Older cubers discussions

[Tom Joad]

I'd love to hear some of the top ones you've dug up.

Still working on "edge in wrong slot / corner in U face" cases here. I can only handle one or two tweaks to my F2L at a time and it does take a lot of solves to get the changes worked into the the routine so that's been my "new thing" for weeks. I've also recently traded triple-sexy for (U R U' R')x3 and equivalent for all for slots, which isn't automatic yet but it feels more ergonomic for me.

I made the same trade a year or so ago, definitely prefer starting with U, glad I switched. Like you say, strange at first but worth it in the end.

Regarding learning new f2l tricks I didn’t know, I will just post one at a time with a photo and the algorithm, can’t do any harm even if everyone else was using them already. Will take months for me to integrate recognition with muscle memory of drilled alg (coupled with unlearning whatever inefficient thing I was doing before)

I’ll start tomorrow...

 

[Tom Joad]

First up one I’ve never used in a solve yet but it’s my favourite one and I can’t wait to start recognising it as it will be a sub 0.5 f2l pair. To solve the blue orange pair in the back.

SR’S’

RU’R’ -rotate-insert is far less effcient.

If you are not comfortable with S moves, learn the oll32 case which begins with S. It will quickly become one of your favourites once you try the “S push” a few (hundred) times.

Can also use yL’RU’R’L if you are facing that way. Again this is more efficient than rotate-RU’R’

Notice that the three move insert from this angle would be MF’M’ but that seems fingertrick unfriendly to me.

 

[Oldmancfop]

I'd love to hear some of the top ones you've dug up.

Still working on "edge in wrong slot / corner in U face" cases here. I can only handle one or two tweaks to my F2L at a time and it does take a lot of solves to get the changes worked into the the routine so that's been my "new thing" for weeks. I've also recently traded triple-sexy for (U R U' R')x3 and equivalent for all for slots, which isn't automatic yet but it feels more ergonomic for me.

Nice, U R U' R' feels much smoother for the pairs in the front. Dammit another habit I need to try and get rid of.

 

[Oldmancfop]

First up one I’ve never used in a solve yet but it’s my favourite one and I can’t wait to start recognising it as it will be a sub 0.5 f2l pair. To solve the blue orange pair in the back.

SR’S’

RU’R’ -rotate-insert is far less effcient.

If you are not comfortable with S moves, learn the oll32 case which begins with S. It will quickly become one of your favourites once you try the “S push” a few (hundred) times.

Can also use yL’RU’R’L if you are facing that way. Again this is more efficient than rotate-RU’R’

Notice that the three move insert from this angle would be MF’M’ but that seems fingertrick unfriendly to me.

View attachment 10582

The way I have been solving this pair is: U2 R' U R U2 R2 F R F' R is this uncommon/wrong?

 

[Oldmancfop]

I'm constantly trying to get to grips with look ahead, but I am struggling to find my next pair when the corners are in the bottom layer, even when they are in the front (I seem unable to tear my eyes from the top layer). Anyone got any tricks/advice or is this just a case of keep practicing it will/might come eventually.

 

[pglewis]

First up one I’ve never used in a solve yet but it’s my favourite one and I can’t wait to start recognising it as it will be a sub 0.5 f2l pair. To solve the blue orange pair in the back.

SR’S’

RU’R’ -rotate-insert is far less effcient.

If you are not comfortable with S moves, learn the oll32 case which begins with S. It will quickly become one of your favourites once you try the “S push” a few (hundred) times.

Can also use yL’RU’R’L if you are facing that way. Again this is more efficient than rotate-RU’R’

Notice that the three move insert from this angle would be MF’M’ but that seems fingertrick unfriendly to me.

View attachment 10582

That's pure awesome and brand new to me because I haven't delved deeply into the "corner in wrong slot" cases yet. Recognition will be the tricky part.

Thankfully I'm comfortable with S slices. I've used them in my U perms from the very beginning, starting AUF with the 3-bar on the left. The primary U perm algs I ran across at that time opened and closed with an F2 which was very awkward for me and I decided R2 was far preferable. I still exclusively use those to this day.

I'm also incorporating an S slice tweak for R U R' inserts to avoid dot cases and add a little edge orientation control in general. In the past I would just do the insert because connecting them, moving them, and then sledge inserting the pair isn't always a win. S' (R U R') S might be worth it however.

 

[pglewis]

Dammit another habit I need to try and get rid of.

I doubt this ever goes away unless/until we decide we have no interest in improving .

The way I have been solving this pair is: U2 R' U R U2 R2 F R F' R is this uncommon/wrong?

The next best thing I know to do in this case is what Tom said: R U' R' (connects pair) - rotate - insert.

I'm constantly trying to get to grips with look ahead, but I am struggling to find my next pair when the corners are in the bottom layer, even when they are in the front (I seem unable to tear my eyes from the top layer). Anyone got any tricks/advice or is this just a case of keep practicing it will/might come eventually.

I rarely deal with corners in a slot during F2L yet unless it's the last slot (I at least know those cases well). While looking ahead, I want to spot a corner in the U layer as quickly as I can and then try to find its edge... hopefully before I've finished the insert in progress. I'm very bad at 2-sided recognition of corners; if the corner is in a slot with the bottom color on the bottom I'm never sure if it's actually a bottom corner or top corner without peeking and burning time. I pretty much deal with corner in wrong slot cases by immediately taking the corner out and evaluating whatever new case I just created. It's far less efficient but typically faster for me until I put in the time to learn those specific cases. Definitely my Achilles heel during F2L right now, running into two of those cases with no corners in the U layer really drags a solve down for me.

For lookahead practice: everyone says to do blind pair solving drills. Spot your case, close your eyes, solve the case, repeat. I think I would rather undergo unnecessary dental surgery than do drills, so when I say my lookahead is taking a really long time to develop... is there any wonder? lol

 

[Mike Hughey]

I was going to post this on the WR skewb single thread, but decided it was really inappropriate to post it there. But I figured it's probably okay here, so I decided to put it here.

The skewb scramble that gave Andrew Huang the WR at Worlds (0.93 second):
R U L' R B U' B' U L U R'

Why I am so bad at skewb:
I did this scramble 12 times for an average of 12. Same scramble every time, full 15 seconds inspection, using stackmat.
average of 12: 2.75 (σ = 0.32) [2.64, 3.02, 3.39, 2.43, 2.51, 2.38, 2.64, 4.74(LOL), 2.97, 2.93, 2.32, 2.62]
best single: 2.32 (I'm convinced I could sub-2 this eventually, but every time I had some type of at least minor pseudo-lockup.)

Yeah, I'm just that bad at skewb. It's a bizarre miracle that I've qualified for skewb for US Nationals. Truly I shouldn't be allowed to compete.

Curious how others of you can do at this.

 

[chtiger]

Curious how others of you can do at this.

ao12: 2.05 = 2.22, (1.79), 1.86, (2.40), 1.98, 2.33, 1.85, 2.37, 2.18, 2.07, 1.81, 1.86

.93 is amazing to me, and there were also lots of low 1's, and this wasn't even the fast group. There's not an event where the records even seem humanly possible, yet they continue to get broken.

 

[wer2chosen]

Hello Marcel.
I myself am 55 years old. I had a Rubik's cube in the 80's, but could only solve it by taking it apart and putting it back together. I recently picked it up to help slow down the progression of MS that is negatively impacting the muscles in my hands. I am home bound now, so Cubing has been a great diversion for me.
My current goal is to get below 2.5 minutes as a PB. I wonder if I am one of the oldest to learn to solve the cube? LOL

 

[Tom Joad]

I was never using this one for four years but now I’m just starting to recognise it in slow solves.

Awkward finger tricks at first but definitely the way to go, five moves only. If you want to see execution, I think it is on the jperm f2l video which has all the cases. However, I drag back the penultimate move with my right hand, whereas he does a lefty push back.

R’u’R’uR

Notice they are wide u moves. Oh, it’s the green red pair and the edge is front left.

 

[Tom Joad]

Nice, U R U' R' feels much smoother for the pairs in the front. Dammit another habit I need to try and get rid of.

I'd love to hear some of the top ones you've dug up.

Still working on "edge in wrong slot / corner in U face" cases here. I can only handle one or two tweaks to my F2L at a time and it does take a lot of solves to get the changes worked into the the routine so that's been my "new thing" for weeks. I've also recently traded triple-sexy for (U R U' R')x3 and equivalent for all for slots, which isn't automatic yet but it feels more ergonomic for me.

Jperms latest video (today) is all about why this is good for the front but triple sexy is still better for the back slots. Most of what he says will just reaffirm what you already know but I still learnt a trick or two.

Keeping the hands in home grip as much as possible is the way to go to shave off a few more seconds!

 

[Tom Joad]

Now the red green corner is solved and we just need to move the edge in to place.

R’u’RuR

Another one I haven’t incorporated into real solves yet but will keep staring at it and drilling until it starts to happen...

 

[pglewis]

Jperms latest video (today) is all about why this is good for the front but triple sexy is still better for the back slots. Most of what he says will just reaffirm what you already know but I still learnt a trick or two.

Great heads-up on that video, I've been realizing that regrips are really starting to matter now. Yet more bad habits to break even on F2L pairs I'm solving correctly otherwise.

 

[efattah]

Another trick I picked up during the year of untimed solves was something probably most people know but forget to do. And that is to tilt the cube left/right/forward back while executing any algorithm, this allows you to lookahead and see more parts of the cube, while otherwise the algorithm is executed from muscle memory. This habit of rapid tilting has a dramatic effect on lookahead and you can train yourself to perform pre-programmed tilt sequences during algorithms (the ideal tilts vary by the current finger trick you are doing). You can try a random algorithm and you will find that certain tilts have no effect on algorithm speed, and those are the tilts you can do while doing that particular algorithm.

 

[Logiqx]

I was going to post this on the WR skewb single thread, but decided it was really inappropriate to post it there. But I figured it's probably okay here, so I decided to put it here.

The skewb scramble that gave Andrew Huang the WR at Worlds (0.93 second):
R U L' R B U' B' U L U R'

Why I am so bad at skewb:
I did this scramble 12 times for an average of 12. Same scramble every time, full 15 seconds inspection, using stackmat.
average of 12: 2.75 (σ = 0.32) [2.64, 3.02, 3.39, 2.43, 2.51, 2.38, 2.64, 4.74(LOL), 2.97, 2.93, 2.32, 2.62]
best single: 2.32 (I'm convinced I could sub-2 this eventually, but every time I had some type of at least minor pseudo-lockup.)

Yeah, I'm just that bad at skewb. It's a bizarre miracle that I've qualified for skewb for US Nationals. Truly I shouldn't be allowed to compete.

Curious how others of you can do at this.

I didn't have the exact scramble but I knew it was a U-Perm and did the same myself on 12 July.

I did a couple of 1.6x solves then pulled out a camera and got a 1.50:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1604105099735401/permalink/1902350499910858/

Doing it in competition would be another matter.

 

[SpartanSailor]

@Logiqx @Mike Hughey
Yeah, you both have me beat! I too qualified for US Nats with Skewb with a time I posted over a year ago... I’m awful with Skewb and hope to have some result that’s not just embarrassing.

 

[SpartanSailor]

Incidentally, for the US Oldies... how many of us are headed to US Nationals in Baltimore? I recognise a few of our names, but seems like the crew at Worlds had a nice group picture. I certainly can’t speak for others, but I would enjoy meeting up for a dinner or picture or something while we are all in Baltimore.

I’m competing in 333, 222, Skewb, & 3BLD

 

[Mike Hughey]

I intend to be there - I hope I can meet with everyone there. But I should warn you - at the moment I'm planning on probably only being there on Thursday and Friday. We're visiting my parents (who live in Virginia), and I really want to spend more time with them if possible, so I think I'm only going to do the first two days. My biggest regret for missing Saturday is not getting to finish a Fewest Moves mean. I will also somewhat regret missing 3BLD, but I'm not very good at 3BLD these days, so it's not that big of a loss. My only regret for missing Sunday is 4BLD, but I'm realistically not good enough for that to matter much anyway.

I'm mainly there hoping to say hello to a bunch of people, and TRY to get semi-respectable results at 5BLD and multiBLD. But in order to do the latter, I need to start getting more sleep than I've been getting lately.

If we're going to meet up for dinner and I'm included, it would have to be Thursday or Friday.

 

[SpartanSailor]

I’ll be on staff too... so I’ll be there every day.

I don’t have high expectations for 3BLD although that is my favourite event of the ones I’m competing.

Nevertheless. Hopefully we can pull something together Friday then when ya most likely to have the most people in town.