From cube-lovers-errors@curry.epilogue.com Sat Jun 8 14:32:08 1996 Return-Path: cube-lovers-errors@curry.epilogue.com Received: from curry.epilogue.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by curry.epilogue.com (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id OAA16779 for ; Sat, 8 Jun 1996 14:32:07 -0400 Precedence: bulk Errors-To: cube-lovers-errors@curry.epilogue.com Message-Id: <199606072009.PAA20169@mail.cs.utexas.edu> X-Mailer: exmh version 1.6.2 7/18/95 To: CUBE-LOVERS@ai.mit.edu Subject: Re: Speed cubing In-Reply-To: Your message of "Thu, 06 Jun 1996 09:04:04 CDT." <199606061304.JAA20500@dimacs.rutgers.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Fri, 07 Jun 1996 15:09:45 -0500 From: Norman Richards > I've heard about some pretty fast people who've claimed to > have averages in the low 20's, but I haven't seen them perform. > > My buddy from high school, Scott Evans, now living in Austin, > averages about 25 seconds these days. He's the fastest active > cubist I've seen in the last 10 years. I'm at about 28 seconds. Whenever I see posts like this I have to wonder what methods you guys are using to solve the cube. My average casual speed is about 80 seconds and when I get in blitz mode I usually can average below a minute. But, I never get below say 45 seconds unless I get a really nice starting position and things just fall into place. My personal best ever is about 32 seconds, back when I was in high school. Anyways, I am curious what methods people use. I've asked around and it seems most people prefer to go top/middle/bottom. In fact, all the published solutions go that way. But, I learned to go top/bottom/middle because it is MUCH easier. At the same time, I've seen that when solving a single face, most solutions suggest doing edge and the corner pieces, but I do corner and then edge. I think this has to do with whether you do the middle or the bottom next because with the middle/bottom approach you can leave out one corner piece to do the middle. But if you do bottom/middle then you can leave out an edge piece to aid in getting the buttom edge pieces done. Here is a quick overview of my solution (because it is different than most peoples): 1. do the top face. 4 corners then any 3 edges. (intuitive) 2. align bottom corner pieces. (pattern) 3. rotate bottom corner pieces so the correct color is showing (pattern) 4. place the remaining 4 bottom edges and the missing top edge (intuitive) 5. put the 4 middle edge pieces in the correct positions (intuitive) 6. rotate edge pieces as needed (pattern) Anyways, is there one technique that almost all speedy solutions use? I've tried the top/middle/bottom solutions but they seem very uninuitive. Do most speed people only use patterns? (or at least after the top layer?) How many patterns do you use? When I go for speed, I tend to use two patterns for step 2, and 4 possible patterns for step 3. Meaning that I use about 7 patterns max for speed and I use 3 patterns total when doing it casually.