, and maybe he realizes himself what I'm after.

Ah, wait. Actually he kinda already provided an example earlier:



JohnnyA said:


> it seems a waste of moves by misorienting one that is already oriented.





JohnnyA said:


> I don't like having just 2 edges left over to solve with some variation of *F'UF*


Do you realize that this kind of "wasting moves by misorienting already good edges" is *exactly* what you're doing with that *F'* turn? That misorients *three* already oriented edges.


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## JohnnyA (Jan 1, 2009)

Would it be possible to find solutions for EO of each case (like blah is doing) since so many of them cancel each other out? Then you could track red and orange (or your own colours) through the solve and have a very quick line after EO.

@Stefan - that's true of course, but in some cases F' U F will be quicker than orienting 3 and misorienting 1 and then orienting 4. I had a look myself, and it really depends on the case.


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## Stefan (Jan 1, 2009)

Yeah I know. I just wanted to point out that unless you have a multiple of four bad edges, you *have to* misorient an already oriented edge at some point, so it's not really "wasteful".


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## JohnnyA (Jan 2, 2009)

Ok I see. Just as a matter of interest, I think the times to orient 3 and then 3 are when you can move the misoriented piece into position in two moves or less, and 4 and then two when you can move the misoriented piece into position in 2 or less moves - trivial, but makes it easier to plan your line.


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## Stefan (Jan 2, 2009)

JohnnyA said:


> 3 and then 3 are when you can *move the misoriented piece into position in two moves or less*
> 4 and then two when you can *move the misoriented piece into position in 2 or less moves*


Uh... that's the same criterion for both.


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## blah (Jan 2, 2009)

People don't really re-read what they type do they?


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## JohnnyA (Jan 3, 2009)

StefanPochmann said:


> JohnnyA said:
> 
> 
> > 3 and then 3 are when you can *move the misoriented piece into position in two moves or less*
> ...



Ok, it wasnt very clear. What I mean is that if you have 6 edges you should always be able to complete the two F or B moves with only 2 setup moves between them (at least I can't quickly think of a case that would need more than two). So if you are using more than two moves to setup the second orientation, you are not getting the best move count.


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## vloc15 (Jan 5, 2009)

is ZZ-VH faster than fridrich? how bawt ZZ-B? in terms of move count and look ahead..where can you find an easy tutorial for ZZ? i want to give it a try.


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## JohnnyA (Jan 5, 2009)

The only site that really gives a description of ZZ is the one given before. ZZ-VH can be just as fast as Fridrich, and ZZ-b will probably be faster.


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## mrbiggs (Jan 6, 2009)

JohnnyA said:


> The only site that really gives a description of ZZ is the one given before. ZZ-VH can be just as fast as Fridrich, and ZZ-b will probably be faster.



That's quite an impressive, but totally unsupported assertion...


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## blah (Jan 6, 2009)

mrbiggs said:


> JohnnyA said:
> 
> 
> > The only site that really gives a description of ZZ is the one given before. ZZ-VH *can be* just as fast as Fridrich, and ZZ-b *will probably be* faster.
> ...



He didn't say _is_. *shrugs*


----------



## JohnnyA (Jan 6, 2009)

mrbiggs said:


> JohnnyA said:
> 
> 
> > The only site that really gives a description of ZZ is the one given before. ZZ-VH can be just as fast as Fridrich, and ZZ-b will probably be faster.
> ...



No it's not ... there was a video of someone getting times faster than most Fridrich users earlier in the topic, and nobody has shown us any times with ZZ-b which will obviously be faster than ZZ-VH. It's got a 1LLL, 3gen-F2L, I would say that it's not unsupported to say that if it was worked on, it could be as fast as Fridrich.


----------



## Stefan (Jan 6, 2009)

JohnnyA said:


> there was a video of someone getting times faster than most Fridrich users



There was a video of Erik getting times faster than most Fridrich users using a vanilla beginner method. Obviously shows that that method can be just as fast as Fridrich, and with 3-look-LL it'll probably be faster.


----------



## mrbiggs (Jan 6, 2009)

blah said:


> mrbiggs said:
> 
> 
> > JohnnyA said:
> ...



"Will probably be" is way stronger of a statement than the evidence supports IMO. What's the fastest ZZ-b cuber at right now, 14 seconds? That's barely in the top 100.




JohnnyA said:


> mrbiggs said:
> 
> 
> > JohnnyA said:
> ...



Until there are ZZ-b users getting sub-12 averages, you can't say that it's faster than Fridrich. Until you see people getting very close, you can't say that it's probably as fast as Fridrich. You're making things up if you do.

Also, Matthew uses ZZ-VH, and he's the fastest ZZ cuber I've heard of, so why must ZZ-b be faster?


----------



## JohnnyA (Jan 7, 2009)

mrbiggs said:


> Until there are ZZ-b users getting sub-12 averages, you can't say that it's faster than Fridrich. Until you see people getting very close, you can't say that it's probably as fast as Fridrich. You're making things up if you do.
> 
> Also, Matthew uses ZZ-VH, and he's the fastest ZZ cuber I've heard of, so why must ZZ-b be faster?



I can say what I belive - I *BELIEVE* it can be as fast as Fridrich. This is backed up by the fact that people get great averages with ZZ-VH, which isn't even ZZ-b. ZZ-b is a more advanced version of ZZ-VH, saying ZZ-B is slower is like saying cross+oll is faster than OLL. It's anti-intuitive. And even when someone who is fast learns ZZ-b, there is still the final method, ZZ-d, which is (theoretically) faster than ZZ-b (theoretically because it doesn't exist yet). If someone can get 15 seconds using cross+oll on fidrich, and someone else can get 10 seconds using oll with fridrich, it makes sense to assume that someone getting 13 seconds using ZZ-VH could get faster times using a more advanced ZZ.



StefanPochmann said:


> JohnnyA said:
> 
> 
> > there was a video of someone getting times faster than most Fridrich users
> ...



I wouldn't consider sub-20 cubers as being a factor in deciding the fastest method, simply because the majority of them won't be using the most advanced version of their method yet. (no insult to sub-20 cubers - I am still averaging 20 myself too)


----------



## vloc15 (Jan 10, 2009)

BTW, how many algs do you need for ZZ-VH? for the COLL's and the last F2L pair..


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## Escher (Jan 10, 2009)

erm, do you know what VH is? 
ill assume you dont - VHF2L orients last layer edges while putting in the last slot, once you have reduced the case to one of the two simple insertions ( RU'R' and its mirror).
EOLine means that VHF2L is 'already done for you'. so ZZ-VH is just coll, for which there are 42 algorithms - 6 for each 7 types of edges already oriented OLL. you probably already know about 8 or 9 COLL cases. 


i was thinking about this - what would be very useful to know for ZZ would be F2LL or winter variation - 27 algorithms plus mirrors, and it gives you an OLL 'skip'. works in a similar way to VH, except the edges are already oriented and it orients corners while doing the last slot. it would also be useful to know if you knew all 20 ELL algs... 
knowing my memory, its probably already been discussed on this thread, but ive forgotten


----------



## Johannes91 (Jan 10, 2009)

Escher said:


> coll, for which there are 42 algorithms - 6 for each 7 types of edges already oriented OLL.


Wrong.

1) There are 8 different OCLL (edges already oriented OLL) cases.
2) Two of them have less than 6 different COLL cases because of symmetry: there are only two (excluding solved) when all corners are correctly oriented and just 4 Double Sunes.

So it's 2+4+6+6+6+6+6+6 = 42. Some people don't include the two with solved CO (often because they know PLL) and say there are only 40 COLL cases.



Escher said:


> what would be very useful to know for ZZ would be F2LL or winter variation - 27 algorithms plus mirrors


Even more useful would be to stop learning mirrored algs separately... For some WV cases it's not easy to find anything better than simple insertion and a Sune, but some of the shortest ones are indeed quite useful.


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## mrbiggs (Jan 10, 2009)

JohnnyA said:


> I can say what I belive - I *BELIEVE* it can be as fast as Fridrich.



I'm just pointing out that you're making it up with little evidence to back up your assertion.

Also, I feel that it's a very strong statement that Fridrich, which has been by far the fastest in the world for some time now, is slower than ZZ, which has only been recently popularized and very rarely used in competition--the method isn't even completely finished yet.



JohnnyA said:


> This is backed up by the fact that people get great averages with ZZ-VH, which isn't even ZZ-b. ZZ-b is a more advanced version of ZZ-VH, saying ZZ-B is slower is like saying cross+oll is faster than OLL. It's anti-intuitive.



Not necessarily. ZB is more advanced than Fridrich (if I'm understanding your definition correctly), but no one uses it. 



JohnnyA said:


> And even when someone who is fast learns ZZ-b, there is still the final method, ZZ-d, which is (theoretically) faster than ZZ-b (theoretically because it doesn't exist yet). If someone can get 15 seconds using cross+oll on fidrich, and someone else can get 10 seconds using oll with fridrich, it makes sense to assume that someone getting 13 seconds using ZZ-VH could get faster times using a more advanced ZZ.



It's quite possible.

But even assuming that ZZ-b is faster than ZZ-VH and ZZ-d is faster than ZZ-b, we still haven't established that it's as fast as Fridrich, much less faster.



JohnnyA said:


> I wouldn't consider sub-20 cubers as being a factor in deciding the fastest method, simply because the majority of them won't be using the most advanced version of their method yet. (no insult to sub-20 cubers - I am still averaging 20 myself too)



I don't understand this paragraph. I don't know of many cubers better than Eric to show the efficiency of a method, first of all. Second, why would you mean offense to sub-20 cubers? Isn't it good to be that fast?


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## Escher (Jan 10, 2009)

Johannes91 said:


> Wrong.
> 
> 1) There are 8 different OCLL (edges already oriented OLL) cases.
> 2) Two of them have less than 6 different COLL cases because of symmetry: there are only two (excluding solved) when all corners are correctly oriented and just 4 Double Sunes.
> ...



oh, ok, i see. i dont know (much about) COLL. at least, i only know some of COLL for triple sune, headlights and chameleon, because thats all i thought was really useful for me.


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## mazei (Jan 11, 2009)

I'm a Fridrich user averaging 14s. I tried ZZ-VH and it was interesting. I managed to get my times to around sub-20 average. I think it has the potential to be just as fast as Fridrich once the whole method is complete. Any method has potential to be as fast as Fridrich(basically just Roux, Petrus and some Fridrich variants).

I wonder if mrbiggs would say anything about this post


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## a small kitten (Jan 11, 2009)

Probably something like this:



> It's quite possible.
> 
> But even assuming that ZZ-b is faster than ZZ-VH and ZZ-d is faster than ZZ-b, we still haven't established that it's as fast as Fridrich, much less faster.


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## qqwref (Jan 11, 2009)

mazei said:


> Any method has potential to be as fast as Fridrich(basically just Roux, Petrus and some Fridrich variants).



...evidence?


Someone mentioned color-neutral EOLine a while back. Is this even possible in 15 seconds? I'm not so sure. I would be interested to see results for y-neutral EOLine though (i.e. do EOline with a given top color but any front color).


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## JohnnyA (Jan 11, 2009)

mrbiggs said:


> I'm just pointing out that you're making it up with little evidence to back up your assertion.
> 
> Also, I feel that it's a very strong statement that Fridrich, which has been by far the fastest in the world for some time now, is slower than ZZ, which has only been recently popularized and very rarely used in competition--the method isn't even completely finished yet.



I've never said ZZ is faster than Fridrich. I use Fridrich, and I am wary about switching to ZZ. But my point is that it is not theoretically a worse method, it has its good aspects and bad aspects as does Fridrich. If Fridrich had the popularity of ZZ and ZZ had the popularity of Fridrich, I personally believe that ZZ would have a higher potential than Fridrich does at the moment, becuase of the focus on "move count and move ergononmy" which makes for a good speed potential.



mrbiggs said:


> Not necessarily. ZB is more advanced than Fridrich (if I'm understanding your definition correctly), but no one uses it.



"Nobody uses ZB" is not a great statement. I was under the impression that at least four people were in the process of learning it at the moment, and four peeople are enough to count as "somebody". ZB may be considered as the "final" advancement to Fridrich (it clearly is not, but for this discussion we may as well assume it to be) and ZZ-D as the "final" advancement to ZZ, and maybe only four people would use ZZ-D. It still has the same potential as a method, no matter how many people use it.



mrbiggs said:


> It's quite possible.
> 
> But even assuming that ZZ-b is faster than ZZ-VH and ZZ-d is faster than ZZ-b, we still haven't established that it's as fast as Fridrich, much less faster.



I don't claim that ZZ is faster than Fridrich, the majority of people probably disagree with me. It's just my personal opinon that ZZ has more potential as it is a non-developed and un-publicised method that still produces 13 second averages without even using the most advanced form of the method. There are few people who could get 13 second averages without using the most advanced, common form of Fridrich (OLL+PLL)



mrbiggs said:


> I don't understand this paragraph. I don't know of many cubers better than Eric to show the efficiency of a method, first of all. Second, why would you mean offense to sub-20 cubers? Isn't it good to be that fast?



My mistake - I meant to say people who are not sub-20 should not affect the potential of a method because they have not stretched the method to its limits, and I meant no offense to non-sub-20 cubers, not to sub-20 cubers.


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## mrbiggs (Jan 11, 2009)

JohnnyA said:


> I don't claim that ZZ is faster than Fridrich, the majority of people probably disagree with me. It's just my personal opinon that ZZ has more potential as it is a non-developed and un-publicised method that still produces 13 second averages without even using the most advanced form of the method.



What's the difference between a method being "faster" and "having more potential"?


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## a small kitten (Jan 11, 2009)

It's not faster at the moment but it could/will be because it "produces 13 second averages without the most advanced form of the method".


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## qqwref (Jan 12, 2009)

I disagree. Using OLL and PLL is not the "most advanced form" of Fridrich either - if you want to talk about the most advanced form, a solver would have to have a consistently efficient xcross, use multislotting, and know VHF2L/F2LL/COLL (or even ZBF2L/ZBLL). As for ZZ, I don't think it can get much better than the normal way of doing it (EOLine, RUL F2L with blockbuilding, OLL, PLL... right?), because learning ZZ-B or Winter Variation or COLL or whatever would only save about a second or two. So just because a 13 second average is possible without the "most advanced" form of ZZ does not mean that ZZ is automatically better than Fridrich. Pure Fridrich isn't the most advanced form either, and I don't think most ZZ users are capable of 13 averages, just like I don't think most Fridrich users are.


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## mazei (Jan 12, 2009)

If I'm not mistaken Jason Baum is learning ZB stuff.


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## JohnnyA (Jan 12, 2009)

qqwref said:


> I disagree. Using OLL and PLL is not the "most advanced form" of Fridrich either - if you want to talk about the most advanced form, a solver would have to have a consistently efficient xcross, use multislotting, and know VHF2L/F2LL/COLL (or even ZBF2L/ZBLL). As for ZZ, I don't think it can get much better than the normal way of doing it (EOLine, RUL F2L with blockbuilding, OLL, PLL... right?), because learning ZZ-B or Winter Variation or COLL or whatever would only save about a second or two. So just because a 13 second average is possible without the "most advanced" form of ZZ does not mean that ZZ is automatically better than Fridrich. Pure Fridrich isn't the most advanced form either, and I don't think most ZZ users are capable of 13 averages, just like I don't think most Fridrich users are.



1LLL will take a lot of time off a ZZ time because it reduces the recognition count by 1 algorithm. For ZBF2L, you still have to recognise two "last layer" algorithms and you only save the time that it takes to do one F2L pair, which especially on the last pair isn't a long time at all. And even COLL+EPLL on ZZ will save a lot of time because 1/12 ELL skip, 2/12 X perm or whatever the stats for EPLL are ... all EPLL algs are fast and this makes the ZZ time go down alot, especially becuase of the four-sticker recog system for COLL. 

As for Fridrich, I am not talking about the "uber" Fridrich method with Triple slot+ZBLL or whatever somebody may learn in the future ... I am talking about the most advanced COMMON method which is actually practical for high standard cubers to learn. The equivalent of OLL+PLL in ZZ could be ZZ-B (coll+epll) since it does not need an immense amount of algs, and the "uber" fridrich method could be a parallel to ZZ-D.


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## qqwref (Jan 12, 2009)

JohnnyA said:


> The equivalent of OLL+PLL in ZZ could be ZZ-B (coll+epll) since it does not need an immense amount of algs



Yeah, this is closer. It's just that people were equating pure Fridrich (OLL/PLL) with the most advanced form of ZZ, which is not really accurate. What did that guy who had a 13 average do for the last layer? Was it corner-OLL/PLL or COLL/EPLL or something else entirely?


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## JohnnyA (Jan 12, 2009)

qqwref said:


> JohnnyA said:
> 
> 
> > The equivalent of OLL+PLL in ZZ could be ZZ-B (coll+epll) since it does not need an immense amount of algs
> ...



He used COLL+EPLL which I would equate to the equivalent of OLL+PLL for ZZ.


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## mazei (Jan 13, 2009)

Basically, I look at it this way. There is a ZZF2L and Fridrich F2L. I don't care much about last layer since I use OLL+PLL for last layer no matter what method I use(except corner first and Roux). This way we can at least have a better comparison.

For me it takes me around 9-14(or more) seconds to do the F2L with ZZ but I do 5-11 seconds F2L with full Center+4 Slots. For me I think it's not worth it for me to use the ZZ method because the last layer I still use OLL+PLL when it is much more rewarding if you use CLL+EPLL due to the fact that the edges are already orientated thus giving you easier PLL algs(for those who do their edge perms fast). If not, you are wasting precious seconds during the edge orient. But at the same time, you gain it by not regripping even once.

Basically, what I'm saying is, ZZ is a nice method with some flaws if you are not a master in it(like me). Fridrich though is more of a beginner friendly method since you don't have to understand things like "How to confirm that an edge is orientated". That allows people(including me) to get great times even though you're not that great at cubing. Like me I still can't seem to consistently sub-1:10 on 4x4 even though I'm quite fast on 3x3 while some people can get sub-1 on 4x4 when they are a second slower than me.

In conclusion, ZZ is great if you are willing to spend a whole lot of time.


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## JohnnyA (Jan 19, 2009)

True, but still, using cross OLL+PLL is similar to using four look LL for Fridrich. It's fine to make comparisons with it, but the only complete comparison will come with comparing the most attainable advanced method of each.


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## qqwref (Jan 20, 2009)

JohnnyA said:


> True, but still, using cross OLL+PLL is similar to using four look LL for Fridrich. It's fine to make comparisons with it, but the only complete comparison will come with comparing the most attainable advanced method of each.



I don't think OCLL+PLL is slow at all, maybe a fraction of a second slower than COLL+EPLL, unless you're extremely fast at all the edge permutations and extremely slow at all the other ones. If anything it's like three look LL for Fridrich (two-look OLL + PLL) or maybe CLL+ELL...


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## sptoo123 (Jan 24, 2009)

Well, I want to learn it 
But...I can't find a page with "intact" ZZ method
I mean all about it
I don't want to learn half of it....


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## JohnnyA (Jan 24, 2009)

Er, this page shows the ZZ method o.o From the first page
http://www.emsee.110mb.com/Speedcubing/ZZ speedcubing system.html


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## sptoo123 (Jan 24, 2009)

And I think it might faster than Fridrich method as well.
now I want to do is study it more.....


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## sptoo123 (Jan 24, 2009)

"intact".."intact"..."intact"....
I read it before..It didn't help me anymore....


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## JohnnyA (Jan 24, 2009)

sptoo123 said:


> "intact".."intact"..."intact"....
> I read it before..It didn't help me anymore....



If it doesn't help you, then give up ZZ because if you don't understand it you don't understand ZZ.


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## sptoo123 (Jan 24, 2009)

OKOK...I'll try my best....


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## mazei (Jan 24, 2009)

Wtv it is, ZZF2L will be kick-ass when blah finishes his LL algs and stuff.


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## JohnnyA (Jan 25, 2009)

mazei said:


> Wtv it is, ZZF2L will be kick-ass when blah finishes his LL algs and stuff.



I personally think that edge phasing will end up faster than corner control. Also it means that LL recognition will be faster.


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## mazei (Jan 25, 2009)

JohnnyA said:


> mazei said:
> 
> 
> > Wtv it is, ZZF2L will be kick-ass when blah finishes his LL algs and stuff.
> ...



Then it would be just learning CLL algs for LL.


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## JohnnyA (Jan 25, 2009)

mazei said:


> JohnnyA said:
> 
> 
> > mazei said:
> ...



Not if you use CLL you also need an ELL, because phasing is just permuting two opposite edges. You need CLL algs for if you permute all 4 but also the ZZLL algs.


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## mazei (Jan 25, 2009)

JohnnyA said:


> mazei said:
> 
> 
> > JohnnyA said:
> ...



I see. But I gotta agree that edge phasing is easier than corner control. It would take me a lot of time to do corner control.


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## JohnnyA (Jan 25, 2009)

mazei said:


> JohnnyA said:
> 
> 
> > mazei said:
> ...



Also, edge phasing is far more intuitive than corner control, and easier to recognise, since you are only looking at 2 pieces. But for edge control, theres lots of cases, just look at the winter variation, and reverse it.


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## Zeroknight (Jan 29, 2009)

Ah, this is the thread I'm looking for. Any advice for a new ZZ'er? You know things that will help (like when people start out CFOP, if you tell them to do the cross on the bottom, they do better cause it helps in the long run)


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## yurivish (Jan 29, 2009)

Pick a color scheme and stick with it. By color scheme, I don't just mean a bottom face, but a front face as well—since you're looking for misoriented edges, it will be easier to get used to certain colors in certain places as wrong. 

I, along with a few others, use blue in front / yellow on top. ZZ himself uses red in front / yellow on top. It's arbitrary, though, so use what you like.

I currently average slightly sub20 with ZZ, and I still only partially preinspect for the edges; I just do orientation. This is probably a bad idea, and I am trying to switch, but it's worked for me so far.

Also, start slowly learning COLL, if that's the variant you choose. I use COLL for everything but the Sune/Antisune cases.


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## Zeroknight (Jan 29, 2009)

Thanks man


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## Zeroknight (Jan 29, 2009)

Okay This is the method I'm going to use, tell me if its worth it:

EOLine - Average of 7 moves (Intuitive, but hoping for some algs)

ZZF2L w/ Block building -minus one CE pair- Average of 20? moves (not sure how many algs there are)

3-4 moves to insert the last edge. (This is to set up for MGLS)

MGLS- Average of 14? moves, and since edges are always already oriented, I only need 75 algs.

Full PLL- I'll take that this is self explanatory.

Times (very rough guesstimates.):

EOLine: 6 seconds
3 ZZF2L pairs: 11 seconds
Permuting the last edge: 1.5 seconds
MGLS: 3 seconds
PLL: 2.5 seconds
Hopeful final time: 24 seconds

Is it worth it? Anything I messed up, or is missing?

Thanks in advance.


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## Matthew (Jan 29, 2009)

Zeroknight said:


> Okay This is the method I'm going to use, tell me if its worth it:
> 
> EOLine
> ZBF2L w/ Block building -minus one CE pair
> ...



Sth about 135 algs... so better learn ZZ-b


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## Zeroknight (Jan 29, 2009)

I just updated my post, is it worth it now?


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## Dirk BerGuRK (Jan 29, 2009)

Zeroknight said:


> ZBF2L w/ Block building -minus one CE pair- Average of 20? moves (not sure how many algs there are)


I do not think you fully get ZBF2L. ZBF2L refers to orienting the LL edges while inserting the last corner edge pair. First of all, all your edges are already oriented after EOLine. In addition, ZBF2L does not care how the other slots are filled in, only the last slot. Unless you are implying something else with "ZBF2L w/ Block building." That doesn't fully make sense. Perhaps you mean ZZF2L? Is that a popular acronym?

http://www.speedsolving.com/wiki/index.php/3x3x3_Speedcubing_Methods


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## Zeroknight (Jan 29, 2009)

Yes. Thank you. I was confusing my methods. I'll change that. and btw, do you think the system I use will be worth it?


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## Zeroknight (Jan 29, 2009)

btw, are there any good sites that teach block building. I haven't fully grasped how to do it yet?


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## JohnnyA (Jan 29, 2009)

Zeroknight said:


> Okay This is the method I'm going to use, tell me if its worth it:
> 
> EOLine - Average of 7 moves (Intuitive, but hoping for some algs)
> 
> ...



That's good - eventually you would move to phasing the last slot and doing ZZLL, but that's only if you decide to continue it above your previous method.


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## Zeroknight (Jan 29, 2009)

Thanks. 
So phasing is getting the last layer corners to be oriented as well?


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## JohnnyA (Jan 29, 2009)

Zeroknight said:


> Thanks.
> So phasing is getting the last layer corners to be oriented as well?



No - phasing is permuting two opposite last layer corners, restricting the possible LL cases to very low (relatively)


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## Zeroknight (Jan 29, 2009)

Oh so you're saying I should drop MGLS (and its 75 algs) for Phasing?


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## Escher (Jan 29, 2009)

no...
phasing is used to drop the no. of algs if you were using ZBLL, which you arent.

MGLS, or more accurately in your case CLS, isn't going to benefit from phasing or corner control. i still think its good (MGLS that is), but it really has nothing to do with phasing.


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## JohnnyA (Jan 29, 2009)

No - ZZLL needs over 130 algs (off the top) so it's probably to get good at ZZF2L first.


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## Zeroknight (Jan 29, 2009)

dang... Thanks for being so patient with me guys. Just a few more questions...


Whats the best way to ZZF2L and are there any links besides the one on the first page? (ZZLL and the algs as well)

And what type of ZZ do you guys run?

EDIT: run should be use sorry. Mixing my jargon.


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## Escher (Jan 29, 2009)

ZZF2l is really one of those things that requires quite a bit of thought and practice. if you wanted to do it simply, think of it as 'x-f2l' perhaps - you're joining up c/e pairs and then joining them to a cross edge and then putting it all in. with normal fridrich f2l, you have to waste moves putting the cross edges in first.
that PDF that you see everywhere is pretty much the only resource for english speaking ZZ users. i _think_ zborowski's site has some stuff on it, but unless you use a translator (that might not be accurate) you wont be able to read it.
you'll be able to find MGLS on lucas garrons site, but i dont know if there are any/many example ZZf2l solves around.


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## JohnnyA (Jan 29, 2009)

When I use ZZF2L, I do EOLine (dur) and I basically build it by making a corner-edge pair (any pair without yellow), matchining it with the centre and the other edge piece and slotting it in, I often use the slotting stage to set up an easy Fridrich style insertion. Same on the other side, sometimes I CLS if I know the alg. Then OLL/PLL. I don't use it for speedcubing, that can wait till after French/UK open.


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## Lofty (Jan 29, 2009)

This thread is annoying.
It makes me want to start practicing ZZ again every time I see it. Maybe I'll learn ZZLL this summer and just work on ZZF2L now...
Edit: My first ZZ solves in months and months. averaged 35 using VH/OLL+PLL


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## Zeroknight (Jan 29, 2009)

Okay thanks so much guys. )) time to start learning algs :'-(


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## Escher (Jan 29, 2009)

learning algs is fun! 
honestly, what could match the joy of doing a speedsolve and getting an alg that you just learnt? 
saying that, im way lazy when it comes to learning algs, i still have like 3 OLLs to learn 
but if you learn ELS once you've finished CLS (so that you can use it in a fridrich solve) you'll be one of the very few people in the world to know full MGLS


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## Zeroknight (Jan 29, 2009)

Yeah, except for the fact that it's not full cause using EOLine,I skip the need for Edge Orientation... :'( do you think they'll still count me in the list? 

btw when I just learnt R perm, I never got, until after I had given up on looking for it. :'(

lol, well thanks for the support

EDIT: Reread your post, but I might not go back to Fridrich *double sob*


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## fanwuq (Jan 29, 2009)

Go to fmc.mustcube.net and watch replays of Zbigniew Zborowski's solves.

http://fmc.mustcube.net/results.php

Go through the solves for several weeks and for different categories.


Zeroknight, 
your goal of 24seconds is very easy to accomplish even with LBL. Make sure you understand what's going on before you get yourself into a method you don't understand. 
ELS is intuitive, so is ZZF2L, you don't just mindlessly learn algs for everything. I can usually now memorize an 15-move alg in less than 2 minutes because I can understand what's going on. The tough part is the pause for recognition of the case. Don't learn algs yet. Actually practice EO line to see if you like it first.


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## Zeroknight (Jan 29, 2009)

Thanks a lot man. 

EDIT in response to your edit: Yeah, the best part about this is that I do actually understand what's going on (thanks to limited blindfold experiences), but anyway I do like EOLine. 

Thanks so much all you guys


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## blah (Jan 31, 2009)

Lofty said:


> Edit: My first ZZ solves in months and months. averaged 35 using *VH/OLL+PLL*



Are you sure it's not COLL + EPLL? Why would you need VH for ZZ? Doesn't really make sense :confused:


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## blah (Jan 31, 2009)

Escher said:


> but i dont know if there are any/many example ZZf2l solves around.



http://www.speedsolving.com/forum/showthread.php?t=8871#14
http://www.speedsolving.com/forum/showthread.php?t=8849#14

I definitely suck at ZZF2L (including EOLine), but if you want some examples to start with, you've got 6 right here


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## Sir E Brum (Jan 31, 2009)

I would be all for ZZ if I could get the EOLine down. It takes me forever to do pre-inspect, but I also plan the Line.


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## yurivish (Jan 31, 2009)

Trust me, that goes way down with practice.

It used to take me anywhere from 15 to 45 seconds to determine EO and the line, but now I can do EO in less than 5 seconds. I still don't usually preinspect the pieces, except for easy cases.

Keep at it. I seriously considered switching back several times, but I'm glad I stuck with it.

Edit: I was 25s with fridrich, but now I'm around your level with ZZ. I can't get that average at will, though; usually if I try I can get sub20 averages.


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## Cride5 (Feb 26, 2009)

Sorry to post in an old thread but I'm quite excited about ZZ, and I thought I'd share my experience with it as a novice 

I'm nowhere near the level of you guys. At the moment I'm averaging about a minute, with a best time of 47-sec (I have a Long way to go!). So far I've had a good go of the following methods:
* Vanilla LBL - slow as hell, but can be improved with shortcuts
* Corners first - elegant method, but I found edge insertion to be very slow
* Petrus - great method for thinking about the cube, but deffo too slow to be a speed method IMHO
* Fridrich, with 4-stage LL - greatly improved my times, but really wasn't keen on learning all the algs for 2-look LL!!
* ZZ - much more difficult at first but keep improving all the time!

I can see how EOLine puts people off, because it is very hard to start with. It deffo improves with time tho - even for a novice like me! If you put in the work and nail it the benefits are huge:
* Automatic orientation of LL edges - gives me 3-look LL 
* Easier F2L, using R, L, U moves only
* More predictable F2L blockbuilding (because of EO)
* No cube turns on EOLine or F2L means no time lost re-positioning, and allows memorisation of piece locations

The only real downside I noticed with this method is the two remaining hidden edges on the D-face. It can make the search for blocks during blockbuilding slightly harder. Going for an EOCross could be a solution, but its even harder than EOLine to do in one step, and it also reduces freedom during the blockbuilding phase, making it less efficient.

At the moment my F2L is way too slow to think about learning more LL algs, but the fact that a 1-look LL is feasible is pretty cool


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## MAGIK (Mar 3, 2009)

i would love to learn this.....are there NO videos at all?....i dont know where to start with this method...can someone help?


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## a small kitten (Mar 3, 2009)

I don't build EO line very effectively and I don't block build but I still average low 20s with ZZ. I may be able to make a video when I'm free. But really, everything you need is on the online guide.


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## Kyle™ (Mar 3, 2009)

ZZ is not good. It involves way too much movement on both sides of the cube at the same time. It's physically lacking compared to other methods. It's more of a fact than an opinion. I tried it as best I could, and "wanted" to like it, but it's really slow. Kudos to whomever can get 14~seconds with it.


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## a small kitten (Mar 3, 2009)

KYLE ALLAIRE DROPS BOMBS! said:


> ZZ is not good. It involves way too much movement on both sides of the cube at the same time. It's physically lacking compared to other methods. It's more of a fact than an opinion. I tried it as best I could, and "wanted" to like it, but it's really slow. Kudos to whomever can get 14~seconds with it.



Your comment about turning both sides of the cube at the same time does not make sense. I assume you're talking about ZZ F2L, so I will talk about that. Once you begin doing the F2L the left block is usually 2 gen with a couple of R moves in it. It's not that bad. After that the right block is completely 2 gen. You can build the blocks however you want but if it's done correctly you won't really have to mix R U and L that much. I think that you are just complaining that it requires the cuber to be more ambidextrous? Maybe you are just slow at using your non dominant hand. 

Physically lacking compared to other methods? Once I finish the EO line I can basically complete the F2L (with reasonably high tps) without pausing because lookahead is made so easy. The reason I'm not extremely fast with ZZ is because my EO line needs more practice and I need to know more last layer algs. The method is hard to adjust to but that does not mean it is a bad method. The advantage of ZZ is the fact that the moves are physically easier to execute. 

EO line takes time to get used to. I have been practicing ZZ as my main method for two and a half months now, and some cases are still difficult (such as 10 awkwardly placed bad edges). However, I have confidence that more practice will eventually make those cases comfortable.


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## Kyle™ (Mar 3, 2009)

When you have a few people using a method, it isn't good. The cubing community is smart enough to lean towards a faster method when they see it. ZZ is not used much at all. People try it, and like its concept, but it's slow. Nearly everyone has tried it, why do you think no one stuck with it? I think this sport is in the stage now where people can stop denying how terrible some methods are. just my opinion.


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## soccerking813 (Mar 3, 2009)

But isn't ZB method *considered* a faster method, even though nobody uses it? And the speedsolving community is not really open to new ideas, because fridrich is used by so many people, and people have put years of work into getting really good at it.


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## Cride5 (Mar 4, 2009)

a small kitten said:


> some cases are still difficult (such as 10 awkwardly placed bad edges).



Its much easier to keep track of just the two good edges in this case. All you need to do is move the two good edges out of F and B faces, do your F + B turns, and deal with the two remaining bad edges. I personally find the most common case of 6-bad edges hardest to deal with, because it either involves removing 3 bad edges (while creating 1), then moving the remaining 3 (+1) into position ... or (probably easier) ... removing 4 bad edges and then dealing with the extra two.

I think much of the lack of popularity of this method comes from the fact that its not an easy transition from Fridrich. Being a bit of a n00b I only practiced fridrich for a couple of weeks, so never created any habits. I've been on this method for about 6-weeks and keep improving. Now down to 38-sec best (non lucky)


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## qqwref (Mar 4, 2009)

soccerking813 said:


> But isn't ZB method *considered* a faster method, even though nobody uses it? And the speedsolving community is not really open to new ideas, because fridrich is used by so many people, and people have put years of work into getting really good at it.



Personally I'm open to plenty of other method ideas, but I'm not fast at any of them. (I think a lot of faster Fridrich users are the same, they have tried things like Petrus, Roux, ZZ, Corners First, Heise, etc. but they always go back to Fridrich for speed solves because it is what they get the fastest times with.) As far as ZB goes, it is WAY too many algorithms for me to consider learning. Maybe it's faster than what I do... but I don't like 3x3 anywhere near that much


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## Cride5 (Mar 4, 2009)

soccerking813 said:


> But isn't ZB method *considered* a faster method



With ZB you spend extra moves (and learn more algs) to insert the last two F2L pairs and orient the LL edges simultaneously. With ZZ this is already done when you reach the end of F2L, so no need to learn extra algs or waste extra moves. With ZZ much of the hard work is done once you've done EOLine.

The ZB LL algs are considered (by some) to be better because of the possibility to complete it all in one step. It only involves a mere 493 cases! You can make you're life a lot easier by breaking it into two steps (CLL + EPLL), or even three (COLL + CPLL + EPLL) like me  Note that the LL algs for ZZ are exactly the SAME as ZB, since they both start with LL edges already complete.


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## mrbiggs (Mar 5, 2009)

Cride5 said:


> soccerking813 said:
> 
> 
> > But isn't ZB method *considered* a faster method
> ...



It's important to note, however, that this comes at the cost of limiting F2L to <U,R,L> (or, technically, one of several other variations depending on how you wish to define edge orientation, but I believe that is the one widely regarded as most useful and the only one I've seen used for ZZ). Some might consider this a bonus; personally when I tried ZZ I didn't like it. Then again, I'm not very good at blockbuilding.

My point being that there is a tradeoff there, and that you need to weigh the costs versus the benefits. It seems to me that ZZ is way more practical for speedcubing, but time will tell.


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## Cride5 (Mar 6, 2009)

mrbiggs said:


> Then again, I'm not very good at blockbuilding.



After a bit of practice the 'block building' becomes much more like algs, since you build up a set of common patterns in your memory. The advantage of not using algs to start with is that you are aware of what's happening as you solve the pieces, so can do better lookahead. Personally, when I do F2L I usually start with a corner + mid-edge pair first, then as I put them together I find the DF edge it goes with to create the first 1x2x2 block. I very rarely connect the corner to the DF edge first (unless they are already connected). I guess that in going for this approach I may be reducing my efficiency 'slightly', but it vastly reduces the possible cases you have to think about, and means that for each pair I'm always searching (initially) for a corner + mid-edge (in a similar manner to fridrich).

I find that having edges oriented during F2L makes finding corner/edge pairs easier, because mid-edges on the L or R faces will always have their L/R colour on that face, any other colours on the L or R faces mean that the edge belongs to the U or D face. Because of this, a simple glance to the L & R faces quickly reveals a lot about where things are!


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## ostracod (Mar 7, 2009)

I agree with Cride5, c/e pair formation has about twice the speed for recognition. If you find a corner which needs to be on the bottom (if it has a white sticker), and if you find an edge which can be paired with that corner (it doesn't matter which, if your line is already formed), then you can join them without thinking about edge orientation. If you're making a block, then matching a centre-edge pair is REALLY easy, and joining the pairs together is also extremely easy. And all of this is done with L, R, and U moves, which makes it even faster!

I've taken interest in this method in the past month. I used an edges-first method once, which involved orienting all edges as a first step. I became very good at orienting edges first... Unfortunately, I found that an edges first method is not a great method! However, the edge recognition has become very useful for ZZ solves.


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## qinbomaster (Mar 9, 2009)

i've been fooling around with ZZ lately, it's fun and i've managed to get a 14.10 (single obviously) after a few days of practice, but i want help with two things:

- quick ways to get fewest edges to flip via y rotation,
- & improving look ahead for building e.o. cross (and maybe even e.o. X-cross)

any advice? or will i just have to brute force practice?


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## a small kitten (Mar 9, 2009)

EO cross is already equivalent to X cross. EO X cross is probably out of the question.


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## IanTheCuber (Nov 8, 2011)

qinbomaster said:


> i've been fooling around with ZZ lately, it's fun and i've managed to get a 14.10 (single obviously) after a few days of practice, but i want help with two things:
> 
> - quick ways to get fewest edges to flip via y rotation,
> - & improving look ahead for building e.o. cross (and maybe even e.o. X-cross)
> ...


 
I hate to say this, but I'm not sure if anything can give you any advice period. Practically nobody uses ZZ, and some of the algs are up to 40 moves long, from what it says on the wiki page.


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## gbcuber (Nov 8, 2011)

IanTheCuber said:


> I hate to say this, but I'm not sure if anything can give you any advice period. Practically nobody uses ZZ, and some of the algs are up to 40 moves long, from what it says on the wiki page.


 
I'm pretty sure you're thinking of ZB, not ZZ


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## Phlippieskezer (Nov 8, 2011)

IanTheCuber said:


> I hate to say this, but I'm not sure if anything can give you any advice period. Practically nobody uses ZZ, and some of the algs are up to 40 moves long, from what it says on the wiki page.


 
lol, you so wrong. The first cuber I ever met uses ZZ, as does another 3 that I know. Sure, the majority of cubers use CFOP, but that doesn't mean nobody uses ZZ. From what I gather, it's the 4th most popular method in the world (behind CFOP, Petrus, and Roux[?]). Plus, I'm sure if nobody uses it, then this thread wouldn't have 18 pages. 
And if you're executing algorithms 40 moves long, you're doing it wrong. The only algorithms I use in ZZ are (usually) COLL and EPLL (otherwise, OCLL/PLL). None of my algorithms are even nearly 40 moves long. I average ~18 with ZZ (but it's not my main).

PS: Back on topic: Why would you make an eocross? I thought it's better to just blockbuild...


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## Hershey (Nov 8, 2011)

IanTheCuber said:


> Practically nobody uses ZZ, and some of the algs are up to 40 moves long


 
That is supposed to be the movecount of an entire solve, not one algorithm...


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## Athefre (Nov 8, 2011)

Hershey said:


> That is supposed to be the movecount of an entire solve, not one algorithm...


 
Maybe for fewest moves, but I would love to learn from the human that averages 40 moves with ZZ in a speedsolve.


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## nitay6669 (Nov 8, 2011)

IanTheCuber said:


> I hate to say this, but I'm not sure if anything can give you any advice period. Practically nobody uses ZZ, and some of the algs are up to 40 moves long, from what it says on the wiki page.


 am i the only one who saw the 2 year bump?

and lots of ppl use ZZ

u currently use it as my main and my avg is 17~
but im learning kinda ZZD so 20+...

you should defiantly check a small kitten YOUTUBE channel, he average 11 or something and 14-15 with OH
though im not sure my numbers are correct


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## DRAGON_RYU (Nov 8, 2011)

I can solve with ZZ, but not my main, and I'm not so good at eo.
Also, my brain is used to CFOP so I always EOcross.


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## Moops (Nov 9, 2011)

I've been solving with ZZ for about a month now but still finding trouble with my EOline. Thinking of making a 'training cube' to help with this.

The idea is to take off all the corner sticers on a cube so there's only edges then use that cube JUST for EOline practice.

I'm not sure if this will help or not. Anything to help buff my recognition would alongside lots of solves BLD would be useful.


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## oll+phase+sync (Nov 11, 2011)

a small kitten said:


> EO cross is already equivalent to X cross. EO X cross is probably out of the question.



I don't get the meaning - 

- do you mean Xcross needs as much moves as EO-Cross

or

- the right way to do EOCross is to do EO X Cross.


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## Godmil (Nov 11, 2011)

First one, EO X-cross is too much to plan in 15 seconds.


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## Laura O (Nov 11, 2011)

Moops said:


> I'm not sure if this will help or not. Anything to help buff my recognition would alongside lots of solves BLD would be useful.


 
It helped me a lot to force myself to plan the complete EOline in every single solve, no matter if it takes 10 seconds or 1 minute.
After about 2 weeks doing this my inspection time for EOline was ~15 seconds.


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## Moops (Nov 12, 2011)

larf said:


> It helped me a lot to force myself to plan the complete EOline in every single solve, no matter if it takes 10 seconds or 1 minute.
> After about 2 weeks doing this my inspection time for EOline was ~15 seconds.


 
Push through the discomfort! Thanks dude, I'll take it on.


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## Rubiksboy1 (Aug 6, 2012)

I just tried ZZ for the first time.
It feels really smooth and I love the F2L. I am going to switch from Fridrich after having learned OCLL and PLL, so I could use those for the last layer, but are there better ways? That is, should I take the time to learn COLL?


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## Petro Leum (Aug 6, 2012)

try and learn a few easy cases - if you feel comfortabel with the recognition, learn the full set - if not, stick with ocll/pll.


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## aznanimedude (Aug 7, 2012)

COLL is not too bad, good stepping stone to ZZLL or even ZBLL if you go that far, since it just adds a few more stickers to check. But it couldn't hurt, I know uvafan doesn't really use COLL, he uses OCLL and is easily sub 20 almost sub 15 (i think?) So its not that necessary


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## speed (Mar 11, 2013)

where can i find detailed information of the number of zz users ?  and their official and unofficial records ?  
it might that i want to start cubing again so i wanna see their solves and talk to them (on forum  )


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## DNFphobia (Mar 11, 2013)

speed said:


> where can i find detailed information of the number of zz users ?  and their official and unofficial records ?
> it might that i want to start cubing again so i wanna see their solves and talk to them (on forum  )



I'm using ZZ as my main, but I'm really slow at it. I average about 28.7 seconds with 4 look last layer and occasional PLL.

Sent from my Galaxy Note 2 using Tapatalk


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## aznanimedude (Mar 11, 2013)

there's a few ZZ solvers, best place to post for visibility is probably ZZ/ZB thread : http://www.speedsolving.com/forum/showthread.php?20834-ZZ-ZB-Home-Thread

dunno about how detailed the information is for that though  but they're more or less friendly to talk to. besides that aznanimedude, he's a jerk <___<


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## QPowerPrime (Nov 3, 2014)

*ZZ Megaminx*

How can i modify ZZ to work with a megaminx because it makes Super F2L much easier to work with. I only need the EO part so if anyone has any ideas (I haven't had any because there are no (directly) opposite faces)


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## Calode (Nov 4, 2014)

You don't really. ZZ is meant for cubic puzzles which have a F/B and R/L face. There's also not really any awkward moves the can be taken care of by doing eo at the beginning.


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## QPowerPrime (Nov 6, 2014)

Gutted

Edit: or i could just use Petrus 

Imagine if a ZZ solver got a Superflip scramble in a competition and still did EOline. Stupid



Calode said:


> You don't really. ZZ is meant for cubic puzzles which have a F/B and R/L face. There's also not really any awkward moves the can be taken care of by doing eo at the beginning.


 Does that mean i can use EO to solve a square 1? If so woohoo!

Edit: I know i probably can't as edge and corners are interchangeable.


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## Calode (Nov 6, 2014)

QPowerPrime said:


> Does that mean i can use EO to solve a square 1? If so woohoo!
> 
> Edit: I know i probably can't as edge and corners are interchangeable.


I guess I was too general. I myself have not played with a square one. But simply no, you can't use ZZ on a megaminx because there are no "awkward" moves.


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## Cub3Lov3r (Mar 3, 2015)

Hey! I use zz and am grateful for this page to meet other zz users. Zz is indeed my main after cfop . I found that f2l took me too long and all the oll algs... My switch to zz was relatively easy thanks to asmallkitten and Conrad rider. I average about 21.26 with it now. I know one look for both pll and oll. I don't want to learn so many algs for zbll but are there any other really faster ways? Or do I just need more practice?


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## MM99 (Mar 3, 2015)

Cub3Lov3r said:


> Hey! I use zz and am grateful for this page to meet other zz users. Zz is indeed my main after cfop . I found that f2l took me too long and all the oll algs... My switch to zz was relatively easy thanks to asmallkitten and Conrad rider. I average about 21.26 with it now. I know one look for both pll and oll. I don't want to learn so many algs for zbll but are there any other really faster ways? Or do I just need more practice?



Right now you just need more practice I currently average about 16.5-17s with just OLL and PLL and I feel that learning different alg sets isn't even required for sub 10... Just make sure that you are solving all your f2l pieces as move efficient and egornomic as possible some ZZ cases can be pretty difficult to get your head around at first but once you do your F2B will flow so nicely. And once again don't forget to practice practice practice! You'll get the results you want as long as you put in the practice


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## Cub3Lov3r (Mar 3, 2015)

I figured that would be the case now. Once I get about sub 15 I might look into things like zz-blah, but right now = practice. Any tips for increasing tips or look ahead? There is always practice but anything else would be nice.


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## MM99 (Mar 3, 2015)

Uh for tps you could do things like PLL time attacks drilling algs etc. For the look ahead it's really just one of those things that come with time IMO mine isn't anything special but once you get comfortable with all the cases that can be thrown at you you'll find that you'll be able to sort of track other pieces and predict where they end up. One other thing is try to be as ambidextrous as possible really get your double flicks down with both hands and make sure your triggers are fast on both hands like the sexy move for example. If I think of more Ill add it but as of right now really focus on finding an efficient EO line and try your best to solve each block/pair as efficiently as possible it'll be tough at first but with some practice you'll be sub 20 in no time


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## theROUXbiksCube (Mar 3, 2015)

tips for OH ZZ lookahead?


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## GuRoux (Mar 3, 2015)

theROUXbiksCube said:


> tips for OH ZZ lookahead?



practice roux OH, it really helps with zz lookahead.


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## theROUXbiksCube (Mar 3, 2015)

GuRoux said:


> practice roux OH, it really helps with zz lookahead.



can't tell if sarcasm or not D;


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## GuRoux (Mar 3, 2015)

theROUXbiksCube said:


> can't tell if sarcasm or not D;



it is. probably just try to do smooth solves with no pauses.


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## gewinnste (Jul 3, 2015)

*ZZ-b FTW !*

Funny that almost everybody here dwells on just having a 3gen F2L with no cube-turns as the main benefit of ZZ (the EO line, that is).

After doing CFOP with full OLL and full PLL, which I learned at sub 75 s (that's correct, Sirs and Madams, and I don't regret having learned it that early) and with which I went to sub 30s (PB:19.5, (3/5):25.7, (10/12):27.1), I figured that ZZ-b HAS TO BE *THE* METHOD!

I'm learning ZZLL right now and have 20/80 unique alg.s down and I started 5 days ago. Extrapolating from my learning experience of full OLL & PLL I assume I'll have full ZZLL down in 6 weeks and in 4-6 months I'll have all alg.s consolidated and in my muscle memory.

IMO, once you master the EO-line and ZZLL, you *will* be faster than with CFOP and for the following reasons:

EO-line takes about 0.8 moves more than the cross and so a tiny bit longer; 3gen F2L in ZZ takes about the same amount of moves as CFOP-F2L (move restrictions in ZZ-F2L being made up by block building possibilities) but will actually be a bit faster because of no cube rotations and being 3-gen. Phasing, including positioning the last F2L-pair, costs about 1.5-3 moves more than CFOP-LS or ZBLS, and the necessary "inspection", if you can call it that, about 0.5 s. And then there's an inspection time for the ZZLL case which is just a little bit longer than for full PLL and definitely shorter than for full OLL + full PLL - which leaves executing the ZZLL alg, which is about as fast as full PLL (~12 vs ~11 moves).

So, in essence, *EVERY* ZZ-b solve will be about as fast as an OLL-skip in CFOP, on average!

To be honest, the Winter variation (EO-line-3genF2L-WVLS-EPLL, I mean by that - it takes about 8 moves plus the few moves necessary to build the last pair) is almost as move-efficient as ZZ-b (but not as inspection time-efficient, btw) and with only 27 alg.s to learn instead of 160-170. So, if I had to get as fast as possible ASAP, I'd just improve on my EO-line and learn the Winter variation - and maybe the Summer variation as well. But since I have a lot of time on my hands I will commit to full ZZ-b.

I would appreciate your opinions!

P.S. I think that ZZ-a is just overkill (~100-150 cases for ZBLS + ~480 cases for ZBLL) and will likely not even be faster than ZZ-b because of the longer recognition times for the ZBLS and ZBLL cases.


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## cashis (Jul 4, 2015)

well, disregarding algorithms, ZZ-a really is the way to go. Its like getting a PLL skip every solve, and you don't even have to do any last slot or phasing stuff. 493 algs really isnt that many in the grand scheme of things.


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## theROUXbiksCube (Jul 4, 2015)

If you are learning ZZ you don't have to learn ~300 cases for ZBLS because you already oriented the edges in your first step.
Also, WVLS (Winter Variation) doesn't leave you with your corners permuted so its not WVLS>EPLL (only sometimes) but it will leave you with a random PLL only sometimes by chance your edges will be oriented as well as an OLL skip. 
I also agree with Cashis because ZBLL>ZZLL because of no phasing and last slot stuff


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## Lyn Simm (Jul 4, 2015)

theROUXbiksCube said:


> If you are learning ZZ you don't have to learn ~300 cases for ZBLS because you already oriented the edges in your first step.
> Also, WVLS (Winter Variation) doesn't leave you with your corners permuted so its not WVLS>EPLL (only sometimes) but it will leave you with a random PLL only sometimes by chance your edges will be oriented as well as an OLL skip.
> I also agree with Cashis because ZBLL>ZZLL because of no phasing and last slot stuff



ZZ-b phasing appears to be the most lightweight and intuitive 3x3 substep in existence!! it's 1.5 moves with hardly a glance.

-Lyn


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## theROUXbiksCube (Jul 4, 2015)

Lyn Simm said:


> ZZ-b phasing appears to be the most lightweight and intuitive 3x3 substep in existence!! it's 1.5 moves with hardly a glance.
> 
> -Lyn



but why still recog phasing and then the ZZLL? Imo its better to just recog the ZBLL

also can you link me to where you learned phasing?  thanks


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## DizzypheasantZZ (Jul 4, 2015)

theROUXbiksCube said:


> but why still recog phasing and then the ZZLL? Imo its better to just recog the ZBLL
> 
> also can you link me to where you learned phasing?  thanks



Here is a basic explanation of phasing. Somewhere I had found algs for all the cases where the F2L ends with URU'R', RUR', and R'. They are pretty intuitive but I will get you a list if you want me to.

Edit: I found the list of algs here.


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## cashis (Jul 4, 2015)

Is there a way to force a 2GLL?


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## StachuK1992 (Jul 4, 2015)

Yes, see any ZZ-d solution.
That said, there are no good solutions yet found, in my opinion.


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## cashis (Jul 4, 2015)

StachuK1992 said:


> Yes, see any ZZ-d solution.
> That said, there are no good solutions yet found, in my opinion.



Oh, yeah, duh.


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## oll+phase+sync (Jul 4, 2015)

gewinnste said:


> IMO, once you master the EO-line and ZZLL, you *will* be faster than with CFOP and for the following reasons:



As much as I like something new in this buisness, I really doubt there is any method a human can execute faster than CFOP - reasons:

- Cross is easy to learn + good cubers say they already find the first slot solution while doing the cross.
- while cube rotation seems bad it also means solving more slots on R than L, wich is good
- OLL (I call this already a big set of algs) but has the fastes recognition of any other LL-step (at least when set in relation to the number of algs)
- PLL are few cases perfect for drilling and many people have already spent much time in optimizing every single case

- CFOP will never punish you for being lucky - this is very importend in my opinion. Every method that burdens you with move restrictions, automatically will punish you


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## collppllzbf2lll (Jul 4, 2015)

Ok so I just switched to ZZ for OH, I'm still using OLL/PLL currrently but that's going to change soon.
So far my EOline seems efficient enough, however my F2L has quite a lot of moves, is there any alg list for ZZF2L? preferably no video on how to do it intuitively but just a page of boring algs would be nice.


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## gewinnste (Jul 4, 2015)

cashis said:


> well, disregarding algorithms, ZZ-a really is the way to go. Its like getting a PLL skip every solve, and you don't even have to do any last slot or phasing stuff. 493 algs really isnt that many in the grand scheme of things.



Well, if you can do that, it's great, obviously - you have to add a big chunk of ZBLS though, which is another 100-150 cases, I think, otherwise you'd have to do "last slot ... stuff".

I feel like that's too much for me. ZZLL is just about enough for me and will take about half a year. That's plenty.
And, as I mentioned above, I'm afraid that the longer recognition times for ZBLS and ZBLL compared to phasing and ZZLL might outrun the time saved.


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## cashis (Jul 4, 2015)

oll+phase+sync said:


> As much as I like something new in this buisness, I really doubt there is any method a human can execute faster than CFOP - reasons:
> 
> - Cross is easy to learn + good cubers say they already find the first slot solution while doing the cross.
> - while cube rotation seems bad it also means solving more slots on R than L, wich is good
> ...



pls stop all the opinions. some of these are founded but stop being such a cfop lover.
-EOLine isn't easy to learn because it does more, but fast ZZ solvers can usually see their first block/pair in inspection. 
-why are L moves bad? that's your opinion, again. L moves are just as fast as R for me.
-people are used to recognizing oll. if you're used to recognizing ZBLL, it can be just as fast. just because there are more cases doesn't make it more difficult to recognize. maybe at first, but after a while ZBLL will seem more natural or as natural as oll
-ZBLL are also good for drilling, just takes longer

-what method punished you for being lucky? lol a idk about you but there's a pause for me when I get skips, just like there will be for a Roux CMLL skip or 
oh wait, there won't be skips in ZBLL because you're forcing one every solve, so there won't be pauses.

I'm not trying to be argumentative, but I think your statements are flawed. I use cfop, but for different reasons. cfop is NOT inherently better than other methods, lol.



gewinnste said:


> zbls



if you're using ZZ, you don't need ZBLS. that's the whole point


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## 4Chan (Jul 4, 2015)

oll+phase+sync said:


> - CFOP will never punish you for being lucky - this is very importend in my opinion. Every method that burdens you with move restrictions, automatically will punish you



Does any method actually punish anyone for being lucky?
I can't recall the last time I found a block or an OLL/LL skip and was like, UGH, I GOT A SKIP WHY.

If anything, ZZ is luckier than CFOP by a wide margin. Something like 800% more LL skips, more OLL skips, more skips in the F2L such as pre-formed blocks and things.


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## MM99 (Jul 4, 2015)

4Chan said:


> Does any method actually punish anyone for being lucky?
> I can't recall the last time I found a block or an OLL/LL skip and was like, UGH, I GOT A SKIP WHY.
> 
> If anything, ZZ is luckier than CFOP by a wide margin. Something like 800% more LL skips, more OLL skips, more skips in the F2L such as pre-formed blocks and things.



Yea! ZZs the best we just need more people practicing it as much as CFOP is to realize it's true potential


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## Dong (Jul 4, 2015)

So, if I was to learn a 1LLL system, would ZZ-b or ZZ-blah be the way to go?
I'm currently trying to decide which to learn.


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## DizzypheasantZZ (Jul 4, 2015)

Dong said:


> So, if I was to learn a 1LLL system, would ZZ-b or ZZ-blah be the way to go?
> I'm currently trying to decide which to learn.



ZZ-blah is similar to WV except you de-orient the corners instead of orienting them. However, you would need fewer algs because you have two orientation to set up to rather than one.
I personally think that ZZ-b is way underrated. That is what I plan to learn soon, but you may have trouble finding algs.
If someone could get ZZLL algs that would be great. I would like <R,U,D> algs with only two D moves, as well as <R,U,F> and <R,U,L> algs for when they work better.


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## gewinnste (Jul 4, 2015)

Thanks for your comments, folks. I edited my post accordingly so my point was actually that for ZZ-a you need ~480 ZBLL cases to learn as well as 100-150 ZBLS cases.

As mentioned, this is too much IMO and I have serious doubts about the recognition times for ZBLS & ZZBL. I found only 1 video out there of a guy using ZZBL and for one of his solves he needed more than *4s to recognize the ZBLL case*. For most of the others he needed ~1.5s and I'm pretty sure that a cuber of his capabilities (15s solver with ZZ-a) would be able to do ZZLL recognition in 0.75s - or less, on average.

I'm all for learning full ZZ-a, but I think that's of very little advantage, time-wise, if at all, over ZZ-b.

P.S. I don't remember who posted this, but ZZ-WV ALWAYS gives you an OLL-skip!



DizzypheasantZZ said:


> ZZ-blah is similar to WV except you de-orient the corners instead of orienting them. However, you would need fewer algs because you have two orientation to set up to rather than one.
> I personally think that ZZ-b is way underrated. That is what I plan to learn soon, but you may have trouble finding algs.
> If someone could get ZZLL algs that would be great. I would like <R,U,D> algs with only two D moves, as well as <R,U,F> and <R,U,L> algs for when they work better.



This is my source and it's easily found (as opposed to algs for ZZ-blah, which I found interesting as well but didn't find alg.s for):
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1PNdfgzfJ4xefLuNOn4e9jfS9JiwjxvBLcaysU44M5Z8/edit
These are already optimized, apparently, but lack Sune & Antisune.

This page has all cases, but not optimized:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2...2I5LWFmZjgtM2FlNzFhM2EyNmNl/view?ddrp=1&hl=en


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## 4Chan (Jul 4, 2015)

gewinnste said:


> my point was actually that for ZZ-a you need ~480 ZBLL cases to learn as well as 100-150 ZBLS cases.
> 
> As mentioned, this is too much IMO and I have serious doubts about the recognition times for ZZLS & ZZBL. I only found 1 video out there of a guy using ZZBL and for one of his solves he needed more than *4s to recognize the ZBLL case*. For most of the others he needed ~1.5s and I'm pretty sure that a cuber of his capabilities (15s solver with ZZ-a) would be able to do ZZLL recognition in 0.75s - or less, on average.



The fact that you keep saying things like ZZLS shows how little you know about the methods.

Do you actually consider yourself even qualified to make those statements just because you've watched a single youtube video. Do you think it's even fair to base an entire opinion regarding an entire method based on a single solve?

That's worse saying you're qualified to do a job after reading the wikipedia description of one.

Do you even know how ZZLL is recognised? Do you even have systems? Do you even know the scope of the methods you're planning on learning?
It sounds like you're making broad statements on subjects that you haven't even researched deeply.


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## gewinnste (Jul 4, 2015)

4Chan said:


> The fact that you keep saying things like ZZLS shows how little you know about the methods.
> 
> Do you actually consider yourself even qualified to make those statements just because you've watched a single youtube video. Do you think it's even fair to base an entire opinion regarding an entire method based on a single solve?
> 
> ...



"ZZLS" was a typo and I corrected it. And the video I referred to shows a 10/12 and I specifically said that in *one of his solves *it took him >4s and for the rest it took him ~1.5s.

The fact that you're flaming about my potentially lacking knowledge on what I'm advocating tells me that you were too lazy to even read my first post on page 21, where I said that after full CFOP - ~30 F2L algs plus full OLL and PLL, that is - I learned 20/80 unique ZZLL algs already and that I assume I'll have all 80 down and in my muscle memory within the next 4-6 months.

So, yeah, I guess I know more than enough to post here on ZZ-b etc.

What's your point anyway? Do you do full ZZ-a? If yes, you're probably one of a couple dozen cubers worldwide - good for you, let me know how it's going. Specifically, I'd like to know how your ZZ-a times compare to your CFOP times (no sarcasm here).


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## 4Chan (Jul 4, 2015)

Yes, I do know it.
I've actually learned it twice over.

It's so cute that you think you know a method because you learned a measly twenty algs. You deserve a medal and some praise.

My ZZ-A lags 3 seconds behind my CFOP.
Which isn't even a good comparison because I've used F2L and CFOP for at least three years, and I've been doing ZZ since Feburary.


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## gewinnste (Jul 4, 2015)

4Chan said:


> Yes, I do know it.
> I've actually learned it twice over.
> 
> It's so cute that you think you know a method because you learned a measly twenty algs. You deserve a medal and some praise.
> ...



I don't know what your problem is. Just reread what I said and if you see flaws, come up with valid points - which are entirely absent in your replies so far.


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## 4Chan (Jul 4, 2015)

You think recognition for ZZ-B is faster than ZZ-A?
Your very source that you posted listed a ZZ-A style recognition.

This shows you have no idea how ZZ-A is recognized and that you have not done your research.

My point is that you haven't put enough work and time in to understand the statements you're making about ZZ.


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## cashis (Jul 5, 2015)

gewinnste said:


> Thanks for your comments, folks. I edited my post accordingly so my point was actually that for ZZ-a you need ~480 ZBLL cases to learn as well as 100-150 ZBLS cases.
> 
> As mentioned, this is too much IMO and I have serious doubts about the recognition times for ZBLS & ZZBL. I found only 1 video out there of a guy using ZZBL and for one of his solves he needed more than *4s to recognize the ZBLL case*. For most of the others he needed ~1.5s and I'm pretty sure that a cuber of his capabilities (15s solver with ZZ-a) would be able to do ZZLL recognition in 0.75s - or less, on average.
> 
> ...



Lets geralize all ZZ-a users based on one guy, lol. Get bindeDSA in here, iirc he can recognize and execute in 3 seconds. Thats feliks' LL.


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## kschiew (Jul 5, 2015)

gewinnste said:


> "ZZLS" was a typo and I corrected it. And the video I referred to shows a 10/12 and I specifically said that in *one of his solves *it took him >4s and for the rest it took him ~1.5s.
> 
> The fact that you're flaming about my potentially lacking knowledge on what I'm advocating tells me that you were too lazy to even read my first post on page 21, where I said that after full CFOP - ~30 F2L algs plus full OLL and PLL, that is - I learned 20/80 unique ZZLL algs already and that I assume I'll have all 80 down and in my muscle memory within the next 4-6 months.
> 
> ...



Do you know that the videos you watched are very possibly made by 4Chan? I would say it is not particularly wise to argue with a full ZBLL learner. On ZBLL. That's like arguing about Roux with Alex Lau.


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## molarmanful (Jul 5, 2015)

gewinnste said:


> I don't know what your problem is. Just reread what I said and if you see flaws, come up with valid points - which are entirely absent in your replies so far.


Dude, never argue with a ZBLL master. It will never go well for you.


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## gewinnste (Jul 5, 2015)

Wow, for the lack of arguments they're pulling out the VIP card - interesting.

It's this video here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uA4QBVKZjwA

And as long as this issue is concerned (recognition times of ZBLL vs. ZZLL), I don't care who he is and I shouldn't. How do I not know how ZBLL cases are recognized? They are recognized the same way as ZZLL cases, just that there usually are 12 cases for every COLL case instead of 4 and so it's impossible that this is as fast or even faster than ZZLL case recognition (everything else being equal, of course, same cuber, same cube etc.). I don't have to know full ZBLL to know that, for a fact. I don't have to climb Mt. Everest to know it's 8848 m high.

One general issue worth mentioning, because there's an obvious lack of statistically accurate thinking here and in practically all other cubing threads: Different methods **COULD**, in fact, be compared regarding their velocity. But all variables other than the method would need to be equal and that is incredibly hard to achieve. There would have to be large enough cohorts for each method and every parameter would need to be precisely controlled - and that's not possible at this point because of the lack of the aforementioned cohort sizes and the fact that important control parameters like experience etc. can only vaguely be assessed.

But to say it's conceptually impossible is plain wrong.


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## molarmanful (Jul 5, 2015)

gewinnste said:


> they're pulling out the VIP card


If you knew full ZBLL and was sub-20 with it, you'd be a VIP in the cubing community.


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## Petro Leum (Jul 5, 2015)

I agree with 4chan here, maybe you all shouldn't make claims about things that you haven't put any effort in and actually tried and maybe you should not gravedig this useless thread and rather put it in the zz/zb homethread.


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## a small kitten (Jul 6, 2015)

Just to introduce myself, I've been using ZZ since 2009 and achieved world class OH times with the method. If ZZ had a textbook, I'd most likely be one of the people to write it. 

Personally, I think a fair comparison of ZZ-a and ZZ-b requires considering the user and his or her capacity to memorize and quickly load algorithms as well as his or her capacity to phase effectively. If you take out the user, I think both areas are too abstract to really warrant definite comparison. 

I noticed gewinnste posted a longer post on page 21, so I'm going to respond to that. 



> EO-line takes about 0.8 moves more than the cross and so a tiny bit longer



Theoretically, sure. But, EO line is far more abstract than the cross. Optimal solutions may not be as finger friendly as good CFOP crosses. Some optimal EO line solutions are also extremely nonobvious. 



> 3gen F2L in ZZ takes about the same amount of moves as CFOP-F2L (move restrictions in ZZ-F2L being made up by block building possibilities) but will actually be a bit faster because of no cube rotations and being 3-gen.



High level CFOP solvers often see their first pair during inspection. Doing ZZ effectively (getting that good move count) often requires finding a good first block. This can be difficult because ZZ offers twice the choice in terms of where to start (CFOP offers you one of four pairs while ZZ offers you one of four pairs and one of four blocks). I would say that the decision-making in ZZ is more complex. The move counts may be similar, but the process of solving and the flow is very different. 

When I compare CFOP and ZZ, I usually like to think that CFOP is more directly productive and that ZZ saves its effectiveness for the end at the cost of an abstract beginning. CFOP solves 4 pieces after inspection, and generally requires solving two pieces at once four times. It is very organized. Modern CFOP is fast because the cross is straightforward and the solver aggressively solves pair after pair due to the lack of strain on decision-making. ZZ is very open-ended in the beginning of the F2L. But, once you get the first block, the rest of the F2L can be solved in one physical motion without stopping. Until then, the beginning of ZZ is very stressful. When someone says that ZZ F2L is "better" than CFOP F2L, I interpret that as they believe that eventually, ZZ solvers will be able to make decisions as quickly as CFOP solvers during the F2L so as to not slow down during the beginning of the ZZ F2L. 



> ZZ-b stuff



ZZ-b has some complications that you didn't specifically mention. For example, to phase effectively, you would have to phase using all four slots. I've never considered phasing seriously, but I'd imagine that phasing with all four slots seamlessly can get difficult. I've noticed that some people say that phasing is "lightweight", but I personally can't grasp phasing fluently without stopping using all four slots. Also, ZZ-b arguably adds another "look" in the phasing step. It's probably lighter than your average look, but it's arguably still a look. 



> P.S. I think that ZZ-a is just overkill (~100-150 cases for ZBLS + ~480 cases for ZBLL) and will likely not even be faster than ZZ-b because of the longer recognition times for the ZBLS and ZBLL cases.



People have already pointed this out, but to reiterate, the "~100-150 cases for ZBLS" you mention do not exist if you are doing ZZ-a. The whole point of ZZ-a is to do a regular ZZ F2L, which draws a fine line between the F2L and the LL. ZZ-a is just ZZ F2L + ZBLL. It's pretty simple conceptually. Part of the appeal of doing a normal ZZ F2L (which is what ZZ-a requires) is that you can aggressively solve your F2L without the added abstraction of phasing. To me, the phasing represents kind of an awkward speed bump in the solve. But, this could just be because I'm not completely fluent in phasing. 

Generally

The reason I say that the comparison is personal is because both methods require capacity that I consider significantly above average. ZZ-a requires the ability to memorize a large number of algorithms while ZZ-b requires coping with another level of abstraction. If your strong suit is memorizing more algorithms than 99% of the cubing population, then ZZ-a might be better. If you don't fear the abstraction of phasing, then perhaps ZZ-b is the way to go. Making a comparison to determine which is better theoretically is a bit too abstract. 

I think some of the people here were in the mood to argue because your comparison contained information that was not exactly correct (particularly, lumping ZBLS with ZZ-a). Personally, I believe that there are a lot of details in these methods that you can only appreciate once you've seriously studied them. Else, comparing the methods on a theoretical level isn't useful, since the discussion doesn't capture a lot of the things needed to make a fair comparison. I've been doing ZZ for a very long time, and I am well aware of many of its strengths and weaknesses. 

Of course, you had prefaced your opinions with the "IMO". But, still, I guess some felt strongly about the issue because you are relatively unknown while they've invested significant time in learning this stuff. The whole thing about being relatively unknown shouldn't be too relevant, but it is here on this forum, realistically. Anyway, I hope the posters didn't give you a bad time. I think they are just very passionate about what they do.


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## oll+phase+sync (Jul 6, 2015)

4Chan said:


> Does any method actually punish anyone for being lucky?
> ... ZZ is luckier than CFOP by a wide margin. Something like 800% more LL skips, more OLL skips, more skips in the F2L such as pre-formed blocks and things.



Even 800% will not make me a millionair in todays lottery, I was thinking more of the small things that really happen alot, like this F2L-Slot pieces that just pop into my view, just the moment I need them, but you will argue thats just my lack of blockbuilding skill - so be it.


Finally an exsample where a method punishes you for being lucky:

- when pasing running into the case where no extra move is needed (lucky and even common), but you are punished the same moment, because you spent time realizing you were lucky.

P.S. people will say they don't loose time for realization - that's a lie - ask Heissenberg about it.


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## Thecuberrr (Jan 9, 2017)

I noticed that no one has posted on this thread for a year and a half now so I thought I might . 
I recently switched from CFOP (averaging around 14 secs) to ZZ. I can't help but notice that there still aren't that many world class ZZ users in comparison to the number of CFOP users. Personally, I believe that a method such as ZZ-CT has so much potential. This is why I switched and I think that it should be more recognised. I myself would really like to see how fast people can get with this method . Perhaps any ZZ users or ZZ-CT users could post there averages on here as I am curious as to how fast some people are with it and how many people actually use ZZ-CT or still use ZZ.


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## GenTheThief (Jan 9, 2017)

Thecuberrr said:


> I noticed that no one has posted on this thread for a year and a half now so I thought I might .
> I recently switched from CFOP (averaging around 14 secs) to ZZ. I can't help but notice that there still aren't that many world class ZZ users in comparison to the number of CFOP users. Personally, I believe that a method such as ZZ-CT has so much potential. This is why I switched and I think that it should be more recognised. I myself would really like to see how fast people can get with this method . Perhaps any ZZ users or ZZ-CT users could post there averages on here as I am curious as to how fast some people are with it and how many people actually use ZZ-CT or still use ZZ.


It's great that you're interested in ZZ, I love the method and also switched from early CFOP.
However, a thread that is not dead is the ZZ/ZB thread. Also there is a ZZ-CT thread if you are interested. If you have any questions, you should probably post questions there.
I regard to your question: I average high 14 on 3x3, high 20 on 3x3 One Handed, and sub-1ish on 3x3 with Feet. I use ZZ for all of these with mostly an LL of COLL/EPLL. I'm learning the Anti-Sune COLL set, and use a few hand picked ZBLLs.


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## Thecuberrr (Jan 9, 2017)

GenTheThief said:


> It's great that you're interested in ZZ, I love the method and also switched from early CFOP.
> However, a thread that is not dead is the ZZ/ZB thread. Also there is a ZZ-CT thread if you are interested. If you have any questions, you should probably post questions there.
> I regard to your question: I average high 14 on 3x3, high 20 on 3x3 One Handed, and sub-1ish on 3x3 with Feet. I use ZZ for all of these with mostly an LL of COLL/EPLL. I'm learning the Anti-Sune COLL set, and use a few hand picked ZBLLs.


Thanks for the reply and for the tips. How long did it take you to learn COLL?


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## GenTheThief (Jan 9, 2017)

Thecuberrr said:


> Thanks for the reply and for the tips. How long did it take you to learn COLL?



I learned H, Pi, T, U, and L sets a couple months ago. I suppose that took around less than two months.
I recently decided to learn S/AS sets, and S set took me a little less than a week, and I'm about halfway done with SA.
It really helps that I know how to recognize the cases, which helps me learn them faster.


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## Allahjabark (Jan 9, 2017)

Could someone explain to me in detail the NMLL method, as I am really interested and want to learn it, but there are so few resources for it. Here is a link so you know what I am talking about.

link:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...09qEFePOzInwvFu99QBXkwddk/edit?hl=en_US#gid=0


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## CubingGenius (Jan 9, 2017)

Allahjabark said:


> Could someone explain to me in detail the NMLL method, as I am really interested and want to learn it, but there are so few resources for it. Here is a link so you know what I am talking about.
> 
> link:
> 
> https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...09qEFePOzInwvFu99QBXkwddk/edit?hl=en_US#gid=0



Take a look here.


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## Thecuberrr (Jan 9, 2017)

Thecuberrr said:


> Thanks for the reply and for the tips. How long did it take you to learn COLL?


Thanks again for the quick reply. Out of interest, are you interested in ZZ-CT and what do you think about it. I am considering learning the algs but can't decide on wether I should do it or not.


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## CubingGenius (Jan 9, 2017)

Thecuberrr said:


> Thanks again for the quick reply. Out of interest, are you interested in ZZ-CT and what do you think about it. I am considering learning the algs but can't decide on wether I should do it or not.



I know COLL and EPLL minus sune and antisune and I also use 2GLL and ZBLL.

I don't think ZZ-CT gives the greatest advantage for a two look LS+LL. If I'd have to choose, I'd prefer ZZ-b over ZZ-CT.

They have a similar algorithm count but the way they are executed are very different. I'd recommend you look at both and some other options here before deciding what to do.


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## GenTheThief (Jan 9, 2017)

Thecuberrr said:


> Thanks again for the quick reply. Out of interest, are you interested in ZZ-CT and what do you think about it. I am considering learning the algs but can't decide on wether I should do it or not.


When the method first came out, I got pretty hyped, but after a couple months of not learning algs, I've decided to go for ZBLL instead.
What made me decide to not learn CT was a combination of things, all of which are not necessarily the best reasons.
Mostly, they were:
Several posts in the ZZ-CT Thread 1, 2 
If I'm going to learn that many algs, I want it to be worth it. ZZ-a is considered to be the best.
Recognition for 100+ TSLEs suck/I already know how to recognize ZBLLs
Being able to maintain my current speeds/seamless integration into my solves of algs

The last two reasons are basically why I didn't continue with ZZ-CT, though it was a combination of all of them.
I had already learned some ZBLLs through recognizing EPLL skips in my COLLs, and I just decided to go all the way.

If you want to learn ZZ-CT; go ahead! It's still a good method.


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## Thecuberrr (Jan 9, 2017)

GenTheThief said:


> When the method first came out, I got pretty hyped, but after a couple months of not learning algs, I've decided to go for ZBLL instead.
> What made me decide to not learn CT was a combination of things, all of which are not necessarily the best reasons.
> Mostly, they were:
> Several posts in the ZZ-CT Thread 1, 2
> ...


Thanks again for the reply, I think I probably will do


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## JTcuber (Jan 9, 2017)

CubingGenius said:


> I don't think ZZ-CT gives the greatest advantage for a two look LS+LL. If I'd have to choose, I'd prefer ZZ-b over ZZ-CT.
> 
> They have a similar algorithm count but the way they are executed are very different. I'd recommend you look at both and some other options here before deciding what to do.


I think CT is better than ZZ-b, because I think the recognition for TTLL is better than ZZLLs, and the algs tend to be waaaaaay more ergonomic. And for ZZ-b to even be about on the same level, you would have to learn the full set for LS, where you have to recognize the ep for 2 edges and the F2L edge and corner permutation. Otherwise you're basically doing 2lls(recognizing edge and corner F2L permutation and then edge permutation) and then the ZZLL, which can be really tough to recognize.


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## mDiPalma (Jan 9, 2017)

JTcuber said:


> I think CT is better than ZZ-b, because I think the recognition for TTLL is better than ZZLLs, and the algs tend to be waaaaaay more ergonomic. And for ZZ-b to even be about on the same level, you would have to learn the full set for LS, where you have to recognize the ep for 2 edges and the F2L edge and corner permutation. Otherwise you're basically doing 2lls(recognizing edge and corner F2L permutation and then edge permutation) and then the ZZLL, which can be really tough to recognize.



Let me ask you, which is less:
a) 6.7+3 <RU>
or b) 10.37 <RU>?

and which is less:
a) 13 
or b) 15.21?

and which is less:
a) 8 pieces
or b) 9 pieces?

and which is less:
a) 169 algs
or b) 197 algs?

The conclusion that ZZ-CT is superior to ZZ-b on any quantitative basis requires honestly answering "b" to every question above.

Without any disrespect, ZZ-b was the way ZZ was intended to be executed, by its creator. You're not going to beat the approach out with any old orient/permute based method of a comparable alg count. To use Tony Snyder's terminology, these methods have a "mathematical disadvantage".


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## CubingGenius (Jan 10, 2017)

JTcuber said:


> I think CT is better than ZZ-b, because I think the recognition for TTLL is better than ZZLLs, and the algs tend to be waaaaaay more ergonomic. And for ZZ-b to even be about on the same level, you would have to learn the full set for LS, where you have to recognize the ep for 2 edges and the F2L edge and corner permutation. Otherwise you're basically doing 2lls(recognizing edge and corner F2L permutation and then edge permutation) and then the ZZLL, which can be really tough to recognize.



I can understand where you are coming from about the recognition, but I don't know how you got that TTLL's algs better than ZZLL's.

The recognition for ZZLL also requires orientation recognition, but you could also argue that TTLL requires D layer recognition as well.

The algs for TTLL are definitely not as good as ZZLL. There are lots of awkward algorithms compared to ZZLL where the number is fewer and the algorithms are generally lower movecount.

Phasing vs TSLE is probably a better comparison, I think TSLE might be slightly better in this bit, since they both have a similar move count (I think TSLE is lower) and phasing is a bit more difficult to recognise.

TSLE is a very good step in ZZ-CT, but TTLL is the weaker part and doesn't do as well compared to ZZLL, ZBLL etc.

That's why I'd prefer ZZ-b over ZZ-CT.


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## GenTheThief (Jan 10, 2017)

mDiPalma said:


> and which is less:
> a) 8 pieces
> or b) 9 pieces?


Okay this is the only thing that you shouldn't have argued.
It's just a bad point, and can be really easily proven wrong and irrelevant.
For example: would you rather solve a Sune (3 pieces, 7 moves) or an L (2 pieces, 8 moves) OCLL case?

I won't participate in this debate, as I don't know much of ZBLL, and none of TTLL.


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## JTcuber (Jan 10, 2017)

CubingGenius said:


> I can understand where you are coming from about the recognition, but I don't know how you got that TTLL's algs better than ZZLL's.
> 
> The recognition for ZZLL also requires orientation recognition, but you could also argue that TTLL requires D layer recognition as well.
> 
> ...


TTLL I think has easily better recognition. It's very similar to PLL, in that you only have to recognize blocks. You never need to look at the D layer. I've looked at the recognition for all the algs, and the worst ones are when there are no blocks, and you look to see if the edge in the side with the headlights is an opposite or adjacent color to the headlights. There really isn't a bad case for recognition, there are just good ones and meh ones. But there's no D recognition. That's why gyroninja only has the U layer in his TTLL page


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## CubingGenius (Jan 10, 2017)

JTcuber said:


> TTLL I think has easily better recognition. It's very similar to PLL, in that you only have to recognize blocks. You never need to look at the D layer. I've looked at the recognition for all the algs, and the worst ones are when there are no blocks, and you look to see if the edge in the side with the headlights is an opposite or adjacent color to the headlights. There really isn't a bad case for recognition, there are just good ones and meh ones. But there's no D recognition. That's why gyroninja only has the U layer in his TTLL page



But in order to do that the F2L corner must be at the ULB location. If it isn't then you have to AUF to recognise which takes longer on the TTLL part.

And what do you mean by blocks? Are you talking about recognising it from 2 sides or not?


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## JTcuber (Jan 10, 2017)

CubingGenius said:


> But in order to do that the F2L corner must be at the ULB location. If it isn't then you have to AUF to recognise which takes longer on the TTLL part.
> 
> And what do you mean by blocks? Are you talking about recognising it from 2 sides or not?


What? I never said anything about only 2 sides. You position the F2L corner at ULB(you only need to look at the white of it, knowing what other colors it has is irrelevant) and then you have one of 6 sets, either front bar, right bar, all bars, front opp(2-gen), right opp(2-gen), and both opp. You then look at the blocks. Most look like R-perms or G-perms. I would say it's maybe about on the recognition level if you were to learn a PLL for every 4x4 PLL case.(I'm not sure how many cases that would be). But I would say it's harder than PLL. From experience, I found it about as difficult as recognizing COLL



mDiPalma said:


> Let me ask you, which is less:
> a) 6.7+3 <RU>
> or b) 10.37 <RU>?
> 
> ...


I may be missing something, but I didn't get those first 2 points at all. Second, the solving of those 9 pieces requires less algs than solving those 8. You aren't taking into account the algs you would need to take into account for phasing for it to be at all on the same level as CT, because it does its last slot type step in one look, whereas intuitive phasing does it in 2 looks, where you get a pair and then phase, which would also be a higher move count. The algs for CT are also quantifiably better, one because they are extremely ergonomic, with one set being regripless, and 2 others being 2 gen, along with quite a few algs being 1 move conjugates of PLL. And what does the alg count have to do with anything? One, your number is wrong, because anyone who knows OCLL and PLL(anyone who would switch to either of these methods) would know 28 of the algs! 3 of the TSLEs are just RUR', RU'R, or RU2R', which everyone would also know. So if you want to compare arbitrary alg numbers, you should compare 167 to 169. Even though it is irrelevant, because OCLL and PLL are so many less algs than ZBLL, doesn't make it better. So yeah, your points are irrelevant.



mDiPalma said:


> Without any disrespect, ZZ-b was the way ZZ was intended to be executed, by its creator.


Why bring ZZ into this in the first place? Method creators are wrong about method execution all the time. Petrie thought you should do CP, CO, and EP in that order for Petrus. I don't think you're gonna argue that that's better than COLL and EPLL, or ZBLL. Fridrich also only though Fridrich method would be OLL, PLL, yet OLLCP, VLS, and things of the like are easily better


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## CubingGenius (Jan 10, 2017)

JTcuber said:


> What? I never said anything about only 2 sides. You position the F2L corner at ULB(you only need to look at the white of it, knowing what other colors it has is irrelevant) and then you have one of 6 sets, either front bar, right bar, all bars, front opp(2-gen), right opp(2-gen), and both opp. You then look at the blocks. Most look like R-perms or G-perms. I would say it's maybe about on the recognition level if you were to learn a PLL for every 4x4 PLL case.(I'm not sure how many cases that would be). But I would say it's harder than PLL. From experience, I found it about as difficult as recognizing COLL



I think I understand what you mean about the corner permutation. But I don't recognise it as a bar, I recognise it as a same colour relation and opposite colour relation.

By blocks, do you mean you look for things like 1x2x2 blocks? I recognise edge permutation by looking at the FU and RU edge's stickers and compare them with the FRU corner's stickers with same and opposite colour relations to work out the edge permutation.

The reason I mentioned the D layer was that you needed to look at that to recognise the TTLL without AUFing.


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## JTcuber (Jan 10, 2017)

CubingGenius said:


> I think I understand what you mean about the corner permutation. But I don't recognise it as a bar, I recognise it as a same colour relation and opposite colour relation.
> 
> By blocks, do you mean you look for things like 1x2x2 blocks? I recognise edge permutation by looking at the FU and RU edge's stickers and compare them with the FRU corner's stickers with same and opposite colour relations to work out the edge permutation.
> 
> The reason I mentioned the D layer was that you needed to look at that to recognise the TTLL without AUFing.


Yes, you look mostly for 1x2 or 1x3 bars, but on occasion you have to look at the EP of one edge in relation to headlights it's in. You rarely need to look at the EP of more than one edge, except for the all bars case, which recognizes like EPLLS


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## mDiPalma (Jan 10, 2017)

GenTheThief said:


> Okay this is the only thing that you shouldn't have argued.
> It's just a bad point, and can be really easily proven wrong and irrelevant.



I was alluding to the amount of pieces to be permuted - which is related to the complexity of recognition, especially in this case.

In ZZLL, I believe the case can be identified by looking at only 4 stickers after determining the COLL case (which is second-nature). The last step of ZZ-CT requires more sticker information to identify. Especially because there are no second-nature clues like corner orientations (in fact almost no information is conveyed by the U-face).



JTcuber said:


> I may be missing something, but I didn't get those first 2 points at all. Second, the solving of those 9 pieces requires less algs than solving those 8. You aren't taking into account the algs you would need to take into account for phasing for it to be at all on the same level as CT, because it does its last slot type step in one look, whereas intuitive phasing does it in 2 looks, where you get a pair and then phase, which would also be a higher move count. The algs for CT are also quantifiably better, one because they are extremely ergonomic, with one set being regripless, and 2 others being 2 gen, along with quite a few algs being 1 move conjugates of PLL. And what does the alg count have to do with anything? One, your number is wrong, because anyone who knows OCLL and PLL(anyone who would switch to either of these methods) would know 28 of the algs! 3 of the TSLEs are just RUR', RU'R, or RU2R', which everyone would also know. So if you want to compare arbitrary alg numbers, you should compare 167 to 169. Even though it is irrelevant, because OCLL and PLL are so many less algs than ZBLL, doesn't make it better. So yeah, your points are irrelevant.



The first point is a high estimate of the amount of moves required to create and insert the last pair while phasing in ZZ-b WITHOUT ANY COMPLICATED ALGORITHMS - simply picking between R U' R' and R U2 R' type inserts. LESS MOVES ARE REQUIRED FOR ZZ-b's PHASING THAN ZZ-CT's TSLE. That is undisputable. I'm not sure what you're trying to say. Look it up.

The second point is a comparison of the movecounts of ZZLL and TTLL. There is nothing to argue here either. Having an incorrect corner in the D-layer oriented downwards is inherently NOT a desirable state for efficient algorithms. Insertions of corners into this position and restoring the permutations of the remainder of pieces in the F2L is not an efficient task. It's not even a desirable state for commutator-style finishes. This is a source of the fundamental mathematical disadvantage associated with CT's approach.

Next, you can't just deduct algs from a set just because they are 'easy' or you already know them. By the same token logic, you can deduct all the OCLLs/COLLs/PLLS from ZZLL, dropping the alg count by around 40 (or more), depending on the algs you know. You could also argue that ZZLL is only an 80 algorithm set, counting mirrors and inverses. You know how Chris Tran talked about rotational symmetry in his session at Nationals? Yeah, well ZZ-b takes better advantage of that cube-property than ZZ-CT because all the pieces are isolated to the U-layer. Again, this contributes to the mathematical inefficiencies of his approach.



> Why bring ZZ into this in the first place? Method creators are wrong about method execution all the time. Petrie thought you should do CP, CO, and EP in that order for Petrus. I don't think you're gonna argue that that's better than COLL and EPLL, or ZBLL. Fridrich also only though Fridrich method would be OLL, PLL, yet OLLCP, VLS, and things of the like are easily better



Finally, because you've taken a shot at the Petrus method, I will inform you that it is *indeed* at least 2.4 (+.75 AUF) moves more efficient to solve the cube with Petrus' CP, EP+CO approach (if you combine EP+CO into the relatively small algset known as 2GLL) than to use COLL/EPLL (even look up the inefficient ZZ-orbit set, if you don't believe the statistic), which was not feasible to computationally generate in 1981 when the Petrus method was "invented". Lars Petrus came up with his algs by hand, yet he still managed to identify a cubestate reduction approach superior to the mainstream COLL/EPLL one used today. ZZ was proposed in 2006, which was a far different time in history for the generation of algorithms; therefore it was possible for him to generate all ZZLLs.

And if you look at what I said, I didn't say that the methods as they were intended by their creators would be the BEST - I just said that it would take more than a lousy 2-layer restrictive Orient/Permute style method (which is INHERENTLY INEFFICIENT in both movecount and in cubestate reductions) to beat them out. I still maintain that ZZ-b is the best 2*-look LS/LL ZZ variant, besides, of course, ZZ-a.

*This is the last time I'm going to post on this entire forum to point out the inefficiencies of CT's approach to LS/LL. Quite frankly, it's getting old, and it's not exactly difficult to understand. The method is fine as a 2-look solution to LS/LL, if it's branded as such, but to say that it is superior to ZZ-b by any metric (which is also a 2-look solution to LS/LL) is simply incorrect, mathematically speaking.*


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## JTcuber (Jan 10, 2017)

mDiPalma said:


> I was alluding to the amount of pieces to be permuted - which is related to the complexity of recognition, especially in this case.
> 
> In ZZLL, I believe the case can be identified by looking at only 3 stickers after determining the COLL case (which is second-nature
> (1)
> ...


(1)That's like saying ZBLL recognition is easier than PLL because you can get info from the top face. IT WAS DESIGNED TO BE EASY TO RECOGNIZE. Chris Tran made it specifically easy to recognize, because it recognizes like a PLL.
(2)I'm saying that your estimated move count is predicated on saying the F2L pair is already solved, whereas TSLE solves based on the exact opposite. The average move count for optimally solving the last pair in ZZ is 7.5. I'll even give you the benefit of the doubt that phasing adds NO moves to the average movecount(which it does). Even then, TSLE is more efficient. You have the move estimate yourself.
(3)That's a fair enough statement, yet the ergonomics are easily better with TTLL, because one full set is regripless, and 2 are 2-gen. As well, you have a 1/360 chance of skipping the last step in CT, whereas the chances of that happening in ZZLL is admittedly lower than normal ZZ, yet the chances are 1 in thousands, nowhere near the 1 in 360 with CT. The oriented D corner was to create rotational symmetry.
(4)I said that anyone who would seriously learn either of these methods would at least know OCLL and PLL. No one is going from 2 look PLL to CT and ZZLL. COLL is likely, but they aren't guaranteed to know it.
(5)This is idiotic. You obviously know nothing about what rotational symmetry is. Rotational symmetry tells when the corner orientation case is identical in position of the corners with an AUD. With ZZ-CT, this allows for any rotation of the U layer and being the same case. Rotational symmetry is only applicable in ZZLL for the H case, because U2 yields the same corner orientation. Any other case allows for no rotational symmetry whatsoever.
(6)He proposed a 3 step process. That's how he designed it. IT SAYS IT ON HIS WEBSITE. Those 3 are designed to be done separately. The only time he talks about combining steps, is talking about combining CO AND CP! He never alludes to 2GLL in any way.
(7)Yeah, yet Petrus didn't take Petrus past a 3-step system. That was done by others.
(8)ZZ-CT is unarguably the best method for cubestate reduction. Period. It allows for full rotational symmetry, reducing the cases by 1/4, whereas ZZLL allows for half rotational symmetry on one set and none on others.
(9)You realize that this method was created by a ZZ-a user who created it to surpass ZZ-a in ergonomics, alg count, and recognition, right? A ZZ-a user created this specifically to surpass your so-called "best method", and since he has first-hand experience with both, I think he would know.
(10) Your insistence that ZZLL is predicated on the idea that it is more move efficient(it's not), more alg efficient(it's not, because to 2 look LSLL you would need to memorize a case for every F2L phasing case), and more efficient at reducing cubestate(hilariously untrue). But if you don't want to respond to this, I get it. I've thoroughly addressed all your points. I just think it's rediculous that you continue to defend a method that is quantifiably worse based on false knowledge. But I, and anyone else reading this, know you'll probably respond to try to prove me wrong, despite the fact that facts, evidence, and statistics are not just not on your side, but completely against you. 
P.S. Sorry for the whole number-parenthesis thing for addrsssing your argument. I'm fairly new to the forum, and I haven't quite figured out the interface. Either way, no hard feelings(it is just cubing after all).


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## CubingGenius (Jan 10, 2017)

JTcuber said:


> (1)That's like saying ZBLL recognition is easier than PLL because you can get info from the top face. IT WAS DESIGNED TO BE EASY TO RECOGNIZE. Chris Tran made it specifically easy to recognize, because it recognizes like a PLL.
> (2)I'm saying that your estimated move count is predicated on saying the F2L pair is already solved, whereas TSLE solves based on the exact opposite. The average move count for optimally solving the last pair in ZZ is 7.5. I'll even give you the benefit of the doubt that phasing adds NO moves to the average movecount(which it does). Even then, TSLE is more efficient. You have the move estimate yourself.
> (3)That's a fair enough statement, yet the ergonomics are easily better with TTLL, because one full set is regripless, and 2 are 2-gen. As well, you have a 1/360 chance of skipping the last step in CT, whereas the chances of that happening in ZZLL is admittedly lower than normal ZZ, yet the chances are 1 in thousands, nowhere near the 1 in 360 with CT. The oriented D corner was to create rotational symmetry.
> (4)I said that anyone who would seriously learn either of these methods would at least know OCLL and PLL. No one is going from 2 look PLL to CT and ZZLL. COLL is likely, but they aren't guaranteed to know it.
> ...



Just to mention a few things:

3. The chance of a ZZLL skip after phasing is 1/648, not 1 in thousands. But when the skips are so small like this, it's not really worth using the method for the chance of skipping.
5. I'm not exactly sure what you are saying. If you take any ZZLL case and do a U it is the same case as well. Rotational symmetry only lowers the algorithm count in TTLL with PLL (from 72 to 21). In ZZLL it lowers the algorithm count with PLL (from 72 to 21) and H (72 to 40).
8. This is quite inconsistent. If you say doing a U reduces the number of cases on TTLL, how come you can't do it on ZZLL?
9. The creator has admitted himself that ZZ-a is superior to ZZ-CT.

I think ZZ-b and ZZ-CT at their highest level would be very similar speed wise. It would probably end up coming down more to a personal preference of which method you would use. But it is much harder to prove ZZ-CT is at the same level of ZZ-a due to only having to worry about one corner's orientation, although at the expense of the permutation as well, and because ZBLLs are generally better than TTLLs.


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## JTcuber (Jan 10, 2017)

CubingGenius said:


> Just to mention a few things:
> 
> 3. The chance of a ZZLL skip after phasing is 1/648, not 1 in thousands. But when the skips are so small like this, it's not really worth using the method for the chance of skipping.
> 5. I'm not exactly sure what you are saying. If you take any ZZLL case and do a U it is the same case as well. Rotational symmetry only lowers the algorithm count in TTLL with PLL (from 72 to 21). In ZZLL it lowers the algorithm count with PLL (from 72 to 21) and H (72 to 40).
> ...


3. Okay, that was my mistake. I didn't know the exact stat for ZZLL, but I knew that the normal one was 1/1000something. My mistake.
5. Rotational symmetry means you can do a U and have the same CO in relation to you. For example, you have a pi case. You have 1 pair of headlights on the left and the opposite corners on the right. You do a U, and now you have the headlights in front. The rotational symmetry in CT reduced the TTLL cases by(I believe this is right, not 100% sure) 1/22ish, 1-7th of that by getting rid of CO(so 7 less CO cases), and you would have 4 cases for every TTLL per CO, because there is no rotational symmetry, and every piece moving clockwise in relation to the corner case yields a new case if there was CO, but not in normal TTLL.
8. I already addressed this. Without CO changing in relation to you, with any corners facing the same way, the shifting of every piece clockwise would not yield the same case in ZZLL, but it would in TTLL because there is no CO.
9. I talked to the creator, and he believes they are comparable for averages, with ZZ-a having a slight edge if you get good at recognition, but he believes CT yields vastly superior single solves, and that CT is superior to b. I talked to him, and I think he won't mind me quoting here, "Hey JTcuber!

I think ZZ-CT is better because of recognition and one less look.

When you form the pair and do phasing, you miss out on lots of easy things, like easy insert to F2L, easy WV cancels, easy TSLE, and even easy ZBLL.

ZZ-B is only good as a step to ZZ-A, and all people who use ZBLL know this."


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## xyzzy (Jan 10, 2017)

Time to well-actually everyone.



mDiPalma said:


> In ZZLL, I believe the case can be identified by looking at only 4 stickers after determining the COLL case (which is second-nature).



It's even better than that. You need only one (!) sticker once you know the COLL, since you can deduce the opposite sticker (it has to be the opposite colour) and parity constraints force only one possibility for the two remaining edges.



mDiPalma said:


> You know how Chris Tran talked about rotational symmetry in his session at Nationals? Yeah, well ZZ-b takes better advantage of that cube-property than ZZ-CT because all the pieces are isolated to the U-layer.





JTcuber said:


> (5)This is idiotic. You obviously know nothing about what rotational symmetry is. Rotational symmetry tells when the corner orientation case is identical in position of the corners with an AUD. With ZZ-CT, this allows for any rotation of the U layer and being the same case. Rotational symmetry is only applicable in ZZLL for the H case, because U2 yields the same corner orientation. Any other case allows for no rotational symmetry whatsoever.





CubingGenius said:


> 5. I'm not exactly sure what you are saying. If you take any ZZLL case and do a U it is the same case as well. Rotational symmetry only lowers the algorithm count in TTLL with PLL (from 72 to 21). In ZZLL it lowers the algorithm count with PLL (from 72 to 21) and H (72 to 40).



Actually, rotational symmetry is a red herring here. There are two concerns here: the symmetries you care about (pre-AUF symmetry and post-AUF symmetry are related, _but not the same thing_, and they are also distinct from rotational symmetry), and the symmetries each individual case possesses.

For the former, typically the only symmetries you care about are the AUFs, so that's a factor of 16, which is the same for both ZZLL and TTLL. For the latter, they're also roughly matched. The only TTLL cases that have any AUF symmetry are some of the PLLs (skip, H, Z, E, N); meanwhile, the only ZZLL cases that have any AUF symmetry are in the PLL and H subsets.

(Note that having symmetrical cases _increases_ the case count. The fewer the symmetrical cases you have, the larger the factor of symmetry reduction.)



JTcuber said:


> (1)That's like saying ZBLL recognition is easier than PLL because you can get info from the top face.



IIRC Chris actually said that ZBLL was easier to recognise than PLL for that very reason in his 2015(?) ZBLL seminar, so, you know… Edit: found it.



JTcuber said:


> (3)That's a fair enough statement, yet the ergonomics are easily better with TTLL, because one full set is regripless, and 2 are 2-gen.



Strictly speaking, you don't get to count algs as being "2-gen" if you need to ADF before and after. After all, _every_ ZBLL can be done mostly <R,U> with at most one D and one D' move, but this might be being pointlessly pedantic.


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## AlphaSheep (Jan 10, 2017)

The biggest reason there are so many sub-10 CFOP users but so few sub-10 ZZ users is because CFOP users tend to spend their time doing big averages, while ZZ users spend their time arguing over the best ZZ variant. The best ZZ variant is the one you practice most so stop arguing and get back to practicing. Thanks.


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## GenTheThief (Jan 10, 2017)

AlphaSheep said:


> The biggest reason there are so many sub-10 CFOP users but so few sub-10 ZZ users is because CFOP users tend to spend their time doing big averages, while ZZ users spend their time arguing over the best ZZ variant. The best ZZ variant is the one you practice most so stop arguing and get back to practicing. Thanks.


THIS but zz-a ftw

Best post of the year
And it's hardly even started


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## One Wheel (Jan 11, 2017)

AlphaSheep said:


> The biggest reason there are so many sub-10 CFOP users but so few sub-10 ZZ users is because CFOP users tend to spend their time doing big averages, while ZZ users spend their time arguing over the best ZZ variant. The best ZZ variant is the one you practice most so stop arguing and get back to practicing. Thanks.



Yes, but . . . I will never hold a speedcubing world record, or even win a competition. I cube for the fun of it, and the reason I'm learning ZZ, and ultimately ZZ-CT, is that they are fun, elegant methods. You know what else is fun? Arguing about which method is best.


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## EntireTV (Jan 11, 2017)

One Wheel said:


> Yes, but . . . I will never hold a speedcubing world record, or even win a competition. I cube for the fun of it, and the reason I'm learning ZZ, and ultimately ZZ-CT, is that they are fun, elegant methods. You know what else is fun? Arguing about which method is best.



SS Forum is fun too


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## mDiPalma (Jan 12, 2017)

xyzzy said:


> It's even better than that. You need only one (!) sticker once you know the COLL, since you can deduce the opposite sticker (it has to be the opposite colour) and parity constraints force only one possibility for the two remaining edges.



You're right. I didn't account for the parity (-1). I also added +2 corner stickers on a random corner to know the AUF.



> Actually, rotational symmetry is a red herring here. There are two concerns here: the symmetries you care about (pre-AUF symmetry and post-AUF symmetry are related, _but not the same thing_, and they are also distinct from rotational symmetry), and the symmetries each individual case possesses.
> 
> For the former, typically the only symmetries you care about are the AUFs, so that's a factor of 16, which is the same for both ZZLL and TTLL. For the latter, they're also roughly matched. The only TTLL cases that have any AUF symmetry are some of the PLLs (skip, H, Z, E, N); meanwhile, the only ZZLL cases that have any AUF symmetry are in the PLL and H subsets.



Yes, as you pointed out, the rotational symmetries of permutation are more numerous in ZZLL than TTLL, which is what I was alluding to. I believe that the other guy was talking about rotational symmetries of orientation (which I guess relates to the TSLE cases that have the edge already inserted) and comparing that to the lack of any orientational symmetries in the phasing step (duh). Not really sure though.



AlphaSheep said:


> The biggest reason there are so many sub-10 CFOP users but so few sub-10 ZZ users is because CFOP users tend to spend their time doing big averages, while ZZ users spend their time arguing over the best ZZ variant. The best ZZ variant is the one you practice most so stop arguing and get back to practicing. Thanks.



Truth, it just rustles my jimmies when people are blinded by hype.


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## Teoidus (Jan 16, 2017)

While "best method" debates are generally not a great idea, I think in this case it's good to make clear what was and wasn't overhyped in ZZ-CT. It's worrying to think that new ZZ users exploring different variants will find CT and think it's the objectively best variant, ignore any others, and begin the cycle anew by reciting what they've been told of CT (Like JTCuber and genericcuber666 seem to have been doing...).

There are a couple of things that you can evaluate variants on:
Move count
Alg count
Recognition
Ergonomics
Look count

Let's look at *ZZ-CT*:
*52* avg movecount
*197 *alg count
*Relatively easy* recognition. Look at shapes for TSLE, look at block patterns for TTLL.
*Good *ergonomics (<R,U> is great, but if people can sub-1 their E perms I see no reason for <R,U> being so much better than other movesets)
*2.5* looks for LSLL (adding the .5 look because you do have to track your last F2L edge)
If we assume: 1 look for EOLine, 2 looks for the squares, 1 look for the last pair, 0.5 to track FR, 1 for TSLE, 1 for TTLL
You get a *6.5 look system*. Not bad,* CFOP is 7 looks* (cross, 4 pairs, OLL/PLL) and *Roux is 6.5* usually (FB, square, pair, CMLL, EO, 0.5 LR, 4c) and 5 if you're Kian (FB+DR+other sb stuffs, rest of SB+CMLL stuffs, CMLL+EOLR stuffs, EOLR, 4c).

Let's look at *ZZ-b*:
*47 *avg movecount
*167 *alg count
*Relatively easy *recognition. Look at arity for phasing + pair, look at a COLL + a single sticker for ZZLL.
*Good *ergonomics (the last pair + phasing is also 2gen! In fact, most things in ZZ are 2-gen until you have to confront CP. I don't know why some feel this is a major selling point of CT, it's quite common in ZZ in general)
*2.5 *looks for LSLL (adding the .5 look because you do have to track your last F2L pair).
The ZZF2L is of course the same, which makes this a *6.5 look system*.

So if we directly compare ZZ-CT and ZZ-b:
52 vs 47
197 vs 167
Relatively easy vs relatively easy
Good vs good
2.5 vs 2.5

Now if we quickly compare to ZZ-COLL/EPLL: 52 vs 58 movecount, 197 vs 46 alg count, relatively easy vs easy, good vs good, 2.5 vs 3.
So the question you might ask when considering ZZ-CT over ZZ-COLL/EPLL: is it worth the lower movecounts and look counts for the cost of 4x as many algs + a little harder recognition?
And, the question you might ask when considering ZZ-b over ZZ-COLL/EPLL: is it worth the lower movecounts and look counts for the cost of a little over 3x as many algs + a little harder recognition?

And, if yes to both, then the question you'd have to ask when considering ZZ-CT over ZZ-b: is it worth... nothing... for the cost of higher movecounts and alg counts?


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## MethodNeutral (Jan 19, 2017)

Teoidus said:


> And, if yes to both, then the question you'd have to ask when considering ZZ-CT over ZZ-b: is it worth... nothing... for the cost of higher movecounts and alg counts?


Your argument is very convincing, the only factor that you missed is that ZZ-CT has much easier recognition than ZZ-A. I do agree about everything else, but as far as TTLL vs. ZZLL, TTLL definitely wins just because of the recognition.


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## Teoidus (Jan 19, 2017)

ZZ-b recognition isn't hard, though... COLL recognition is easy, and ZZLL recognition is COLL + 1 edge piece.


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## CubingGenius (Jan 19, 2017)

MethodNeutral said:


> Your argument is very convincing, the only factor that you missed is that ZZ-CT has much easier recognition than ZZ-A. I do agree about everything else, but as far as TTLL vs. ZZLL, TTLL definitely wins just because of the recognition.



ZZLL's algs are a lot better than TTLL. The part where the gap is closer is phasing vs TSLE, not ZZLL vs TTLL. Anyway, the maximum number of stickers you need to see to recognise TTLL from any angle is 9 vs ZZLL's 7. So recognition would actually be faster for ZZLL, not TTLL.


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## Y2k1 (Jan 19, 2017)

Hey, just as a break from ct vs b, what is better between cpls/2gll and zz-b? From my understanding, it would be slightly lower movecount for b and harder recog for cpls, but I wolud rather have solid stats to compare the lls like the post 2 above


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## Teoidus (Jan 19, 2017)

1.5 HTM (from mdipalma) + 10 HTM CPLS + 15 for 2GLL = 26.5 for ZZ-CPLS/2GLL's LSLL
vs 9 last pair+phasing + 14 ZZLL = 23 for ZZ-b's LSLL


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## mDiPalma (Jan 19, 2017)

Teoidus said:


> 1.5 HTM (from mdipalma) + 10 HTM CPLS + 15 for 2GLL = 26.5 for ZZ-CPLS/2GLL's LSLL
> vs 9 last pair+phasing + 14 ZZLL = 23 for ZZ-b's LSLL



https://www.speedsolving.com/forum/threads/cpls-and-2gll-discussion.24125/page-6#post-1215420

using CPLS/2GLL instead of phasing/ZZLL is basically trading better and fewer algorithms for around 2-3 moves.


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## Zanaso (Jan 19, 2017)

MethodNeutral said:


> Your argument is very convincing, the only factor that you missed is that ZZ-CT has much easier recognition than ZZ-A. I do agree about everything else, but as far as TTLL vs. ZZLL, TTLL definitely wins just because of the recognition.


lol are you high? ZZLL has fantastic recognition. Sure TTLL has better recognition than ZBLL, but not better than ZZLL. They're comparable. Don't forget that you literally only need to look at 1 edge to determine the edge cycle for a ZZLL as opposed to 2 for TTLL.


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## 4Chan (Jan 19, 2017)

Zanaso said:


> lol are you high? ZZLL has fantastic recognition. Sure TTLL has better recognition than ZBLL, but not better than ZZLL. They're comparable. Don't forget that you literally only need to look at 1 edge to determine the edge cycle for a ZZLL as opposed to 2 for TTLL.



ZZLL Recognition:
Step 1: Look at COLL case
Step 2: Look at edge

TTLL Recognition:
Step 1: Look at blocks


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## Zanaso (Jan 19, 2017)

4Chan said:


> ZZLL Recognition:
> Step 1: Look at COLL case
> Step 2: Look at edge
> 
> ...


Yeah I forgot that every single TTLL case has super obvious blocks. Also telling the difference between the ~20 cases that have absolutely no blocks is like way easier than COLL + 1 edge. Also, 600 million% of TTLL cases are fantastic algs.


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## 4Chan (Jan 19, 2017)

Zanaso said:


> Yeah I forgot that every single TTLL case has super obvious blocks. Also telling the difference between the ~20 cases that have absolutely no blocks is like way easier than COLL + 1 edge. Also, 600 million% of TTLL cases are fantastic algs.



Do you even know either of these alg sets?
You're just talking from conjecture.

I've actually known ZZLL, ZBLL, and TTLL, and I'm speaking from experience.


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## mDiPalma (Jan 19, 2017)

4Chan said:


> Do you even know either of these alg sets?
> You're just talking from conjecture.
> 
> I've actually known ZZLL, ZBLL, and TTLL, and I'm speaking from experience.



Even still, I would argue that identifying the COLL case and looking at a single edge is less involved than searching non-U-facing pieces for characteristic blocks of colors.


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## CubingGenius (Jan 19, 2017)

4Chan said:


> ZZLL Recognition:
> Step 1: Look at COLL case
> Step 2: Look at edge
> 
> ...



Blocks won't always be enough to recognise the whole case. If you have a 2x1x1, for example, you won't have enough information to solve the case. And if you can use blocks to recognise TTLLs in one step, you would be able to use this for ZZLL as well. You need to work out the permutation of 4 corners and the permutation of 2 edges compared to having to work out the orientation and permutation of 3 corners and the permutation of 1 edge.

For me, the recognition would work like this:

ZZLL recognition:
Step 1: Orientation and Permutation of 3 corners (same as COLL)
Step 2: Edge permutation of 1 edge

TTLL recognition:
Step 1: Permutation of 4 corners
Step 2: Edge permutation of 2 edges


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## 4Chan (Jan 19, 2017)

CubingGenius said:


> Blocks won't always be enough to recognise the whole case.



You do realise that I don't look at the permutation for anything, right?
They ALWAYS give enough information.

You're also working purely from conjecture.
Anyone who's reached a certain level in ZBLL or 1LLL recognition just looks at patterns.

TTLL is a simpler pattern, simpler blocks.


My message to everyone is simple:

Stop guessing and conjecturing.
Actually go and learn those methods you're talking about.

If you like ZZLL, just go ahead and do it, get fast averages, and congratulations.


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## CubingGenius (Jan 19, 2017)

4Chan said:


> You do realise that I don't look at the permutation for anything, right?
> They ALWAYS give enough information.
> 
> You're also working purely from conjecture.
> ...



Setup: R' U2 R U R U2 R2 U' R2 U' R' U'

How would you use your block method in this example? I'm not sure how you would do it.

I know 4 COLL cases of ZBLL from all 4 angles and dozens of other ZBLLs, so I can recognise the cases already very well. I was just confused how you would get the information for the case, because I can't seem to work out how.


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## 4Chan (Jan 19, 2017)

CubingGenius said:


> I was just confused how you would get the information for the case, because I can't seem to work out how.



It's just like PLL, literally.
I just know the colours of all the cases, just like how an A perm = block + headlights + opposite colours

The case you listed has a block with a bunch of opposite colours, and is the only one with that particular combination. No mental gymnastics required, just pure reflex.


If you watch the last minute of this video, you can see how I do it quickly.


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## CubingGenius (Jan 19, 2017)

4Chan said:


> It's just like PLL, literally.
> I just know the colours of all the cases, just like how an A perm = block + headlights + opposite colours
> 
> The case you listed has a block with a bunch of opposite colours, and is the only one with that particular combination. No mental gymnastics required, just pure reflex.
> ...



Thank you for explaining. I thought you were originally saying after seeing a 1x1x2 block you don't look at the other pieces and already know the cases since you didn't mention them.

I think I would find it more difficult learning the cases to make a unique recognition method for each one, so I think I prefer my recognition method. But yours is also very good as well.

Now I understand it better, it is quite a good recognition method. Thank you for explaining so I now know how it works. 

By the way, do you always AUF the F2L corner to the UBL slot?


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## Rubik's cubed (Apr 21, 2017)

Hi, I am new to zz and I can't find a good place to learn eo line. I get the idea, but I always end up with an odd number of bad edges. Anyone know where to learn? Thanks!


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## shadowslice e (Apr 21, 2017)

Rubik's cubed said:


> Hi, I am new to zz and I can't find a good place to learn eo line. I get the idea, but I always end up with an odd number of bad edges. Anyone know where to learn? Thanks!


You can never have an odd number of bad edges so you must be recognising wrong. Have a look for asmallkitten's ZZ tutorial.


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## AlphaSheep (Apr 21, 2017)

Rubik's cubed said:


> Hi, I am new to zz and I can't find a good place to learn eo line. I get the idea, but I always end up with an odd number of bad edges. Anyone know where to learn? Thanks!


Videos are great and all, but with EOLine, I think a text tutorial is best. I still think the best place to learn to recognise EO is Conrad Rider's tutorial: http://cube.crider.co.uk/zz.php?p=eoline


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## RonM (Apr 23, 2017)

Dropping my name here as a budding ZZ cuber. Learned it from asmallsheep's tutorials and have since fallen in love (seriously need to rewatch those. So much useful info).

My PB with it is embarrassing and irrelevant given how new I am to speedcubing in general, and especially ZZ but I checked my Ao12 today and it's 1:38, which I don't think is too bad considering my CFOP Ao50 is barely sub 60 currently.

I'm picking up ZZF2L fairly quickly, but coming from CFOP I'm not used to even attempting to track anything more than the 4 pieces of my cross, so when I get 6 or more bad edges I struggle to track them all; the struggle only gets more real with more bad edges. I feel like with practice and plenty of slow solves my EOLine, and ZZF2L, will get faster.

Right now I'm just using 3LLL (because ZZ is awesome and OLL is easy with it) and have started memorizing more perms (I know the U perms, J perms, A perms, Y, T, and E perms so far). I'm aware there are a lot of great LL alg sets that go well with ZZ... but which one would you guys recommend for a beginner? Sorry if this is the wrong place to ask.


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## Rpotts (Apr 23, 2017)

In my opinion the best beginner LL for ZZ is OLL/PLL, two look PLL for the cases you don't know.


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## RonM (Apr 23, 2017)

Thanks for the input, Rpotts! I always appreciate seeing your replies.

As a follow up, when one is ready to move on from a beginner LL what LL would you recommend to begin learning next?


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## AlphaSheep (Apr 23, 2017)

RonM said:


> Thanks for the input, Rpotts! I always appreciate seeing your replies.
> 
> As a follow up, when one is ready to move on from a beginner LL what LL would you recommend to begin learning next?


Learn H and Z perms to finish a full 3 look LL. After that, finishing PLL is a fairly natural progression and will let you finish LL in 2 looks every time. Once you're comfortable with full PLL, I recommend gradually learning COLL. Replace one corner set at a time. I recommend learning T, then U, then L, then Pi and then H. Leave Sune and Anti-Sune for last, but they're actually not as bad as some people make them out to be.


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## pglewis (Apr 23, 2017)

@RonM: I'm dipping a toe into ZZ as well, currently a low 30 second CFOP'er. I already know full PLL and nearly half of OLL so I'm already able to 2-look worst case with pre-oriented edges. COLL would by my next step for an alg-set, 1:12 chance of PLL skip and an EPLL case guaranteed otherwise. Actually, COLL would be on my priority list next even with CFOP but I'd be able take immediate advantage of it with ZZ since I can already always 2-look. Working backwards from considering COLL is what led me to try ZZ.


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## RonM (Apr 23, 2017)

So it's decided then, I'll learn the remaining PLLs (I actually know H and Z already, just forgot to list them) then start learning COLL.



pglewis said:


> @RonM: I'm dipping a toe into ZZ as well, currently a low 30 second CFOP'er. I already know full PLL and nearly half of OLL so I'm already able to 2-look worst case with pre-oriented edges. COLL would by my next step for an alg-set, 1:12 chance of PLL skip and an EPLL case guaranteed otherwise. Actually, COLL would be on my priority list next even with CFOP but I'd be able take immediate advantage of it with ZZ since I can already always 2-look. Working backwards from considering COLL is what led me to try ZZ.



Do you see yourself favoring ZZ over CFOP so far? I've read/heard a lot of people say they "would switch, but invested so much time into [method] already". I'm fortunate enough to be almost as bad at ZZ as I am with CFOP, so I feel like after getting over the steep learning curve that is EOLine, ZZ will yield better results for me. I find that block building is a TON easier for me than pairing in CFOP, but that's likely because white stickers are a lot easier to see on edges therefore easier to find.


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## pglewis (Apr 24, 2017)

RonM said:


> Do you see yourself favoring ZZ over CFOP so far?



After a few weeks of splitting practice time between normal CFOP and EO-CFOP (I'm not even doing EO+Line or block building yet) I have the same opinion as I did the first day I experimented, only with more conviction: if I were confident I could reliably plan EOLine in under 15 seconds I'd formally switch right now for 3x3. My lookahead is not innately very good and is slow to develop. Pre-oriented edges presents a much better world for me, less chaos than what I end up doing in a normal CFOP solve and it results in more enjoyment. Since the first day of experimenting with EO I often catch myself starting to plan a cross and think "screw that" and start looking at EO instead. 



RonM said:


> I've read/heard a lot of people say they "would switch, but invested so much time into [method] already".



If my personal laser-focused goal was to reach a sub-20 3x3 average as soon as possible from where I am then it would make most sense to just stick with CFOP and spam F2L as much as time allows. I'm at the stage where I have all the tools to get there but for the remaining lookahead deficit. With occasional singles in the low 20s now I've started to think forward to what life after sub-20 means for me because it's no longer some pie in the sky goal I set while I was over 2 mins. Sub 20 was such a ridiculous idea for so long that I hadn't given consideration to "what about sub 15?" Turning faster is always a viable option, better lookahead is always a viable option, but moving beyond OLL/PLL would be the next obvious thing for me to explore and COLL easily seems to be the most bang for the buck in that direction. Last slot twiddling in order to get a COLL case isn't very attractive to me, cool as it may be, so I literally worked backwards from considering COLL to considering ZZ. 

So, the worst possible damage I can see from looking into it-- even if it turns out to be a side-trip I abandon-- is it just delays me reaching some arbitrary next plateau with my current method by claiming practice time. In reality I believe it's going to improve my CFOP solves: better EO awareness leading to less rotational chaos during F2L and the move restrictions are forcing me to re-evaluate several F2L cases I've been approaching too generally. Continued CFOP practice with mixed orientation wasn't shedding a direct light on those cases until ZZ took away my sledgehammers. 



RonM said:


> I'm fortunate enough to be almost as bad at ZZ as I am with CFOP, so I feel like after getting over the steep learning curve that is EOLine, ZZ will yield better results for me.



By speedsolving standards we're basically at the same level and it's the same for me. Given unlimited inspection time I could probably nail a PB single with just EO+CFOP now, with all the opportunities for luck. An easy 4-edge fix, cooperative rotationless F2L, OLL skip and an easy PLL... nothing completely crazy and a sub 20 recipe for me if I ever saw one. And from there I'm 40 COLL algs away from adding a 1:12 shot at PLL skip as a cherry on top of the built-in 8x greater chance of LL and OLL skip. The only question mark at all is _if_ and how long it will take me to be able to do EOLine within the inspection window (leaving time to set the cube down and activate the timer means about 12 seconds max to me). TBH, the only strong arguments against that I've seen are that ready-made pairs spotted in inspection are harder to preserve and if I'm going to look deeper during inspection I could put that effort into x-cross. CFOP is still that constant reminder that you shouldn't underestimate judicious use of brute force when time is of the essence.


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## RonM (May 2, 2017)

@pglewis As of last night I'm finally at a point where, given an unlimited inspection time, I am averaging sub 60 with ZZ! It seems a lot of my gains are in consistency though, with my standard deviation dropping from 40s to 5-10s over the last week.

While I have no hope of doing inspection in under 15 seconds right now, I still try to go through it as fast as I can and have started using my fingers less to tag all the bad edges and instead only use them to visualize where the remaining bad edges are going to be after fixing the first four; this is a big step up for me and I think is largely why my times are growing more consistent. It's not longer about fixing six individual edges; it's about fixing a group of three then four, or fixing two then four or four then two - I've grown more versatile and comfortable with EO and for whatever reason fixing six edges is harder for me to plan than even 8 or more. I'm still not quite ready for EOLine and still do EO+Line, but I've start practicing tracking my line as I do EO as a "training wheel" until I can do full EOLine. Regardless, the time from picking up the cube and until F2L starts is about 15 seconds for me which is, honestly, embarrassing to admit. I think it takes me so long in part because I'm in the habit of checking for bad edges after fixing all of them - nothing seems to frustrate me more with a ZZ solve than discovering I missed a bad edge in the middle of a solve - and finding my first block or F2L pair can take a couple seconds. Then my LL takes between 4-7 seconds, depending if I know the PLL or not and if I need to U to recognize it.

With that in mind I've been memorizing more PLLs and have only the Ns left to memorize and only the Gs to finish cementing (just finished memorizing them yesterday). My plan being to get them all into memory then use a PLL trainer sporadically but frequently throughout the day, for a few days, to drill them and with focus on the ones I'm weaker with. I figure if I can reliably 2LLL in 3-4 seconds then it'll just come down to reducing EOLine to sub 5 seconds and I'll be sub 30 even without any real improvement to my F2L. From there my plan is just to practice strictly slow solving for a couple days at a time between Ao100s, with a focus on efficient block-building, look ahead and overall solve fluidity for a couple weeks; I'm hoping that will take me to sub 20 or sub 25. I figure it's at that point PLL will be more reflexive, I'll have an overall better understanding of the cube and learning to recognize and execute COLLs will be much easier; with PLLs to fall back on if I don't know the COLL yet.

I did try a handful of CFOP solves and set a new CFOP PB and Ao12: 39.03 PB and sub 50 Ao12. 

It is interesting that I, as a newbie CFOPer switching to ZZ, improved at CFOP just as a byproduct of committing to ZZ. I suspect a big part of it is because planning my cross was ridiculously easier than it used to be so I was able to spot multiple options for my first F2L pair instead of being concerned with positioning the cross; and then as you said, the EO awareness really helps kind of organize things during F2L. I had my cross and first F2Ls pairs inserted, on average, in the time it normally takes me to EO+Line. My times probably could have gotten better with more solves because at first rotating was really throwing me off but towards the middle and end I identified it as a problem and simply paid more careful attention to it. I never learned OLL either but at this point it's very, very far down on my priority list since I would much rather memorize COLL. I still find solving with ZZ much more enjoyable and have zero regrets about switching to it.

But honestly, right now, sub 20 still feels like a pie-in-the-sky dream to me, like it probably did with you, with ZZ or CFOP. Even now my best ZZ time is 42.83 seconds and it felt like my EO+Line, ZZF2L and LL all flowed really well except a small pause on PLL. I take comfort in that when I watch sub 20, and to a lesser degree sub 10, solvers on YT I can mostly follow their turns and see what is going on if not where it's going and it wasn't but a few weeks ago I had to put things like that in half speed to be able to keep up. I'm hoping that with just time and practice everything will come together. I'm really not worried about getting my inspection time to under the 15s mark (well 12s mark) yet since I don't compete and speedsolve for fun more than anything else. I'm sure when I get closer to sub 30 I'll become more concerned with the, uh, legitimacy, of my speedsolves... but until then, I'm fine cheating my way to sub 30 with however much inspection time it takes me to build good habits LOL. 

I've also been thinking of trying to learn to be y axis color neutral now, while I'm still slow, since I know I won't want to take the temporary hit to times if I ever decide to later when I'm faster and my habits are more established; but I'm not sure the best way to approach it. Would it be better to start with an adjacent to blue color (red or orange), or to start with the opposite color (green in my case)?


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## Wristlor (May 2, 2017)

Well first of all: I can relate to all the things you said. These are probably the things that all the ZZ-ers have gone through and it will will improve faster than you'd think!

I also wanna share a tip:

To overcome the "have I done everything right?" - insecurity during the EO-Line, it can be a good idea to solve just the EO blindly for some solves. This helps making sure the "I know how to solve this EO" for your mind. If you're getting better you can also try to solve the full EO-Line.

As for your question:

I was actually y-Axis neutral from the start, but I can tell you that learning the opposite color won't really benefit you that much (even if it's very easy to pick up).The moves you need to make are all the same just mirrored. Go for an adjacent color first.


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## RonM (May 5, 2017)

@Wristlor I took your advice about just improvising some EOs and found it to be pretty helpful. It takes me only a little longer to solve EO (if I count bad edges first) than it does if I plan it all during inspection and I only made a small handful of mistakes that didn't become noticeable until LL when I had to 2L OLL. I had previously been learning some algs from a post elsewhere for a "1-look 2L OLL" which came in handy for these cases since they eliminate a pause despite being a slightly more uncomfortable alg to execute (still not bad, just not as comfortable as the set I first learned).

At some point the day before yesterday I decided to officially start practicing solving with a red front... which was a surprisingly easy transition once I figured out EO, and have found most of the time figuring out which side I want to solve can be determined by a quick glance at the U/D layers. If either are "cold", I solve blue; if they are "hot" I solve red. If heavy on white or yellow, I check E and S to decide if they're "hot or cold". Some times they're the same and I'll just go with the one with an obvious EOLine, or more commonly (because I've still not deliberately practiced EOLine since EO+Line is still a challenge for me) the simplest EO+Line. Initially my red front solves were considerably slower than my blue front, but throughout the first day the median shrank quickly and by the second (yesterday), I couldn't tell which was which just by looking at my timer history. I finished memorizing all the PLLs too that day and woke up yesterday able to pick a perm and execute it - some of them slowly and with pauses (N perms, Gc and Gd perm - the last four I learned), but still accurately. I think drilling PLL with red front ALL the time that first day is what really helped push my red-front F2L along. It's an interesting idea anyway. In conclusion, y-axis color neutrality is a huge help and worth every bit of the effort (IMO).

Today though I'm experiencing something I've only experienced twice in my life; the first time when I decided to learn guitar, and the second when I decided to learn the violin... my fingers are SORE! I'm not sure if I should take an easy day and only pick up my cube to periodically go through PLLs to make sure I don't forget them or if I should just push through it. I smashed through all my PBs yesterday so I kind of feel like a lazy day has been earned.

Speaking of smashing my PBs! Here's what my "ZZ CN" folder's Prisma Puzzle timer history looks like. At what point can I call myself a sub 60 ZZer; when I can solve sub 60 with a 15 second inspection? 

http://imgur.com/a/mAeLk


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## RonM (May 8, 2017)

@AlphaSheep I've got the PLLs down now and have started looking at/learning about COLL. Out of curiosity, why did you recommend them in the order you did?

I see there are only 4 COLL-H cases; I don't run into H very often but it seems like it'd be easy to get them out the way? Still, I've started with T as you recommend but am considering learning H next instead of U and then proceed with the order you recommended unless there is a specific reason you suggest learning H last?


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## GenTheThief (May 8, 2017)

RonM said:


> @AlphaSheep I've got the PLLs down now and have started looking at/learning about COLL. Out of curiosity, why did you recommend them in the order you did?
> 
> I see there are only 4 COLL-H cases; I don't run into H very often but it seems like it'd be easy to get them out the way? Still, I've started with T as you recommend but am considering learning H next instead of U and then proceed with the order you recommended unless there is a specific reason you suggest learning H last?


I learned the sets in the order H, Pi, T/U, L, S/AS. I learned H and Pi first because they have the easiest CP recognition; as long as you know the AUF, all the information you need is on the top face. I forget if I leaned T or U next, but they were fairly straight forward. L, even now, I suck at recognizing, though learning how to recognize it isn't hard. I only recently learned S/AS, and they weren't as hard as I thought they would be. They are mostly beneficial for OH and Feet solving because TPS and dexterity is limited. On normal 3x3, Sune/Anti-Sune is fast enough to make up for a bad PLL.


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## AlphaSheep (May 8, 2017)

RonM said:


> @AlphaSheep I've got the PLLs down now and have started looking at/learning about COLL. Out of curiosity, why did you recommend them in the order you did?
> 
> I see there are only 4 COLL-H cases; I don't run into H very often but it seems like it'd be easy to get them out the way? Still, I've started with T as you recommend but am considering learning H next instead of U and then proceed with the order you recommended unless there is a specific reason you suggest learning H last?


T has the easiest set of algs in my opinion. I then suggest U and L as a few of these are inverses of T cases. I suggest learning Pi before H last because they're more likely to appear. I recommend leaving Sune and Antisune for last because the recognition for them is easier once you're comfortable with all of the others.


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## pglewis (May 8, 2017)

GenTheThief said:


> On normal 3x3, Sune/Anti-Sune is fast enough to make up for a bad PLL.



But that 1:12 chance at PLL skip tho, for the sake of singles!


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## xyzzy (May 8, 2017)

pglewis said:


> But that 1:12 chance at PLL skip tho, for the sake of singles!



Depending on which COLL algs you use, it could be pretty easy to predict whether you can force an EPLL skip. The ones I use are:

Sune/Antisune
Niklas
F R' U2 R F' R' F U2 F' R
L' U2 L U2 R U' L' U (L R')
(L' R) U R' U' L U2 R U2 R'
R' U2 L U' R U L' U R' U R

Sune/Antisune are pretty easy: there's a pair and it's adjacent to an opposite or adjacent edge (respectively). The diag-swap case one is similar to an Antisune (pair + adjacent edge). Niklas and the other L3C alg both have a full 2×2 block. The remaining two algs have alternating colours on the block (like a Z perm). If you see a block / pair / "Z perm", you can tell if you can force an EPLL skip by using COLL, without even recognising the COLL case.


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## RonM (May 10, 2017)

Well I think I've mostly memorized COLL-T, finally; just need to find a COLL trainer/scrambler to drill recognition and the algs. Any recommendations?

Also, did you guys find the COLLs harder to memorize than PLLs too? Not necessarily the algs, but which alg goes with which case? I find it harder without each COLL-T case having its own easy-to-remember/identify name compared to PLL.


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## GenTheThief (May 10, 2017)

RonM said:


> Well I think I've mostly memorized COLL-T, finally; just need to find a COLL trainer/scrambler to drill recognition and the algs. Any recommendations?
> 
> Also, did you guys find the COLLs harder to memorize than PLLs too? Not necessarily the algs, but which alg goes with which case? I find it harder without each COLL-T case having its own easy-to-remember/identify name compared to PLL.



https://www.speedsolving.com/forum/threads/zbll-trainer.63572/
http://bestsiteever.ru/zbll/
You can select the cases that your COLL algs solve, or just select the entire set so you can get a bit more variation in the order of cases presented.

And you can use it for ZBLL too!

I can't say much about COLL memorization, it seems like it was a while ago.
When I learn ZBLLs, I give them names based on their blocks (I use block recognition). So this case would be sort of like: U-diag swap-righty Jperm-hold with Jperm on left.
All are mental names, I don't usually say them out loud.


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## RonM (May 10, 2017)

GenTheThief said:


> I can't say much about COLL memorization, it seems like it was a while ago.
> When I learn ZBLLs, I give them names based on their blocks (I use block recognition). So this case would be sort of like: U-diag swap-righty Jperm-hold with Jperm on left.
> All are mental names, I don't usually say them out loud.



I've been doing much the same, but I was just hoping there was more standardized names for them. I refer to them as "[Direction]y block"... such as "Lefty Block", "Fronty Block". I do say them out loud though, I figured out with PLL having the auditory mental trigger sometimes helps recall a freshly learned alg when I blank out on the first couple moves to activate muscle memory. The real problem comes when I start introducing myself to the U set; if I use the same naming pattern I end up mixing up the T and U algs. I'm guessing that this problem will mostly disappear with practice, much like it did with distinguishing between the different G perms.

The trainer is awesome, by the way! I had found http://timothyaveni.com/cubing/oll-trainer/ shortly after posting earlier and was using it, but even if I cycle in U or H (both of which I am only vaguely familiar with) OLLs it still tends to give me the same COLL cases, or just never seems to generate 1 or 2 COLLs for a set. Still helpful, but clearly not quite as helpful as the one you linked. Thank you!


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## RonM (May 14, 2017)

So! I've been very, very casually learning the COLLs but only implement them in slow solves for now (I'm still working on fast PLL recognition and execution). I've mostly been focusing on trying to plan EOLine within the 15s inspection window...

How do you guys do it, seriously? So far I can do EO detection 100% of the time within 15s, but if I'm looking at more than 6 edges I have no hope of planning EO and have to do most of it on the fly, then pull together a Line. Will it really just become easier and faster with practice, or did you guys use some kind of deliberate practice technique?


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## AlphaSheep (May 15, 2017)

RonM said:


> So! I've been very, very casually learning the COLLs but only implement them in slow solves for now (I'm still working on fast PLL recognition and execution). I've mostly been focusing on trying to plan EOLine within the 15s inspection window...
> 
> How do you guys do it, seriously? So far I can do EO detection 100% of the time within 15s, but if I'm looking at more than 6 edges I have no hope of planning EO and have to do most of it on the fly, then pull together a Line. Will it really just become easier and faster with practice, or did you guys use some kind of deliberate practice technique?


For a while after I started I used to only plan EO for the first 4 bad edges. When I averaged about 35s, I realised that was a big weakness, so one day I did 200 EO only solves where I rushed identifying the bad edges and forced myself to plan full EO. Thinking only of speed and allowing myself to make mistakes occasionally was part of the key to getting faster.

I had a habit of counting and then checking my count, which I managed to stop. If I do make a mistake now, it's almost always only one missed edge and I pick it up almost instantly in inspection and lose a second. Occasionally I do get EO wrong, but it's very unusual for it to happen more than once in 100 solves. 

Just for reference, I tried timing steps of inspection when I averaged about 20s and my inspection was about 2s identification, 5s planning EO and 3s planning the line (although in actual competitions I panic and tend not to plan the line).


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## JTcuber (May 15, 2017)

RonM said:


> So! I've been very, very casually learning the COLLs but only implement them in slow solves for now (I'm still working on fast PLL recognition and execution). I've mostly been focusing on trying to plan EOLine within the 15s inspection window...
> 
> How do you guys do it, seriously? So far I can do EO detection 100% of the time within 15s, but if I'm looking at more than 6 edges I have no hope of planning EO and have to do most of it on the fly, then pull together a Line. Will it really just become easier and faster with practice, or did you guys use some kind of deliberate practice technique?


It just comes with practice. I can detect edges basically instantly, and plan out the whole EOline in about 5-8 seconds. I've used ZZ for almost 2 years though, but it gets way easier once you practice more. Just focus on planning out EO, then add tracking the line pieces, and then try to plan out the whole line once you're good with that. I'm trying to learn to plan out my first block in inspection, but piece placement gets hard to predict once you start worrying about more than 2-3 pieces, and you need to track 5 for FB


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## RonM (May 15, 2017)

@AlphaSheep Thank you for the insightful reply. It's really encouraging to hear about your initial struggles. Last night I was messing around on csTimer and my solves were horrible and even worse than when I first started practicing with a timer (+6 seconds average, making for +16 seconds total over my timerless inspections). 

It was very discouraging. I ended up getting so frustrated I had to put the cube down and walk away (it was like 2:30 AM at this point, so I just went to bed). While laying in bed I was seriously contemplating giving up ZZ and returning to CFOP or maybe taking up Petrus - I know both those methods fairly well, but neither are nearly as fun for me as ZZ, but on the other hand neither have ever frustrated me as much as I was last night. I've found that at most I can track about 5 edges and almost always lose track of the sixth, let alone line edges unless it is one of the five. So with timed inspections I end up with long pauses between EO and Line where I have to find one or both line edges, then another pause after that while I assess my best block/pair choice or just try to find one if none immediately jump out at me. I was pretty sure when I went to sleep last night I would be practicing CFOP in the morning.

I woke up today and seem to have gotten over it; I haven't done any timed solves today either though and have just instead been practicing EO+Line OH (just decided on the OH thing today at random during breakfast since if I can learn to solve OH I can easily double my practice time). I see in some walkthrough ZZ solves they will rotate the cube to make EOLine easier; I tried it a few times not too long ago but really struggled with the concept, so I'm hoping that the necessity of cube rotations in OH will help make it more intuitive and familiar over time.



JTcuber said:


> It just comes with practice. I can detect edges basically instantly, and plan out the whole EOline in about 5-8 seconds. I've used ZZ for almost 2 years though, but it gets way easier once you practice more. Just focus on planning out EO, then add tracking the line pieces, and then try to plan out the whole line once you're good with that. I'm trying to learn to plan out my first block in inspection, but piece placement gets hard to predict once you start worrying about more than 2-3 pieces, and you need to track 5 for FB



When I do solves with unlimited inspection I can plan out full EO and track the line as I go about 50% of the time and relative idea where they are 25% of the remaining 50% of the time, and the other 25% of the time I can do full EOLine simply because it's an easy EOLine case. I just crumble the moment I start timing the inspection. Often times I've detected all of EO by the 8s mark, but then as I start planning how to pull together my first group of fixes (seems a lot harder when timed, that's usually the easiest part of my non-timed EO) I lose track of an edge.

I don't see how you or @AlphaSheep detect and fix EO so fast. Do you guys have a standard order you inspect in that helps you optimize your moves? I've been doing my inspections by counting U, then D, then the slice (<- correct terminology?) edges but earlier today I was wondering if it would be more efficient to count them: F -> B -> slice edges?


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## Pyjam (May 15, 2017)

For inspection, I do: Front -> Slice -> Back.
But I suppose the most important thing is to choose what works the best for you and stick with it.


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## GenTheThief (May 16, 2017)

RonM said:


> I don't see how you or @AlphaSheep detect and fix EO so fast. Do you guys have a standard order you inspect in that helps you optimize your moves? I've been doing my inspections by counting U, then D, then the slice (<- correct terminology?) edges but earlier today I was wondering if it would be more efficient to count them: F -> B -> slice edges?



I solve ZZ Blue Front, Yellow Top.
When inspecting for bad edges, I start with Green Front, Yellow Top (so z2 after scrambling). I note any bad edges on the green face, do a cw y2 while noting the edge state on LU/LD. I note the edge state on the front and then on RU/RD.
I plan out my EO strategy while I check for bad edges, and that usually doesn't take much more than 5-6 seconds. I then check my Line edges, and usually f--- planing them out and just track them during EO (I'm trying to get out of the habit).

When I first started maining ZZ, a little over a year ago, I would put my fingers on all my bad edges as I inspected. This really helped me to not have to remember where the bad edges where.

And I never time inspection. Like, ever.
With enough practice, you'll get under 15s inspection, and then under 10s inspection easy.
It will take time, but you'll get there.


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## Y2k1 (May 16, 2017)

GenTheThief said:


> It will take time, but you'll get there.



I used zz straight after lbl, and I honestly find it harder to plan an efficient cross vs an eoline (sub 12 zz & sub 17 cfop)


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## AlphaSheep (May 16, 2017)

RonM said:


> I don't see how you or @AlphaSheep detect and fix EO so fast. Do you guys have a standard order you inspect in that helps you optimize your moves? I've been doing my inspections by counting U, then D, then the slice (<- correct terminology?) edges but earlier today I was wondering if it would be more efficient to count them: F -> B -> slice edges?


I hold the cube at 45° so that I can get a good all around view just by tilting the cube slightly. I don't need to but I still like to put my fingers on most of the bad edges. It helps me think about how they will move as I trace where the line edges will go.

I inspect L, B, R then F, and I only look at U or D if I need to. It's so automatic by now after almost 4 years of doing ZZ, I'm not even sure how my brain does it. I definitely don't look at each edge individually - I take in a whole face at once. So if I look at the orange face (L), I ignore orange and red stickers. If I see yellow or white (U or D), I count them, and if I see blue or green (F or B) I tilt the cube a little and peek around the side for more info. I didn't start doing this deliberately. It just naturally got to that point where I was doing it.

And like @GenTheThief, I've pretty much never timed inspection other than for the brief period mentioned in my last post (which was only a day or two). It's more important to do it properly. Speed will come naturally with practice.


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## JTcuber (May 16, 2017)

RonM said:


> It was very discouraging. I ended up getting so frustrated I had to put the cube down and walk away (it was like 2:30 AM at this point, so I just went to bed). While laying in bed I was seriously contemplating giving up ZZ and returning to CFOP or maybe taking up Petrus - I know both those methods fairly well, but neither are nearly as fun for me as ZZ, but on the other hand neither have ever frustrated me as much as I was last night. I've found that at most I can track about 5 edges and almost always lose track of the sixth, let alone line edges unless it is one of the five. So with timed inspections I end up with long pauses between EO and Line where I have to find one or both line edges, then another pause after that while I assess my best block/pair choice or just try to find one if none immediately jump out at me. I was pretty sure when I went to sleep last night I would be practicing CFOP in the morning.
> 
> I woke up today and seem to have gotten over it; I haven't done any timed solves today either though and have just instead been practicing EO+Line OH (just decided on the OH thing today at random during breakfast since if I can learn to solve OH I can easily double my practice time). I see in some walkthrough ZZ solves they will rotate the cube to make EOLine easier; I tried it a few times not too long ago but really struggled with the concept, so I'm hoping that the necessity of cube rotations in OH will help make it more intuitive and familiar over time.
> 
> ...


ZZ is really tough at first, trust me. It gets a lot easier with time, and you'll get a lot better. And for EO detection, it just starts to become second nature. I've probably done at least 25-30,000 solves with ZZ, and after a while, you don't have to think about whether edges are oriented or not. I don't really think about EO anymore, I just know the orientation by looking at it. It takes a while to really get that ingrained into you, but you get really fast detection once you don't have to think about whether the edges are oriented or not. I wouldn't worry about this yet, but once you are able to plan out full EOline in inspection time, start trying to work on y axis neutrality. Sometimes, you may have an EOline that's 9-12 moves and not that fingertricky on your main orientation, but you may have only a 5 or 6 mover on another face. Just work on normal EOline for now though, I didn't switch until probably about 10 months in. Just be sure that you practice good habits early on, especially using blockbuilding and not EOCross. EOCross is nice if it's only 2 or 3 moves extra, but if you rely on it, it'll become a really bad habit. I'm still trying to break that habit, so just don't get into it to begin with. Just work on blockbuilding and try doing stuff like EO blindfolded, and then try to do the whole line BLD. It gets a lot easier, and if you stick with it, ZZ can be really good


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## RonM (May 22, 2017)

Sorry for the late reply fellows, I guess I forgot to "Post Reply".

Thank you all very much for the advice, I've been really giving my EO+Line a lot of attention and have, more or less, relaxed a lot on the inspection times and have been practicing EO Detection from different angles. Before I was mentally translating what it should look like from the blue face and having to go through the rules, but lately I've been starting my inspection with the green side and rotating the cube to the front, inspecting and planning (what I can) as I go while trying, mostly, to take in an entire face at a time as @AlphaSheep does and I imagine others do as well. That combined with OH practice (for growing comfortable with x/z cube rotations) has really made EOLine possible for me and EO+Line a lot easier; I can track my Line 100% of the time and plan an EOLine more often than before. 

@GenTheThief I do the finger thing too for remembering pieces but some times they are just placed really awkardly and my cube destabilizes; it gets messy. How long do you think you used your fingers to help you? I've been trying to break the need for it by just planning the first four in my head then putting my fingers on whatever bad edges remain.

@JTcuber I've been practicing y-color neutrality somewhat, but honestly not nearly as much as I used to since my main goals right now are to get EOLine down and smooth out my EOLine to ZZF2L transition. I figure once I can reliably EOLine with my main front (blue) within the 15s inspection window I'll start practicing for CN. I'm going to be 100% honest with you, I initially kind of brushed off what you said about EOCross because I tend to favor finding blocks first, completing a side, then doing the other side's block and pair. It just kind of struck me when working on EOLine to F2L transition to focus on my F2L since I realized I was favoring CFOP pairing, or rather was still in a CFOP mentality. I revisited asmallsheep's tutorial and actually sat and watched the entire thing without getting distracted (a feat for the father of a seven year old) and learned a whole new way of thinking about pairing and block building that I hadn't really considered before. My Ao12 following that video dropped, I kid you not, 6s (from 44.19 to 37.46) - mostly because finding that first block or pair after EOLine has gotten immediately easier.

I feel like my EOLine is at a place now where just practice solves will cement what I know, so my focus will be shifting to F2L and improving my efficiency there since I'm pretty sure the community is in agreement that F2L is generally where everyone can improve the most -- I typically finish EOLine and F2L at around 35-40 seconds, then my LL in about 4-6 seconds (3LLL). Granted, my LL would probably be 3-5 seconds if I'd stop checking the timer every time I get to it. 

I tried block building with my eyes closed and generally I can do the pairing no problem (probably from CFOP), but building a full block yields a lot of misplaced pieces. I'm also beginning to realize that a lot of the cases I thought I had a good grasp on... I was actually solving really inefficiently.

Not really off topic, but in a different direction... did you guys have to relearn your PLL algs for OH? I swear I'll get to some algs and just have zero idea how to do them anymore, but then when I go back to two-handed I can do them no problem.


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## One Wheel (May 22, 2017)

RonM said:


> Not really off topic, but in a different direction... did you guys have to relearn your PLL algs for OH? I swear I'll get to some algs and just have zero idea how to do them anymore, but then when I go back to two-handed I can do them no problem.



I'm getting better, but I had a lot of trouble with F- and V-perms OH, and I still mess up G-perms sometimes. Foot solving helps a lot, because you learn to look at what the cube is doing rather than relying on muscle memory.


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## RonM (May 22, 2017)

One Wheel said:


> I'm getting better, but I had a lot of trouble with F- and V-perms OH, and I still mess up G-perms sometimes. Foot solving helps a lot, because you learn to look at what the cube is doing rather than relying on muscle memory.


See, I was wondering about that. I'm guessing you learned to track the pairs and such with your LL algs?


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## One Wheel (May 22, 2017)

RonM said:


> See, I was wondering about that. I'm guessing you learned to track the pairs and such with your LL algs?



For F- and V-perms specifically it was actually my LL color. My V-perm is R' U R' d R' F' R2 U' R' U . . . [Finish intuitively]. After the R2 there is a small L of the LL color on top, and my problem was that I was doing a U instead of U' and breaking the L. F-perm is the same alg except replace the first U with a U2, and instead of the L there is a square.


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## JTcuber (May 22, 2017)

RonM said:


> @JTcuber I've been practicing y-color neutrality somewhat, but honestly not nearly as much as I used to since my main goals right now are to get EOLine down and smooth out my EOLine to ZZF2L transition. I figure once I can reliably EOLine with my main front (blue) within the 15s inspection window I'll start practicing for CN. I'm going to be 100% honest with you, I initially kind of brushed off what you said about EOCross because I tend to favor finding blocks first, completing a side, then doing the other side's block and pair. It just kind of struck me when working on EOLine to F2L transition to focus on my F2L since I realized I was favoring CFOP pairing, or rather was still in a CFOP mentality. I revisited asmallsheep's tutorial and actually sat and watched the entire thing without getting distracted (a feat for the father of a seven year old) and learned a whole new way of thinking about pairing and block building that I hadn't really considered before. My Ao12 following that video dropped, I kid you not, 6s (from 44.19 to 37.46) - mostly because finding that first block or pair after EOLine has gotten immediately easier.
> 
> I feel like my EOLine is at a place now where just practice solves will cement what I know, so my focus will be shifting to F2L and improving my efficiency there since I'm pretty sure the community is in agreement that F2L is generally where everyone can improve the most -- I typically finish EOLine and F2L at around 35-40 seconds, then my LL in about 4-6 seconds (3LLL). Granted, my LL would probably be 3-5 seconds if I'd stop checking the timer every time I get to it.
> 
> I tried block building with my eyes closed and generally I can do the pairing no problem (probably from CFOP), but building a full block yields a lot of misplaced pieces. I'm also beginning to realize that a lot of the cases I thought I had a good grasp on... I was actually solving really inefficiently.


It's great to hear you're improving so much! I would say don't worry about CN too much, just practice on your main orientation until EO detection is completely unconscious. I don't think I learned CN until I averaged 15-17ish. It's a lot easier if a transition than with CFOP too, I was able to do it in just a couple days. 

I agree that you should focus mostly on F2L. Luckily, LL is easy to improve on cause you can always just learn new algs. I usually still build a 3/4 cross, mostly because it helps me with lookahead but is much more efficient than a full EOcross. If you can see blocks easily though, that's fantastic, and you should definitely do that. I would say my suggestions for you are just to keep practicing, because that's honestly probably the best way to get better with ZZ, and try to transition to 2LLL. It might only drop your average a little, but the sooner you become comfortable with those algs, the better. Another thing is that the blind block building you do is fantastic, and you should definitely keep doing that, and your lookahead will be great later on. Good luck to you!


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## GenTheThief (May 23, 2017)

RonM said:


> @GenTheThief I do the finger thing too for remembering pieces but some times they are just placed really awkardly and my cube destabilizes; it gets messy. How long do you think you used your fingers to help you? I've been trying to break the need for it by just planning the first four in my head then putting my fingers on whatever bad edges remain.


[time date backround] I switched to zz in something like late feburary of 2016. After my second competition in early may, I was able to transition out of cross f2l, and into full ZZ block builing f2l. I think it was sometime in the summer, as I was breaking into 18.5-19, was when I stopped doing the finger thing since i realized it was a bad idea, and would look stupid in competition.
I think if you have a solid grasp of EO, you should stop with the finger thing as soon as you feel comfortable.

Nowadays, I've encountered most and probably all variations of EO that I instantly have a plan, so no need for fingers.


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## RonM (May 26, 2017)

GenTheThief said:


> [time date backround] I switched to zz in something like late feburary of 2016. After my second competition in early may, I was able to transition out of cross f2l, and into full ZZ block builing f2l. I think it was sometime in the summer, as I was breaking into 18.5-19, was when I stopped doing the finger thing since i realized it was a bad idea, and would look stupid in competition.
> I think if you have a solid grasp of EO, you should stop with the finger thing as soon as you feel comfortable.
> 
> Nowadays, I've encountered most and probably all variations of EO that I instantly have a plan, so no need for fingers.



I relate to that bit about feeling/looking stupid doing the finger thing, I think that's part of the reason why I was in such a hurry to get EOLine down; the only cube I have that I can actually place my fingers on awkwardly placed edges is my Gans UM, with my Valk 3 the cube destabilizes and the odds of dropping it skyrocket, that and it's distracting to have to focus on maintaining the cube. And man, I can't wait until I'm that comfortable with EO.

@JTcuber Thank you man! My practice time is pretty limited as a full-grown adult with full-grown adult responsibilities, so I try to make every "deliberate" practice session as intense as I can to get the most out of it, but I bounce between training too much at one time and overwhelming myself or training too little at once and not challenging myself. I kind of goofed in my last post, I actually do know full 2LLL and a handful of COLL H, T and Pi cases that I simply refuse to use in a speed solve until I'm not hesitating on all the PLLs' recognition and/or execution (looking at you N & R perms and Gd perm).

I've been curious about something: Do you guys find ZZ is harder to grow consistent with than CFOP? I remember with CFOP with my standard deviations was ALWAYS really low, typically within 2-3 seconds, but with ZZ it's typically around 4-6 seconds. I *think *it's due to the variation in possible bad edges for EO and how difficult EOLine/EO+Line is to accomplish, but your guys' more experienced input would be appreciated.


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## JTcuber (May 29, 2017)

RonM said:


> @JTcuber Thank you man! My practice time is pretty limited as a full-grown adult with full-grown adult responsibilities, so I try to make every "deliberate" practice session as intense as I can to get the most out of it, but I bounce between training too much at one time and overwhelming myself or training too little at once and not challenging myself. I kind of goofed in my last post, I actually do know full 2LLL and a handful of COLL H, T and Pi cases that I simply refuse to use in a speed solve until I'm not hesitating on all the PLLs' recognition and/or execution (looking at you N & R perms and Gd perm).
> 
> I've been curious about something: Do you guys find ZZ is harder to grow consistent with than CFOP? I remember with CFOP with my standard deviations was ALWAYS really low, typically within 2-3 seconds, but with ZZ it's typically around 4-6 seconds. I *think *it's due to the variation in possible bad edges for EO and how difficult EOLine/EO+Line is to accomplish, but your guys' more experienced input would be appreciated.


That's good that you know 2LLL, the more you put it into practice, the more comfortable it'll be. Same with EOline. And as for practice, ZZ is luckily one of the easiest methods to practice with, because you don't really need fancy drills, just sitting down and solving is some of the best stuff you can do.

As for the consistency, I think that's sort of inherent with the ZZ method. When you deal with methods that reduce more movesets and cases, you're bound to get more skips, which skyrockets your standard deviation. Like my pb single is 6.9, my ao5 is 9.8, and my average of 1000 is low 12s, and my average is one of the more consistent ZZ averages I've seen. I think that standard deviation depends a lot on your method. Normal 2LLL and ZBLL will typically yield more consistent results than COLL or ZZ-CT, because the probability of skipping is just so much higher. EOline may have something to do with it, but I tend to finish it in 1-2 seconds consistently, but consistency in EOline just comes from gaining a better intuition about EO cases and being able to track your line pieces, or plan the whole thing out.


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## rmblr (Jul 12, 2017)

New ZZ-er here _wave
_
Reading back the last few pages, I'm a bit confused about the term COLL.

In the context of ZZ is COLL -> https://www.speedsolving.com/wiki/index.php/COLL
or OCLL -> https://www.speedsolving.com/wiki/index.php/OCLL

I'm guessing it's the former.

I've been using OCLL + PLL as recommended by Conrad's beginner tutorial. Is that a good choice for now (considering the fact that as a cubing noob, I don't have a past library of algs to lean on)?


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## Pyjam (Jul 12, 2017)

OCLL (7 cases) orients the corners.
COLL (28 cases, not counting Sune/AntiSune) orients and places the corners at their relative correct place.

OCLL + PLL is fine to begin with.


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## JTcuber (Jul 13, 2017)

rmblr said:


> I've been using OCLL + PLL as recommended by Conrad's beginner tutorial. Is that a good choice for now (considering the fact that as a cubing noob, I don't have a past library of algs to lean on)?


OCLL and PLL are definitely a great start toward getting faster. When I started out with ZZ, I used OCLL and PLL until I averaged about 20 seconds, then I started learning COLL algs to help me with getting sub-20. As long as the alg set works for you, I wouldn't really advise switching until you feel that knowing less algs is holding you back from significant improvement. When you start out, it's much more important to plan out more efficient EOlines, and to focus on learning good blockbuilding habits. LL should be the last thing you should work to improve, and only start learning really advanced stuff after you get good with EOline and your F2L.


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## rmblr (Jul 13, 2017)

Thanks @Pyjam and @JTcuber!

I'm definitely sticking with OCLL/PLL for now. I'm struggling most with the blockbuilding in F2L, the last pairs often get me if they are in a "strange" arrangement.

I made this reference sheet for ZZ OCLL/PLL, it is sort of a frankenstein of full OLL/PLL sheets I've found on the forum.






Can you check it out and tell me what you think about my alg choices? It seems that the only turning L, R, U kind of goes out the window for some of them, or are there better algs more suited for ZZ?


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## Pyjam (Jul 13, 2017)

26. This is a weird Anti-Sune. Just do: U' R U2' R' U' R U' R'
22. All U2 are in fact U2'
21. Last U2 is U2'
23. It starts with R2'
25. I do: (F' r U R' U' r' F R) or (U' F R' F' r U R U' r')

Ua/Ub. Switch the algs or start with U2. 

For the last pair, you may learn a couple of algs.
See: http://algdb.net/Set/F2L


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## pglewis (Jul 13, 2017)

rmblr said:


> It seems that the only turning L, R, U kind of goes out the window for some of them, or are there better algs more suited for ZZ?



The move restrictions are just to maintain edge orientation throughout F2L, no need to worry about that once you've reached the last layer.

ZZ will always give you one of the seven OCLLs (or an OLL skip). You pre-oriented all edges and made no moves that would misorient any, so your edges for the last layer will already be oriented.

COLL is handy for ZZ because you have fewer OLLs combinations that can turn up per above. By learning ~6 algs per OCLL case you can permute the corners at the same time as orienting them, thus leaving you with just a handful of EPLL cases for the last step (plus 12x greater chance of a PLL skip). Recognition is easy for those and they're among the fastest PLLs (EPLL being Z, H, and U).


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## rmblr (Jul 13, 2017)

@Pyjam Woot, updated the sheet. 

Thanks for the f2l alg list. How do I modify the algs in that list for the front-left pair? Sometimes I'll put in the front-right pair first because I see it first/faster.


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## Pyjam (Jul 13, 2017)

If you meet some difficulties to mirror an alg, you may use this site:
http://cube.crider.co.uk/algtrans.html


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## JTcuber (Jul 15, 2017)

rmblr said:


> Thanks @Pyjam and @JTcuber!
> 
> I'm definitely sticking with OCLL/PLL for now. I'm struggling most with the blockbuilding in F2L, the last pairs often get me if they are in a "strange" arrangement.
> 
> ...


Those aren't all that great algs. I'd recommend the algs here: https://www.cubeskills.com/uploads/pdf/tutorials/4-look-last-layer.pdf
Those are the best algs you can find. Once you know all of these, I would start working on 1 look PLL, so you can do last layer in 2 steps rather than 3. After that, it's really up to you, but I recommend eventually learning COLL, which leads to an easy transition to 2GLL and eventually full ZBLL.


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## genericcuber666 (Aug 28, 2017)

whats the fastest zz solve?


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## Tao Yu (Aug 28, 2017)

genericcuber666 said:


> whats the fastest zz solve?



Hyeon Kyo Kyoung says his PBs are 4.5/6.1/6.9/7.x (1/5/12/100) with EOcross.

Sebastiano Tronto has a 5.51 single


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## UnknownCuber (Mar 16, 2018)

Should I learn WV for zzf2l? Some OLLs are kinda uncomfortable for me to execute.


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## xyzzy (Mar 16, 2018)

UnknownCuber said:


> Should I learn WV for zzf2l? Some OLLs are kinda uncomfortable for me to execute.


If you don't mind learning 25 algs, some of which aren't very nice either, then sure. (There are 27 WV cases, but R U' R' and R U2 R' should be pretty obvious, so that leaves 25.) Honestly though, maybe you should try learning alternative OLL algs instead of whatever you're using now.


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## UnknownCuber (Mar 16, 2018)

xyzzy said:


> If you don't mind learning 25 algs, some of which aren't very nice either, then sure. (There are 27 WV cases, but R U' R' and R U2 R' should be pretty obvious, so that leaves 25.) Honestly though, maybe you should try learning alternative OLL algs instead of whatever you're using now.


Well, I can't seem to fingertrick with my left hand so I have to modify a few algs to suit me. Btw learning 27 algs doesn't seem like a lot to me.


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## 1001010101001 (Mar 16, 2018)

No idea why ZZ is less popular than cfop. EOLine is just a bit harder to plan but there are no rotations, better LL or ZZCT and more chance of skip or 2gen.


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## Mastermind2368 (Mar 16, 2018)

1001010101001 said:


> No idea why ZZ is less popular than cfop


People get thrown off by eo being hard at first.


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## 1001010101001 (Mar 16, 2018)

Mastermind2368 said:


> People get thrown off by eo being hard at first.


How's it hard? You move the wrong edges to F or B and you do an F or B move to orient them


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## Mastermind2368 (Mar 17, 2018)

1001010101001 said:


> How's it hard? You move the wrong edges to F or B and you do an F or B move to orient them


It is not very hard, but time consuming. How I do it is speaking for myself. First for each edge you have to tell if it is good or bad, then think about where each bad edge is, find out a way to solve it, look for different ways to solve the eo that will make eoline better.


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## 1001010101001 (Mar 17, 2018)

Tried ZZ a by and got 30 sec avg, which is my avg for OH. Gonna stick with Roux for now


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## MethodNeutral (Apr 5, 2019)

I'm having some trouble with the EOLine --> F2L transition. For the first block, what I tend to do is solve the first two pieces I see that can be paired up, then look for the third piece to form my first block. Is this an acceptable thing to do, or should I be finding everything I want to solve first? For top ZZers, do you plan into your first block during inspection? I have no trouble with EOLine, but past that is very difficult unless it's an easy scramble.


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## GenTheThief (Apr 5, 2019)

MethodNeutral said:


> I'm having some trouble with the EOLine --> F2L transition. For the first block, what I tend to do is solve the first two pieces I see that can be paired up, then look for the third piece to form my first block. Is this an acceptable thing to do, or should I be finding everything I want to solve first? For top ZZers, do you plan into your first block during inspection? I have no trouble with EOLine, but past that is very difficult unless it's an easy scramble.



I don't know if I qualify as a top ZZer (Official averages 3x3 11.15, OH 16.22, Feet 44), but I guess I'm one of the fast-ish-er ones [read: I'm a crap solver but my times are decent]. I've been trying to to start planning first block, but I barely even plan my full line. I usually just note where they are and automatically know what to do, but I should really start putting more effort into influencing them.

I try to at least spot some pieces that look like they might be a good pair and try and influence them while inserting my line edges. Also, unless I can see easily a way to preserve a pair without taking too many extra moves, I'll treat it as junk and won't waste any moves working around it. But, preserving pairs can be a good way to get a breather into F2L -- just don't waste too much time. If you mess up the way-too-many-moves-you-planned-preserving-the-pair and try to salvage the situation, you'll just get a bad time.

If you can predict first pair/block, definitely take the time to do so. If you can't, start working on it now! And as Jay will tell you, planning first pair is one of the biggest improvements you can make, so take the time to do so, even if it's 45+ seconds.


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## PapaSmurf (Apr 5, 2019)

For th, it is generally accepted that doing eocross is faster, but for oh and feet, do line. Anyway, if you can plan out either a 3/4 eocross or full eocross in inspection, that will help with your transition, as you can then look for pieces in the next step through that more esasily. Then it makes lookahead better too, as there are less pieces you need to look for and in less places.


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## Sebastian West (May 20, 2019)

Escher said:


> perhaps you're right.
> ill probably just practice two-gen solves with LU to get things better, and keep the z plane rotation as a stopgap solution as i train my LH...
> 
> i have a friend who only recently started fridrich, and i think im going to try and convert him to ZZ once he's a bit more experienced. he will be my experiment!! mwa ha ha.
> ...


Yes, I am currently averaging 14 seconds with zz and still improving rapidly. Zz is a great method!


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## StachuK1992 (May 20, 2019)

Sebastian West said:


> Yes, I am currently averaging 14 seconds with zz and still improving rapidly. Zz is a great method!


Yo what decade do you think you're replying to?


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## Sebastian West (May 20, 2019)

StachuK1992 said:


> Yo what decade do you think you're replying to?


Oops my bad... Lol


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