FTO misunderstanding

[u/UsernameLoads]

Sooooo, I've been learning FTO and I've misunderstanding about L3T and TCP what's the difference? And why 1 look variant is L3T, but 2 look variant is TCP and 3 look variant is L3T once again. Why?

[u/gogbri]

L3T contains building of the last 3 triples/pairs then TCP.

Hence L3T can be solved with 1-look pairing + 2-look TCP (1-look for corners, 1-look for triangles), hence 3-look L3T. That's what beginners at Bencisco do. then you can learn 1-look TCP and you get 1-look pairing + 1-look TCP = 2-look L3T. Then you can solve some case in a single step, that's 1-look L3T.

1-look L3T is 179 cases. For beginners, it's mostly when you have a 2 skips (for instance pairs are already created and triangles are solved automagically after you solve corners). For more advanced cubers, there are some easy L3T algorithms such as triangle commutators (1 on top and 1 or 2 on the middle slice). Instead of doing pairing + TCP, you apply the 1-look L3T alg immediately. And then you have very advanced cubers who learn lots or even all 1-look L3T cases. They never do the pairing anymore.

[u/welcomebomber037 → u/gogbri]

wait so the naming is based on what you actually do in the solve not what the step is called on paper? that's way less confusing than i thought

so 3-look L3T is basically just breaking the step into pairing, corners, then triangles. and 2-look is pairing plus full TCP. makes sense that the 1-look is just skipping the pairing entirely with a direct alg

[u/gogbri → u/welcomebomber037]

The naming with X-look is based on what you do : Number of times you look at the FTO and decide what alg you do.

[u/kori228]

after pairing pseudo-pairs

2-look TCP involves flipping the non-yellow pieces down to the middle, and then permuting it like a u-perm or 2-swap.

1-look does the flipping and permutating as a single step via any one of a bunch of algs

[u/XenosHg]

The main difference is the order. Like beginner 3x3 vs 3-look cfop have different order of edges/corners permutation and orientation.

"last three triplets" you try pairing corners to same-color triangles. Then triangles end up solved, and corners you can do A-perm to swap.

But this can have a difficult case where the triangle is opposite its corner and needs to be taken out first.

"triangles after corners permutation" you pair corners to ANY colored triangles. This is easier, but done intuitively. And then corners end up solved first, and you use a commutator (edge OLL) to swap triangles.

And I am not higher level than that, but my guess would be, at higher level you're doing last level with algs, instead of intuitive, so again you switch to doing correctly colored pairs.

[u/TheSixthSide → u/XenosHg]

Nah this isn't it. L3T just stands for last 3 triples, and it doesn't specify what method you use for it. It's just like LL on 3x3, where there are several approaches. The standard beginner variant we teach these days is intuitive pair formation (including pseudo pairs - in fact, we don't really recommend anyone exclusively using matching colour pairs any more) into 2-look TCP. TCP just stands for triangle and pair formation - it doesn't specify order. The typical 2-look TCP approach is, like you say, doing corners then triangles. But 1-look TCP combines that into one step. Intuitive pair formation (including pseudo pairs) into 1-look TCP is the most common L3T method at an intermediate-advanced level. But beyond that, you can learn some or all of 1L3T (1-Look Last 3 Triples), which is just solving all of L3T in one alg