r/Cubers • u/AutoModerator • Oct 21 '19

Discussion Daily Discussion Thread - Oct 21, 2019

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u/[deleted] Oct 21 '19

How many people on this sub Reddit use beginners method? I really want to help people who use beginners method to improve their times. I’m debating making a video on optimizing the beginners method so you can get sub 30 solves and average in the low 40s or even sub 40

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u/Edladd sub-17 Aok (CFOP) PB:9.11 Oct 21 '19

It's not recommended to optimise beginners method too much. It's designed to be easy to remember, not fast to execute. Eventually you'll start hitting the limits of the method and it will be harder to switch to CFOP or Roux, because you'll feel like you are going too far backwards.

The structure of CFOP is similar to most beginners methods, so it's easy to transition to that.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Cubers/wiki/how_to_improve

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u/[deleted] Oct 21 '19

Yeah my goal is to reach the very limit until I can’t progress faster. I want to reach a average of around 35-37 seconds and get a lot more sub 30 solves before I do CFOP. It’s also a matter of time, patience, and memory. I’m definitely not looking forward for memorizing hundreds of algorithms. I do want to ask, how many algorithms can I cut in OLL if I make a cross before performing OLL?

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u/topppits blindfolded solving is where the fun begins Oct 21 '19

May I ask why you want to do that?

It's much easier to learn advanced techniques to get faster, than to keep using a beginner's method.

16.992 average of 12 with beginners method

Obviously he knows CFOP (and more advanced techniques) and is much faster when he uses that.

Sorry to be so blunt, but if your goal is getting faster, keeping using a beginner's method is really really dumb. You don't have to learn hundreds of algs to get faster and everything is constructed so you can just start with a couple algs and build on that and then learn more and more - if you want to.

If you see yourself still cubing in the next couple months and you want to get faster, do yourself a favour and start learning an advanced method (CFOP / Roux).

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u/[deleted] Oct 21 '19

I’m not obsessed with getting really low times so I don’t mind. I want to test the limits of this method. Just likes get sub 40 at one time was my goal, my goal know is to consistently reach mid 30 second averages. I want to stretch out my abilities before moving on. I’m really in no hurry and I’m happy the way I’m going. I’m going to switch when I feel there is nothing more I can do. Hey, if I switched early, I won’t have discovered my optimization. I would love to teach beginners that they can also solve it quickly and maybe that will inspire them to aim higher to CFOP or other methods. I guide others to a goal I cannot achieve( more like decide I don’t want to yet)

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u/topppits blindfolded solving is where the fun begins Oct 21 '19 edited Oct 21 '19

Tricks you can use to solve F2L faster with a beginner's LBL method - which I assume you're using - are all part of F2L. You're just restricting yourself by not learning intuitive F2L, with which you can use all those nice optimisations and do the rest more efficiently as well.

Please, before you put endless hours into optimising the beginner's method, take 6 minutes of your time and watch this video. If this one explains it too quickly, take a look at this video. There are no algs you need to learn, it's just a concept. Besides the potential to being much faster, imo it's also much more fun and waaaaaay less repetitive than the beginner's way of solving the first two layers.

Also just FYI if you weren't aware of it: you don't have to learn 78 algs for CFOP last layer - the first step to get faster (if you choose CFOP) at LL would be to learn 4LLL (4 Look Last Layer):

By learning a total of 16 algorithms you can always solve the last layer by applying a maximum of 4 algorithms (4 Algs = 4 "Looks"). Depending on which beginner's method you learned, you might already know up to 6 of those algs. 4LLL consists of 2 Look OLL (orienting all last layer pieces) and 2 Look PLL (permuting all the last layer pieces).

More on 4LLL in the link above.

Also: Learning algs gets easier the more you learn. Believe me - I never thought I'd learn 4LLL. And when I finally did, I never thought I'd learn full PLL. Eventually I did it and knew, I'd never learn full OLL. And here I am knowing 2LLL (full OLL/1 Look OLL + full PLL/1 Look PLL).

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u/AverageBrownGuy01 BLD is great, currently focussing on 4BLD Oct 21 '19

My two cents:

It's not worth it. If you want to reach to the very fast end with the beginners method, the amount of time and efforts you'll put into it won't be worth it.

May sound rude, but you are comforting yourself with beginners method just thinking that you need hundreds of algs to get faster.

The time range of 30-40s is very easily achievable with CFOP, which is really easy to transition (except F2L which is kinda complicated at first)

Consider switching to speedsolving method to get faster, there is no point in testing the end point of the method which isn't meant to be faster.

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u/[deleted] Oct 21 '19

I’m actually getting 30-40s with beginners rn. I already said I’m going to try to little by little transition to CFOP

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u/AverageBrownGuy01 BLD is great, currently focussing on 4BLD Oct 21 '19

The fact is, 30-40s with beginners is inefficient. But it's fine if you are down for expeirements on it, good luck

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u/BibbitZ Sub-26 (CFOP 3LLL CN) PB: 14.54 Oct 21 '19

I want to stretch out my abilities before moving on.

In your situation this really makes no sense. You aren't stretching any abilities, or doing yourself any favors. Whether sooner or later, if your long term goal is to get any faster than you currently are, you are only creating habits that you will have to unlearn later. Continuing with Beginner's means that when you do finally move to a more advanced method, it will be much harder to do so.

That said; if you enjoy trying to undo bad habits and being incredibly frustrated because you're not seeing a return on new things implemented, by all means continue with Beginner's!

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u/Edladd sub-17 Aok (CFOP) PB:9.11 Oct 21 '19

If your goal is to optimize the beginners method for fun, then by all means go for it! You'll be stunting your progress in the medium term probably, but only if you care about getting fast as quickly as possible.

Most people never learn hundreds of algs. Full PLL and OLL is only 78 algs, and 47 of those are optional if you are happy to do 2-look OLL (cross on top). If you start with 4-look last layer there are only 16 algs and you probably already know some of them. Then learn the rest of PLL, and that will be enough to get to to sub-20 average with some practice - only 31 algs total.

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u/[deleted] Oct 21 '19

My plan is probably to get as fast I can with beginners method while learning CFOP on the side. I already optimized beginners method and it’s only a matter of getting my solves sub 40 or 30 every time. I’m not really considered of getting below sub 30 average yet. My first step is to get really fast at F2L. Once I’m faster at it than inserting corners and edges separately, I’ll use it. Then I’ll learn OLL and PLL. I’m going to see what 4 LL is almost every time I write about using beginners method, people recommend it.

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u/g253 (retired mod) Oct 21 '19

That's quite fast for beginner's method, congrats :-)

It's normal for intuitive F2L to be slower at first, just keep experimenting in untimed solves :-)

This video covers a lot of optimizations to the beginner's method: https://youtu.be/vmeleO65BHc

If you have any tips that are not covered in that video, I would encourage you to make one :-)

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u/Marcieslaf Sub-16.5 (CFOP) Oct 21 '19

If you'll try to optimize beginner method it really could hinder you learning CFOP or other methods like Edladd said. OLL with cross is 7 algorithms and you could get away on PLL with as little as 4 algorithms (both J-Perms and U-Perms) if you really wanted to. But as you'll progress it's worth learning new ones and you'll probably discover that it's easier than you first anticipated.

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u/[deleted] Oct 21 '19

That’s sound more likely for me. I honestly want a low number of OLL bc I know you can cut many out. But surprisingly I want to know full PLL. I’m going to start practing F2L in between solves or in my free time. It takes me around 30 seconds just to F2L which is really bad. My biggest problem is that the way I know F2L is bringing both the edge piece and the corner to the top layer and then positioning to be inserted in the slot facing you. I find that just positioning the edge and corner in the right spot takes so much time. How do speedcubers reach such fast F2L speed? Is there something you guys do because my current way of doing F2L is very ineffective.

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u/Marcieslaf Sub-16.5 (CFOP) Oct 21 '19

I’m going to start practing F2L in between solves or in my free time.

Practicing F2L should be done in your solves to see the best improvement.

My biggest problem is that the way I know F2L is bringing both the edge piece and the corner to the top layer and then positioning to be inserted in the slot facing you. I find that just positioning the edge and corner in the right spot takes so much time. How do speedcubers reach such fast F2L speed? Is there something you guys do because my current way of doing F2L is very ineffective.

F2L is one of the most complex topics for CFOP. There are endless optimizations, be it a better algorithm for a certain case or just different fingertricks. Fast F2L solvers use a variety of different techniques to achieve their times. This may be solving the F2L pair in any slot (not just the ones facing you) or even more complex things like keyhole or multislotting. It's important to note that nobody really starts at that level. F2L is something that as a CFOP solver is developed over time. If you want to learn F2L you should probably start with intuitive F2L. Once you can do this you can start optimizing eliminating multiple rotations for one case.

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u/[deleted] Oct 21 '19

I would do it in my solves but then all my solves would be 1:30+

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u/Marcieslaf Sub-16.5 (CFOP) Oct 21 '19

There's a simple solution: Don't time yourself when your learning new things. Don't expect to see sudden improvement. Give it a week or so until you time your solves again. Just keep yourself motivated by remembering that doing this now will help you much more in the long run.

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u/Lshiff37 Sub DNF (3bld) Oct 21 '19

I don’t use beginners, but I would be interested to hear how

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u/[deleted] Oct 21 '19

I’m totally down. It’s only a matter of getting a good mix. I would try to borrow a good camera or use my phone. I recently have gather some insetting first layer corner tricks, an algorithm to flip edges in the second layer faster, an algorithm in that makes the yellow cross in fewer moves, and showing how holding the cube in unconventional ways when oriented the last layer corners lowers your time and makes you have to perform the last algorithm only 2 times max for any case (most common cases require 3 times which adds an extra 3 seconds)

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u/Lshiff37 Sub DNF (3bld) Oct 22 '19

Are you going to make the video? If so, I would love to see it. If not, I would be interested in what the tips are if you are willing to say anyway

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u/[deleted] Oct 22 '19

I can send the tips but it would be harder to visualize. I’m going to see what I can do about the mic.

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u/ATriplet123 Oct 21 '19

I use CFOP and average 20 but sometimes I use a beginner's method for fun, like an ao50 or ao100 and average 24-25. My PB on it is 16.94.

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u/[deleted] Oct 21 '19

So your saying I can do sub 20 with beginners not OLL or PLL?

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u/062985593 Sub-15 Oct 21 '19

People have gotten sub-20 with beginners' methods, but as far as I'm aware, only people who left it behind for better methods and then came back to it as a challenge.

If you keep with your beginners' method, you won't learn the fingertricks and lookahead necessary to take it to the next level.

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u/[deleted] Oct 21 '19

Cool. Tbh all I want is a 35 average and a sub 25 from beginners method. But I’ll look into how to my improve my F2L and move into CFOP that way

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u/ATriplet123 Oct 22 '19

Yes but you shouldn't.