# Order of Memorization



## byu (Apr 14, 2009)

So, I was thinking about how to make memorization more efficient. So, assuming we think about 3x3 BLD for the moment. What I do is:

Memo Edges
Memo Corners
Solve Edges
Solve Corners

I think it might be more efficient to do it like this:

Memo Corners
Memo Edges
Solve Edges
Solve Corners

You wouldn't have to spend a long time memorizing edges, and it would be a lot easier to remember during the edges solving stage. Applying this to 4x4 BLD, what I do is this:

Memo Centers
Memo Edges
Memo Corners
Solve Centers
Solve Edges
Solve Corners

and sometimes I will do this, depending on the case

Memo Edges
Memo Corners
Memo Centers
Solve Centers
Solve Edges
Solve Corners

But if 3x3 works better in an ABBA pattern, shouldn't 4x4 work better in ABCCBA? Such as:

Memo Corners
Memo Edges
Memo Centers
Solve Centers
Solve Edges
Solve Corners

Maybe I'm the only one that does ABAB and ABCABC, but what's your opinion on this?


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## TheBB (Apr 14, 2009)

Symmetric FTW.

The only glitch is that on 4x4 I memo and solve corners last, because I use my 3x3 method for them, and I'm unsure about the center-preserving properties for these algorithms.


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## byu (Apr 14, 2009)

Yeah, I don't know anyone (although I'm sure there are some) who do centers last (or even second). Most people just do them first to make corners a whole lot easier.


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## fanwuq (Apr 14, 2009)

For 3x3: 
I do
memo edges, memo corners, solve corners, solve edges.

For 4x4:
I would 
memo edges, memo corners, memo centers, solve centers, solve corners, solve edges.


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## happa95 (Apr 14, 2009)

It is purely one's own personal strengths. I gave this exact same thing some thought recently and decided that ABBA with B being edges might be nicer than ABAB. Then, like you said, it would be easier to speed memo edges. Unfortunately, my corners memo is extremely fast (often, sub-7) ONLY because I do BAAB. Thus, I have to decide whether the fast edge memo outweighs fast corner memo in advantages. Also, I have to take into account that edges would be harder to recall when speed-memo'ed because of the larger number of stickers.


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## Sa967St (Apr 14, 2009)

I'm so different 

for 3x3x3: 
memo flipped edges (if applicable) 
memo corner permutation 
memo rest of edges 
memo corner orientation

solve corners (orientation then permutation)
solve edges (permute them, then flip any remaining edges)


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## byu (Apr 14, 2009)

So, I'm going to standardize this, for this discussion at least, maybe other places:

A = Corners
B = Edges
C = Centers

So it seems like a ABBA would be the ideal approach to me, because there are more edges, and you have to remember them for less time. Tyler (happa95) uses BAAB, which makes sense, so you can memorize corners super fast and solve them right away.

For 4x4, I think right now that a ABCCBA is still fastest.

@Sa967St : Is that method like a Old Pochmann/3OP Corners kind of thing?


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## Sa967St (Apr 14, 2009)

byu said:


> @Sa967St : Is that method like a Old Pochmann/3OP Corners kind of thing?


not really.
corner orientation: freestyle 
corner permutation: a mix of old pochmann and 3-cycle 
edge permutation: a mix of old pochmann, 3-cycle and TurBo

I likes.


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## Gparker (Apr 15, 2009)

byu said:


> Yeah, I don't know anyone (although I'm sure there are some) who do centers last (or even second). Most people just do them first to make corners a whole lot easier.



serrusgod. the one who made the blind turorial for 4x4


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## byu (Apr 15, 2009)

I didn't like his tutorial. The parity fix was much too long, for one thing


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## d4m4s74 (Apr 15, 2009)

the way I'm learning it it's memo corners, memo edges, solve edges, solve corners
mostly because I only have to remember max 8 corners so I can remember that longer

oh yeah, and because the parity alg is shorter


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## Mike Hughey (Apr 15, 2009)

Here's what I do. Mostly I solve in reverse order to my memorization, so I can do shorter-term memory for the last ones I memorize. With 6x6x6 and 7x7x7, I have some slightly strange orders so the memorization can pack and unpack well in my Roman Rooms.

*3x3x3*
Memorization: edges, corner permutation, corner orientation
Solve: corner orientation, corner permutation, edges, parity
*4x4x4*
Memorization: edges, centers, corner permutation, corner orientation
Solve: corner orientation, corner permutation, centers, edges, edge parity, corner parity
*5x5x5*
Memorization: central edges, + centers, wings, X centers, corner permutation, corner orientation
Solve: corner orientation, corner permutation, X centers, wings, + centers, wing parity, central edges, corner parity
*6x6x6*
Memorization: outer wings, left obliques, inner wings, right obliques, outer X centers, inner X centers, corner permutation, corner orientation
Solve: corner orientation, corner permutation, outer X centers, inner X centers, left obliques, right obliques, inner wings, inner wing parity, outer wings, outer wing parity, corner parity
*7x7x7*
Memorization: central edges, outer wings, left obliques, inner wings, right obliques, outer X centers, outer + centers, inner X centers, inner + centers, corner permutation, corner orientation
Solve: corner orientation, corner permutation, outer X centers, outer + centers, inner X centers, inner + centers, left obliques, right obliques, inner wings, inner wing parity, outer wings, outer wing parity, central edges, corner parity


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## byu (Apr 15, 2009)

Wow, I think I'm going to have to extend my "notation" to support what Mike's doing and properly understand it.

So we have:

A: Corners
B: Central Edges (3x3 Edges)
C: X Centers (4x4 Centers)
D: + Centers
E: Inner Wings (4x4 Edges, 5x5 Wings)
F: Outer Wings
G: Outer X Centers
H: Outer + Centers
I: Left Obliques
J: Right Obliques

I'm actually now going to use Uppercase letters for Memorizing, and Lowercase for solving

Looks like Mike is doing BAab (like Tyler) for 3x3
For 4x4, looks like ECAace (again, a symmetrical order)
For 5x5, seems to be a BDECAacedb (once more symmetrical)

And on 6x6 and 7x7 (I'm not going to write it all out) it's no longer symmetrical. Why is this Mike?


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## coolmission (Apr 15, 2009)

Memo Edges
Memo Corners
Solve Edges
Solve Corners

I'm a BLD noob (I've only solved it 4 times out of 25 attempts) but I do this as my memo is pretty accurate, my execution is the problem  Out of those 25 attempts, 10 were solves where only 2 edges were flipped. That's what I get for trying to be as fast as I can


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## byu (Apr 15, 2009)

Yay! Another BABA user, like me. You should join me in the switch to ABBA.


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## Rubixcubematt (Apr 15, 2009)

HAHAHA, ABBA, the pop group from the 80's. i do BAAB for 3x3, then CBAABC for 4x4. I think chris hardwick does this, and puts up a great reason why. Centres usually have more of them solved, so you memo the one that has less things to memo the hardest, so then its easier to recall the harder edges.


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## Mike Hughey (Apr 15, 2009)

Rubixcubematt said:


> I think chris hardwick does this, and puts up a great reason why. Centres usually have more of them solved, so you memo the one that has less things to memo the hardest, so then its easier to recall the harder edges.


Yes, Chris mentioned doing this in something he wrote a long time ago. I thought it made sense, so I adopted it.

byu, I hinted why things get different with bigger cubes in my previous post. I can just barely fit 2 different sets of pieces in each of my memorization rooms. In order to fit a 6x6x6 in 3 rooms and a 7x7x7 in 4 1/2 rooms, I have to pack them in such that they fit. Since wings usually have more pieces to solve than centers, I pack each set of wings with a set of obliques. Then for 7x7x7 I pack one set of X centers with one set of + centers. Then when I unpack them, I go ahead and do the last two rooms I memorized first in the order I memorized them. I do the outer ones first and the inner ones second because the outer ones go quicker. I guess I could have memorized them last, but I didn't do that at first, so I got used to this. Then I do the obliques next because I want to be able to do the wing parity fixes as I go, rather than going back and fixing them. I should definitely do the same thing on 5x5x5 (solve X and + centers, THEN wings), but I got used to doing it the other way so I never switched. You should definitely solve all centers first, so you can fix other parities as you go. Except that I still like solving corners first, so I don't have to keep them in long-term memory.


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## Rubixcubematt (Apr 15, 2009)

Mike Hughey said:


> Rubixcubematt said:
> 
> 
> > I think chris hardwick does this, and puts up a great reason why. Centres usually have more of them solved, so you memo the one that has less things to memo the hardest, so then its easier to recall the harder edges.
> ...



How do u memo with rooms? do u put 2 pieces of info at each location, then go round the room twice? I think that I may adopt this 4 multi so i can have one cube per room.


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## Aub227 (Apr 15, 2009)

Memo corners
Memo edges
Solve corners
Solve edges
---> visual memo, freestyle, pb=1:12.37 not happy when successful solves are over 2:00. approx 70% success rate.


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## SimonWestlund (Apr 15, 2009)

memo edges
memo corners
solve corners
solve edges

I'm a BAAB  I wanted to be ABBA! 

I like it this way though, easier to remember the corners visually if I memo them last and solve them first.


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## Sakarie (Apr 15, 2009)

Memo corners
Memo edges
Solve corners
Fix parity
Solve edges

I decided to do it this way because that would be easiest with my parityfix.


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## byu (Apr 15, 2009)

What is your parity fix? With old pochmann, it's exually east and with M2, edges first is faster


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## Mike Hughey (Apr 15, 2009)

Rubixcubematt said:


> How do u memo with rooms? do u put 2 pieces of info at each location, then go round the room twice? I think that I may adopt this 4 multi so i can have one cube per room.



No, I use half the locations in the room for one set of pieces, and the other half for the other set of pieces. I put 3 images at each location, plus a person to represent the buffer. (I allow the buffer location to move when doing all center pieces; I only use a fixed buffer for edges, for M2/r2.) So, for instance, with a 7x7x7, I would put the first 7 outer wings (including the buffer piece) at location 1, then the next 6 at location 2, then 6 more at location 3, and so on. If there are several cycles, I could easily wind up needing 5 locations for these, but I almost never need 6 locations. So I put centers (in this case, obliques) in the rest of the room, starting with location 5 or 6, depending on how the wings came out. Since the centers usually have some already solved and often have nice odd-numbered cycles to make them more efficient, I usually won't run out of my typical 9 locations in a room. If I do run out, in most rooms I have a couple of spillover locations I can use for those emergency cases, and if I don't have one for some reason, I'll create one on the fly.

By the way, for multi, a room per cube is very much overkill for me - in most cases I can fit a 3x3x3 in half a room, with 3 images (6 pieces) per location. But I just use one room per cube anyway because it's an easy way to keep the cubes distinct in memory. It makes for nice random memory access - I can easily solve cubes in whatever order I want to.


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## MatsBergsten (Apr 15, 2009)

3x3
Memo edges
Memo corners
Solve corners
Solve edges.
This because I use very loose memory for corners, it sticks only for say 30 seconds or
while I am doing it (memoing/solving). Just a sequence of letters. I could not do something other (like solving edges or even parity) in between.

4x4 
Memo centers
Memo corners
Memo edges 
Memo corners that needs only to be oriented and solving them
Solving the rest in memo order 
All parity last

5x5 
Memo X-centers
Memo +-centers
Memo corners
Memo middle edges
Memo wing edges
Memo corners that needs only to be oriented and solving them
Solving the rest in memo order 
All parity last

As I in multi cannot use the same (loose) corner memo for all cubes I memo one cube at a time
but for the last where I only memo edges. Then do some sorting according to flips or parity
and at best can have at least one fast corner memo.


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## SimonWestlund (Apr 15, 2009)

MatsBergsten said:


> 3x3
> Memo edges
> Memo corners
> Solve corners
> ...



Exactly the same as me! I forget corners a lot faster than edges. Probably since I memo corners visually and have a story for edges, I need to practise my visual corner memo though.


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## Rosson91 (Apr 15, 2009)

memo edges
memo corners
solve corners
solve edges
parity


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## not_kevin (Apr 15, 2009)

3OP:
memo:
EO
CO
EP
CP

solve:
EO/CO (I switch; generally EO first)
CP
EP

Parity is solved when I get 2 2-cycles.


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## byu (Apr 15, 2009)

So you also use BAAB, the majority of 3x3 users are using ABBA or BAAB. I'm still doing a BABA pattern, but I haven't gotten a successful solve with ABBA yet. I'm trying though.


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## cmhardw (Apr 16, 2009)

I haven't read my guide on here in a while, but I believe I give a different memory order there than what I use now.

3x3x3:
Memo: Edges (images/journeys), corners (single syllable words)
Solve: Corners, Edges

4x4x4:
Memo: centers (images), edges (images), corners (single syllable words)
Solve: corners, centers, edges

5x5x5:
Memo: t-centers (images), x-centers (images), wings (images), central edges (single syllable words), corners (single syllable words)
Solve: central edges, corners, t-centers, x-centers, wings

For 3x3x3 I am doing ABBA, for 4x4x4 I do ABCCAB and for 5x5x5 I do ABCDEDEABC

I am debating changing my 5x5x5 memory method to use single syllable Noun-Verb combinations for the DEDE part of the solving above. Now that I look at it my 5x5x5 memo looks weird to me and I might start to experiment with something more like: ABCDEEDABC and switch up the memo order for the 3x3x3 part.

Chris

--edit--

Using Brian's notation I do:

3x3x3: BAab
4x4x4: CEAace
5x5x5: DCEBAbadce


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## byu (Apr 16, 2009)

Like mike, you seem to lose symmetry with bigger cubes. Is this also to support your memorization system?

Unrelated to the above two sentences, I finally got a success with ABba


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## cmhardw (Apr 16, 2009)

byu said:


> Like mike, you seem to lose symmetry with bigger cubes. Is this also to support your memorization system?



Yes, I think so. Images memorized into a journey for me are completely linear, and I have a hard time "breaking" into a visual journey at a location that is not the very first image of the very first location. Sometimes I vaguely memorize the first image of a location, but I imagine it related to the last image of the previous location in some obvious way. For example if Darth Vader is the last image of one location, and Luke Skywalker is the first image in the next location, then I would do something like this. Darth Vader completes his interaction with the images in the first location, then he might throw his light saber (spinning and twirling through the air) to hit Luke Skywalker at the start of the next location. In this case I would remember that Darth Vader image very strongly and only think of "son" or "son of" as the start of the next journey location. So if I tried to skip to that Luke Skywalker location, I might remember the 2nd and 3rd images perfectly, but not the first because it is tied to the previous location.

A more detailed example might be
Location 1: An Elephant stomps a giant plane of glass, shattering it, and Darth Vader uses his light Saber to delfect the shards and protect himself. (EFWNDV)
Location 2: Luke Skywalker is the first image. I would remember Darth Vader from the previous location so I would go back to the previous location, and after Darth Vader deflected the shards he would throw his light saber twirling through the air toward the next location. I then vaguely picture a human form and think "son of" to remember that it is Luke. The light saber hits the vague human form and is injured. The body slumps over and hits a giant 6 foot tall cup, which slides across the ground into a straw hut, collapsing it. (LSCUHT).

I rarely have two images from different locations interact in an active way like above. Often if there is a loose connection between the last image of a location and the first image of the next location I will still picture the first image in the second location, but I focus on the relation to the last image of the previous location. I do this moreso than interacting the starting image of the second location with the other two images in that location. I hope that makes sense?

Memorizing using single syllable words (see my 5x5x5 central edges and corners) I memorize simply as a string of sounds. I cannot skip to the middle of this sound stream without first having "heard" the first part. This is why my 5x5x5 memorization is so strange in the middle.

Chris


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## byu (Apr 16, 2009)

Wow, very complex system! I see you use images, do you do that for 3x3 too?


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## Sa967St (Apr 16, 2009)

so I guess I'm bABa aABb 

(uppercase=orientation, lowercase=permutation
A=corners,B=edgas)


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## byu (Apr 16, 2009)

I'm thinking of standardizing a sstem called NBME (Notation for Blindfolded Memorization and Execution) I'll do a writeup and post it somewhere (a new thread perhaps) and see if we can adopt this notation

EDIT: Done. You can find it here


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## abr71310 (Apr 16, 2009)

cmhardw said:


> Darth Vader completes his interaction with the images in the first location, then he might throw his light saber (spinning and twirling through the air) to hit Luke Skywalker at the start of the next location.
> 
> Chris



Is it scary that the hockey game I was watching starting playing the Star Wars theme just as I began to read your post (and was around there?).

For 3x3x3 (i've gotten 1 success out of 15, I really consider switching to a new method / memo method), i do:

Memo Edges
Memo Corners
Solve Corners
Solve Edges

includes Permutation and Orientation (Old Pochmann??), but I don't like it since my corner memo involves colours and places... (Edges are easy because I can list them together in pairs of two, and automatically judge parity before I hit it)


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## cookingfat (Apr 20, 2009)

SimonWestlund said:


> MatsBergsten said:
> 
> 
> > 3x3
> ...



memo edges
memo corners
solve corners
solve edges

Exactly like me too. I use visual memo for corners (which I'm not that good at) and it doesn't stick in my mind, so I have to solve the corners right away after memo, then as the edges are a combination of visual and letter pair images it tends to stick in my head a lot better.


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