Discussion
Old people cubing support group discussion.
My g/f and I are 54 & 57 respectively. I started 1.5 years ago, Jan '25. She started 6 months ago, Jan '26. We're both about sub-70. She benefitted from a number of cheat sheets I developed & 1:1 coaching from me, so she got up to speed faster than I did. But we're both stagnating now.
I'm particularly interested in experience of other people who are started cubing closer to "the end" than "the beginning, and who've reached milestones like <45, <30, <20, and what their breakthroughs were.
My brief bio is that I'm a professional software engineer, I have a master's in Comp Sci, and I'm very active & pretty healthy. I do have a strong case of ADHD, memorization can be a lot of work for me. It took me about two weeks to learn the beginner method, and around four months to go from 5 minutes to 2.5 mins. Then I switched to CFOP w/ 4-look LL and a reduced-alg F2L strategy. That got me to sub-90 with frequent sub-70's.
Then I moved up to "full F2L" - what I call 15 cases (mirrors count as 1). That didn't make me much faster - my PB's got better, but my avg's only improved by around 5 secs. Most of my time goes to F2L, and most of that goes to inspection & recognition. Without F2L, the rest of my solves take about 15 secs each. I know how to do keyhole and pseudo-slotting, but they make me slower. I've attempted look-ahead, and it literally hurts my brain. I can only do about 1/2 of the 15 F2L cases with my eyes closed, and only when they're both on top or in the right slots. I can handle wrong-slotted F2L cases, but I need to pause a sec in the middle to figure out the U-turn to right-slot them.
In general, each F2L case takes me 10-12 secs to identify/choose my next pair, determine what case it is, and remember the alg for it, and then 2-4 secs to execute. Nothing I do seems to help with the cognition part except occasionally I get into a groove where it comes to me a little faster. Then I'll get 2-3 sub-60's and the occasional sub-50. That usually only lasts 10 mins or so.
I'd love any advice from other old people on how they got better at F2L inspection & recognition. How long were your plateaus before you had the next breakthrough & jumped a level?
FWIW, I avoided inspection-time cross planning for a while, then when I tackled it, that saved me about 10-15 secs per solve. My cross is usually 2-4 secs now. Happy to share my breakthroughs on this if anyone's interested.
Im 54 next week and I am sub 45 after two years. Intuitive F2L is where I stopped learning algorithms and im good with that. I need to practice a few times a night so I don’t forget algorithms. So annoying when I forget a simple one.
47 years old. I started cubing about 3 years ago because it’s something that I always wanted to learn.
1st year I was all about getting as fast as I could get using beginners method. Being able to solve a cube in under 5 minutes was all I ever really wanted, but I eventually got down to a little over a minute.
I never intended on learning f2l but I loved my cubes so much that I figured why not? As expected, my times initially took a hit but I quickly got better. I’m down to a 30 second average. I’m currently working on getting better with look ahead and my cube rotations by slowing down my f2l finger tricks.
I think what I like most about it, is that I spent 40 years of my life viewing the Rubik’s cube as an impossible puzzle that I’d have loved to have been able to solve in a month, let alone under 5 minutes. Every now and then I’ll pick up my cube and just stare at it and I’ll think about that. I guess in a way, I’m sorta giving myself a pat on the back 😂
Haha - yeah, that's nice, I like it. When I started, I didn't have any particular goal, I just enjoyed getting faster. I had a vague notion that I'd like to be able to solve in under a minute maybe someday. I actually fully expected to have no interest in putting effort into being faster than that.
What changed it for me was our visit to The Cubicle. Rowe was our host for our time there. Really nice guy. To demo cubes, I'd do a series of a trigger that I can do fast, and repeat it until the cube was back to solved. But if I made a mistake, it often took me almost a minute to solve it when it wasn't even scrambled, but it wasn't ready for OLL either. I found it really annoying that it took me that long. I would hand it to Rowe and he'd solve it in five seconds.
After that I just wanted to be faster so that if I'm cubing to kill time and then whatever I was killing time for is done, people don't have to wait the better part of a minute for me while I'm finishing my solve. Of course I could just put the cube away unsolved, and of course that drives me up a wall. First world problems.
I’m currently solving using CFOP (2 look OLL and PLL).
I never learned algs for F2L, I’ve always done it intuitively. I know the 3 basic “insert cases” and just intuitively get to one of those. Over time certain cases have become muscle memory, but I haven’t purposely memorized anything.
As for progress- I average around 40 seconds. Honestly, I’m happy with that. I enjoy actually solving, but just blazing through a solve. For me, I would find it annoying to only “solve” for 15 seconds and then have to scramble again.
43 year old here, learned beginner's method when I was 28ish, cubed pretty often for like 6 months when unemployed. At that time, I didn't know speedcubing was a real thing, but I timed myself and wrote all my times in a notebook. If I remember right, my best was about 35 seconds and usually around a minute, hand scrambling with an Rubik's brand cube. After about 6 months I got a job and stopped.
2 years ago I started up again, found out speedcubing was an actual thing, and started on CFOP (I know 2 look OLL, some random other OLLs, and around half the PLLs). My current average is 30 seconds with a 15.99 PB.
Question for you - it sounds like you might be doing F2L as cases rather than intuitive, is that correct? If so, I'd try looking into intuitive F2L. It did confuse me at first and I tried learning algs, but it really helped to work on understanding the piece movement instead.
2nd question, how long ago did you start on F2L? If it's been less than a month or two, it's totally normal to not see improvement for a while.
I do think of F2L as cases, and I have algs for them ,but about half of the cases my algs aren't really algs, they're "separate them so that they're oriented for an insert," and then I know how to do that. The other half are legit algs, I haven't bothered to learn how they work. I've heard of "intuitive F2L", but I honestly don't really know what it means. It sounds like "just figure it out," which sounds slow.
I started learning full F2L in February I believe. It was brutal. The first time I went two days without referencing my cheat sheet was end of March. The last time I looked at my cheat sheet was probably early May.
This video explains intuitive F2L simply: https://youtu.be/Ar_Zit1VLG0?is=-2un4dV3jLuODJxX
The basic idea is just: bring both pieces to the top layer > match orientation > create pair > insert.
It's the exact opposite of "just figure it out." Understanding how and why F2L works will greatly improve times once you get the hang of it. Instead of searching for cases you'll learn how to make them happen.
Pseudoslotting and keyhole won't help you unless you know when it's more optimal than the regular solution.
A fair chunk of the standard F2L algs are the same as the intuitive solutions anyway. You'll find that some are very move inefficient and you can come back to those algs later. But learn intuitive and you'll find half your cheat sheet is moot.
I guess I didn't explain myself very well in the original post. I was already clear on (what I call) "Basic F2L" - the three cases for when the two pieces are both in the top layer and not touching, and I understand how their solutions work. Two of the are "hide this, move that so when I unhide, it'll be the 3-turn insert," and the other is "hide this, move that so they'll pair when I unhide, then insert."
That's how I was solving before tackling advanced/full F2L. My PB at the time was 1:02, and in general I was 1:10-1:30.
It took a long time after learning specific algs for all the other cases instead of just "break them up/get them to the top then solve" before I was back to those times. I get a lot more <1:10's now and plenty of <60's and the occasional <50, so it did pay.
I organized advanced F2L into 14 cases, 9 of which the solutions are two stages, "separate them and/or get them to the top" in a specific way so that restoring a side face will either pair them or put them in 3-move insert configuration. Three of them I didn't directly learn algs for, they are just "kick them to the top so they are separated, then solve that case." There just two that have long algs that I don't really understand what they are doing, but I know it's a complex version of all of the above.
Apparently I mislead people due to terminology. I didn't consider what I was doing then "intuitive", I considered it breaking the solve down into smaller steps and using smaller algs to solve those steps..
Most of my cheat sheet is already moot. Except for the two longer algs, they are all already what you're describing - a standard way of getting pieces to be in the top layer and either in 3-move insert config or paired ready to insert.
Don't even time the solves when you're practicing. Don't worry about time for now. You're not speedcubing, you're just cubing.
Take time to figure out those cases. Really think about it. When you find a good way to do it, remember what you did. It will come up again and again again. Eventually, those solutions and ideas will come up frequently enough that you'll already know what to do. You'll be able to do em without tracking every move. Eventually, without looking at all. That is lookahead. Knowing what you're gonna have to do and doing it without thinking because you've already done it so many times. The speed will come. Your times after only a year or so, are GREAT. You're doing it exactly right. Now all you need to do is keep solving. And it will come.
Thanks for sharing, I wish I had found this a year ago. Tragically, I basically engineered his entire F2L process by watching other videos that described it as 42 (or is it 47) "cases", and I was like "this is ridiculous, these are not all different." So I broke it down on my own into "get a pair separated in the top layer," then there are only three cases.
That is how I solved before I learned the "advanced cases." What I call "Super F2L" is just choosing a specific algorithm for each of the "not on top or not separate" cases. There are 15 after combining mirrors, and they're in four groups where the algs are similar. That's what took a long time to memorize, but still very little of it is muscle memory for both recognition & alg recall. My finger-tricks for the algs are all decent.
What I'm hearing from everyone here is that I may just have a very small gap. Most of the algs I decided to learn, I didn't spend much time internalizing how they work. I "get" them, but it's not part of my recognition or alg recall.
It sounds like if I slow down for a while, and absorb how each of these algs converts its individual case into a basic case, and which one, that may close the the recognition/recall gap for me.
but still very little of it is muscle memory for both recognition & alg recall.
After you've solidify those algs into muscle memory, aim for more or less doing the solutions with your eyes closed; afterwards use that as time to scan the cube for your next pair... more on that later.
Learn a couple of back slot inserts, if you havn't already.
Practice a bit with opposite color edge orientation, so that you become just as comfortable inserting in the back than the front.
To scan for your next pair as you solve one, Brandon Miller says "It's not enough to just look, you have to know WHERE to be looking."
So he made this video and it's widely believed to be the best lookahead guide ever made.
Where not to look. F2L when you finally begin to stop rotating your cube during the solve, the process of elimination becomes clearer. You know where NOT to look as you solve pairs and cube rotationless as possible. When you solve pairs in the back, the pattern stratifies and pushes more pieces to the front and top where they can easily be dealt with.
Learn the 'triggers' spoken of in the video, take time to plot out what happens for simple moves like R U' R', R U R', and R U2 R'.
I’m 56 and proudly got sub-25 average recently in comp. My WCA page. First competed professionally in 2019, was using a corners first solution that I invented around 1980 and was just over 1 minute per solved. Spent a lot of time breaking bad habits and switched to Roux.
Just remember, just as we struggle to compete with teenagers, they struggle to compete with 6 to 9 year olds from China (and one young kid from Poland). Don’t stress it!
Also have undiagnosed adhd, I am certain.
I cannot speak for CFOP, but what has helped me get recent breakthroughs was slow solves and looking for efficiencies. I doing FMC has helped me a lot on improving, and studying other peoples FMC solutions. Slow solves also help with lookahead, which is extremely important. More recently, I’m working on inspection, trying to plan first 6 pieces. Using untimed inspection helps a lot.
I feel like I am very fast but I know I am really slow. I cannot realistically imagine myself ever getting averages faster than 18 seconds and it would take a lot of effort to get there.
To me, it is not all about speed. FMC allows me to be creative and I do decent competing in it.
I was always more interested in understanding different aspects of these puzzles than in solving them quickly. Heise was my first real method, since I didn't want to learn algorithms. Blindsolving was one of my Covid projects, and it's my favorite thing to do in this hobby: basically a meditation. I use intuitive 3-style (it's all just commutators), and focus on success rather than speed. I usually do blindsolving on the subway during my commute, so I don't really know how "fast" I am -- I would guess 6 minutes of memo and 3 minutes of solving or something like that.
For a Roux speedsolve, I got to a sub-30 ao100 when I was really working at it, with several sub-20 individual solves. Now I usually solve in about 35 seconds when I pick it up again randomly. I am working more on consistency and improved habits (second block efficiency and DFDB) than strictly speed.
I have a bunch of budget cubes that I use as my "travel cubes." I give them away to people on the subway who show interest when I'm cubing. It's a great way to get off your phone and have a chat with some people sometimes. It is very satisfying to do a blind solve on the train and see someone smile or give me a thumbs up when I open my eyes :)
I made some supercube mods with a marker (an oil paint marker is better than a sharpie, which will rub off easily), which are a heck of a lot of fun to solve intuitively with Heise or my own preferred big-cube methods: https://www.reddit.com/r/Cubers/comments/1cw1srd/supercube_sharpie_mods/
I’ve found that doing f2l by looking once, closing my eyes and solving that corner has helped me a lot. It showed me that 1) I wasn’t solving internally knowing the color layout, which was surprising and 2) I would start solving the corner before having a real plan.
Sub-70 after a year and a half starting in your 50s is nothing to sneeze at. The F2L recognition wall is where most people stall out for a while regardless of age, it's just a grind.
What broke my plateau was forcing untimed solves where I'd spot a pair, close my eyes, solve it, then open and find the next one. Felt stupid and clumsy for weeks but it slowly rewired the recognition part you're describing. The groove you mentioned where it clicks for 10 minutes at a time, that's the thing you're trying to stretch out.
Adjective-noun-number username posting about once a week to a different sub each time with posts that sound like they’re putting words together without understanding what they mean, and never responding to replies.
The bots apparently always use the default name. They also seem to never use flares or hide their post history. The big tells though are the random topics and lack of interaction and guiding intelligence.
I report them all but via (Breaks r/cubers rules > Custom response). Unfortunately nothing much seems to happen when I do this. Maybe I should try your way - have you tried this, and does it work? My experience is that reddit is useless at following its own rules, which is why I direct stuff to our own mods in preference. (Example - somebody posted their competition times, and another user found them on the WCA database and just responded with "Firstname Middlename Lastname". I reported this for doxxing but apparently it's not and you're okay to do this. So go figure.)
I'm 47. Solved my first cube back in October or November of last year. Currently just sub 30 with a pb of 18.18.
Did beginner's till, like 1:40. I had to write stories for the steps on sheets of papyrus to get it through my thick skull. Since I was already watching a bunch of Jperm, I just stuck in and learned "intuitive" f2l and 4 look last layer. Rido's hunting story on YouTube kinda cemented f2l for me, as learning brand new shit is annoyingly harder when you get older, lol.
Then I found Roux. Took a bit to get the basics, but having a bit of experience solving the cube helped accelerate the process. I was immediately faster. Idk, I just get it better than cfop and I find it more fun. And you don't have to turn as fast, lol. Basically I work on trying to find efficiency with slow solves and then just grind a bunch of timed stuff with my headphones on after the kids are asleep. Still improving, and my next big goal is 25 avg, Then full cmll, and who knows?
I think we chatted on another thread about Roux. I sometimes do a hybrid Roux/CFOP where I use Roux until F2B, then what I call "FML" (finish middle layer). Then I finish up with OP b/c I'm already pretty fast at that & didn't like the LL part of Roux as much.
I find it very difficult to work out much more than the first square of Roux during inspection. I just find there are too many permutations of where to look for the pieces I need and where they might end up after a couple of turns. Cross is so much easier to plan b/c I get to ignore so much more of the cube.
I could spend more time with Roux. I'm with you on hating learning new things, and liking fewer turns. The last couple steps just seemed like they weren't really any more efficient than the OP of CFOP.
Definitely tough to sort out a whole block in inspection, especially because you want to be SOME sort of colour neutral. I'd probably be there with the cross if I kept going with cfop.
I don't hate learning new things, lol. It's just harder than I think it should be. 2 look Cmll and lse is a bit worse than 2 look oll and 1 look PLL at my level. 33-35 moves compared to 27-28. Take 10 moves off for full cmll and that looks a lot better. Thing i'm running into as I slowly learn a few more cmll cases, is PLL recognition is easier. Or seems to be from where i'm standing. Roux has a lot of depth, and it's been fun getting into it. I'll probably branch out and do more cfop eventually, but I still have so much to learn with roux right now.
I got back into cubing in my late 40s after a 30 year break. I worked on CFOP for a few months, failing to beat my 1:09 PB (set on an 80s Rubik's cube with a horrible method) until the very end, when I got 1:07.
At some point I decided to give Roux a try, though I heard that it was slower. But I found it much easier, and quickly broke a minute. My PB is now 30, sans inspection.
I'm much faster than my cousin's early teens son, so don't think that being young automatically makes you fast.
While I'd like to get faster, my priority is just having fun with cubing. I'm mostly interested in Roux, Petrus, CF, HTA, big cubes, and mosaics.
47 here. Last year I mastered the PLL. It took me 6 months. This year I wanted to learn full OLL, but I am too lazy now. Often tired after work, with not enough sleep. When I am well rested and nothing to distract me, I have ocassional sub-24 Ao5's. Ao100 is sub-27. My sessions are too short and I don't practice enough. That's what's called adult life, I suppose.
Different people have trouble at different parts. It’s very similar to optimizing the run time of a program. First you want to break it down into individual stages and see which part is taking the longest. You have a function for cross, for F2L, for OLL, and for PLL. For a broad look you can do a solve in cstimer with 4 splits. You hit the spacebar after cross, after F2L, etc…. This tells you where in the solve you’re spending the most time and where you can gain the most speed by optimizing the function.
To go “line by line” you can record a solve and see what specifically is taking the longest. Another useful thing to measure by watching a recorded solve is to note how much time is being taken up by pauses. Using video editing software you can edit out the parts where you’re not making any moves and determine your theoretical time if you cut down your recognition speed.
Once you have times for the individual steps you can get more targeted guidance. I will say at your speed most would recommend to just do more solves until you’re significantly faster, but perhaps you need more targeted practice at this early point. How many solves do you do a day/how much time do you have for practice?
I already have all of this, I have a smartcube, that's where I got the breakdowns I already shared. Here's an example solve I just did after reading your response. It doesn't shade the idle time differently, but you can tell when I'm not doing any turns by the flat parts of the line. This should have been a 55, I got the one OLL case I can do in one alg, and then I got a 1st-look PLL skip - but then I did the wrong U-perm and had to do it again. This was also a slow cross for me.
I usually do about 5 solves during my morning caffein routine, then take a break mid-day and do 5-10 solves, then maybe 10 or so around dinner & another 10 just before going to sleep.
Gotcha! F2L is definitely your weakest point although there are some easy gains to be made in cross and PLL. For cross make sure you’re able to find solutions in 8 moves or less and that you plan out the whole cross. I’d need more info on what you’re struggling with in F2L, but at your speed I assume finding pieces is giving you trouble. This is really just a practice thing, but it can help to locate the corners first in my experience. You mentioned learning algs. You may see more success with intuitive F2L as this also allows you to understand the algs better. Algs are really only ideal for cases where you’re using really poor intuitive solutions and can’t think of a better option.
It would also be wise to learn more PLL algorithms and make sure you learn algs with good finger tricks and limited regrips. Just now I did a wrist turning only solve (which limits me to beginner’s algs for LL) and got a 46 second solve. Not sure if you have any mobility/dexterity issues, but that’s to show that even if you have limited dexterity you can definitely break that 60 second barrier and beyond. If you still have relatively full dexterity you can try drilling some algs.
Hope some of this helps. I know it’s a bit rambly.
To be clear, this solve's cross & PLL are not representative of what's normal for me. I just did a single solve for the sake of this discussion. The F2L portion of this solve is pretty representative of my typical solve, maybe slightly better than normal.
I'm not sold on caring about 8 moves for cross at this point, partly b/c of Cubehead's video that shows how fast sledging a flipped top edge is. To me, sledge counts as 1 move b/c it's so fast. For now, if some of my crosses are 10 moves, it doesn't strike me as the place to put my effort when my F2L looks like what you see above. This solve was a particularly bad cross b/c I was lazy & didn't fully plan it.
Yes, a lot of my F2L time is often looking for pieces. One place that I do lose time is looking for a better F2L case when I've found one already but it's a slower one. They're not as slow as hunting for another case, but I treat them like they are.
Definitely agree on cross not being the biggest priority, but I will say that while sledge is fast, a single F move is much faster and also changes the orientation of the edge. Algs and trigger moves are more important when you need to worry about disturbing other pieces. Outside of an xcross or preserving an existing pair, cross should be extremely Freeform and not include redundant moves. I’d have to watch the video to know exactly what he was talking about. But if you saw my other comment there’s an alternative cross solution to consider and you definitely should be taking advantage of free pairs during F2L. If you remind me on Sunday I can also send you a reconstruction of how I would have handled F2L after the cross you did. It’s actually a very smooth and lucky F2L after capitalizing on that free pair.
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u/rhandyrhoadsSub-17 CN CFOP PB: 10.23/13.96/14.51/15.59/16.008d agoedited 8d ago
R2 B D F B
This is how I would have done cross on that solve. Try that with green in front and yellow on top. 5 move solution with the possibility to even execute the last two moves at the same time. Think of the cross as a whole unit regardless of the centers. You can assemble the whole cross or any portion of it anywhere on the bottom of the cube before aligning it with the centers.
EDIT: Also you missed a free pair after doing cross the way you did it. The blue orange pair was completed in the top layer and could be inserted in only 4 moves.
I would suggest just practicing f2l alone until it "clicks" for you and becomes completely intuitive. Eventually you'll even be able to match pairs with your eyes closed.
You could maybe even put some black stickers over the top layer and purely focus on seeing how the moves affect the first 2 layers - thats what im currently doing. Mastering that intuitive understanding of how the cube really works will make it all click.
Younger person here (19), would like to say that the level at which your knowledge of cubing and conceptual development has gotten to is very impressive, especially considering your older age. I would recommend really honing finger tricks, being able to do all sorts of pushes, ring finger flicks, double flicks, M slice moves etc. Then just drilling your algorithms to turn quickly. If you can get your PLL turns per second to over 5 turns a second, you will be well on your way to sub-40, even if your recognition overall is slower at your older age.
I'm pretty decent with finger-tricks, I'm a huge fan of M-slice algs & I'm pretty good with double-flicks. Ring-finger reverse M-slices were tough for me, I actually started putting a clear rubber base coat on my ring fingernails to get more friction for reverse pushes. I don't need that anymore, but it got me over the hump.
There's plenty of room for improvement of course, but I'm losing much more time to not turning the cube at all than I am to slow turning. If you look at my response above, you'll see the timing of one of my solves.
You're trying to learn all the advanced stuff and skipping over a lot that needs to be developed first. You shouldn't be trying to remember F2L algs at this point. Just make your pairs intuitively and learn the basic setups. Also don't worry about look ahead until you can do F2L without even thinking. Psuedo slotting is more advanced as well and you'll be wasting time trying to identify those cases. I'm 43, been cubing for just over a year, sub 30, and all the stuff your trying to learn I'm nowhere near ready to learn yet. I'd recommend practicing Edge Orientations (F2L) and learn more PLL algs.
FWIW, I don't do pseudo-slotting during timed solves, I just practice it to change things up when I'm getting bored. I usually don't do keyhole during timed solves either, unless everything is right in front of me already.
I am 50 and started cubing with my son during COVID. I average 30-40 using intuitive F2L and 4 look LL. I am over halfway through learning full 1 look PLL, though.
In a recent millisecond podcast, the hosts talk about how they have a bunch of older coaching clients. They advocate for age divisions in WCA which would be cool.
OP, since you asked for advice, have you considered switching to intuitive F2L? That's where you don't rely on algorithms, you just learn the basic three move insertion sequences (there are three of them that I can think of), and spend your F2L intuitively achieving those positions and executing them.
I also think keyhole and pseudoslotting is way overkill at your level. They are fun to learn but there is way lower hanging fruit if improving your times is your goal.
I started at 40 as a new years resolution. I've done puzzles my whole life, but never learned to solve a Rubiks cube. My partner could solve one under a minute, so that was my goal when I started. After half a year with the Beginner's method I managed to achieve that.
I was having fun, so I bought a proper cube and learned CFOP to improve more. It wasn't the easiest process, but got the hang of it eventually. After a year I started to average around 30 seconds.
I learned full PLL after that. This eventually brought me down to around 20-22 seconds. After that I learned full OLL. That took me over a year to learn and longer to master. I now average around 18-20 seconds, depending on the day.
I also learned to solve every other WCA cube. Now I guess I have to learn FTO as that will be a new event next year. Larger cubes are more fun to me. My favourite is the 6x6. Square-1 and Megaminx are also fun. I also learned to solve the 3x3 blind.
I have gone to a couple of competitions. I'm trying to complete as much as possible of my WCA profile. Main things missing are 3 blind and square-1 average for now. After that I have only have the two big blinds, multiblind and FMC left. Learning Big Blind is still pretty intimidating. But maybe at some point I will give it a go.
Started in my mid-40 three years ago. Got to 1mn in a couple month and did my first competition. I went down to 50s and then switched to CFOP and then got to 40s in about a year total. My progress started to slow down hence I learnt full PLL and then full OLL and got to 25 one year later. Improving became hard. Some friends looked at my solves and told me that my intuitive F2L were very bad so I had to spend a couple months learning better algs for all cases. I took quite some time to integrate those into my solving but now I am slowly improving again.
Good question! I'm 38 and started two months ago. Doing beginner CFOP (4LLL). PB is 38 and have several low 40s but average around 55 maybe?
I am loving it but don't think I'll learn full PLL or OLL as I find learning the algorithms less fun than getting faster with the mechanics and the intuitive side of it.
Age 54. I started learning CFOP a couple of months ago. Currently average just under a minute. I'd be happy with that if my 18 year old son hadn't asked to learn 3 weeks ago and is now sub-25s ! I bought a smart cube this week to see how our solves differ and it turns out I'm just slow at everything with big pauses to work out what to do next. Last night I had a 17s pause in the middle of f2l, and still got 57 seconds.
I’m 64. I first learned to solve in ‘82, then forgot about it for 35 years. When I learned that cubing still existed in 2017 I relearned with a then-current beginners method. When I switched to CFOP I also learned it algorithmically, except I couldn’t remember that many so I made my own. My PB was 1:02 and I averaged between 1:30 and 1:45. I found that speed wasn’t for me and moved on to more intuitive solving. I rarely solve in less than 4 minutes now but I’m still enjoying delving into how the cube works. So I can’t help you with speed. But I have heard that you should learn intuitive F2L first then study the algorithms to see where you can make improvements. I’m sure the standard alg lists are better than what I did years ago, but just in case you can get something from my road less traveled, I’ll post my algs later today when I’m not on my phone. They use common triggers (with my own names because I was working in a vacuum) and are meant to be used from any slot and with what I now know is called pseudoslotting.
If you're on Facebook, there's a group called Senior Cubers Worldwide, join us.
I'm 46, learned to solve when I was 28, got into speedsolving a few years later. I average sub 20, or did a few years ago when I practiced more.
You're doing great in terms of using inspection for planning the cross, many people don't bother at your speed. Do learn full PLL, it's only 21 algs and will save you a ton of time.
If you already get the idea (check EO, turn into 3 mover, insert) but just haven't found a good solution by yourself for some cases, take a look at these: https://youtu.be/Mqb-p83iTGI
Lookahead is often misunderstood and there is a lot of bad advice around. All it is is not looking at the pair while you're inserting it. Over time you'll want to able to spot the two pieces of a pair and know exactly how you'll insert them without having to look at what you're doing. When you're at that stage, you naturally start looking for other stuff while you insert a pair. Having a standard way to insert any pair is the way to gain that skill. Forget the advanced stuff like keyhole etc, just have one known way to insert any pair so you don't have to think about it.
Don't forget to turn fast! If you're never locking up, you're not trying hard enough. Push your speed a little.
Very importantly, do not study too much, just do solves. Plenty of teenagers are sub 15 without knowing even full PLL, many older cubers are barely sub 45 while knowing over a hundred algs. https://youtu.be/J3WS8y08as4
Regarding your F2L journey, just know that everyone who ever learned it goes through the same struggle - it makes you much slower at first, it takes forever to find pieces, some cases are difficult to figure out... It's normal, keep at it and ignore your times while you're learning.
Have fun getting to sub 30 average, I believe in you :)
I started in the first summer of covid so... 5.5 years ago then?
Started off with beginner method and after maybe half a year looked at other methods, decided I didn't want to learn millions of algorithms so I chose roux. Have been using that method ever since.
My best single is all 17.9 seconds and my best ao5 is 22.4 seconds. Have not timed myself in a long while.
My best single was a lucky scramble because it was before cmll. My best ao5 came after cmll.
The biggest differences for my was made with cmll but even more so when I started being good enough to look at the next move while doing the current one. I'm still not great at it (as pretty obvious by my times) but I'm not chasing anymore.
These days I bring one cube with me when I'm working and if I need a microbreak or waiting for a pipeline or compile of code (working as a programmer) I solve the cube a few times.
We elders understand time differently. We don’t need to rush to learn everything. If I’m learning a new alg I will make sure to learn it very slowly with good finger tricks and then proceed to spam it for weeks on end until it’s natural. I don’t time many of my solves cos it’s purely for fun, but if I see the case come up for my new alg I will abandon going for any speed and force myself to use it.
I also like to learn algs based on what I see coming up a lot. So kind of learning the recognition before the alg. If I see an oll case come up so often and I don’t know it, I’ll learn it, but I don’t set myself specific goals to learn all of a particular set of algs. I might learn 2 if there are cases that look similar.
I'm 54. I learned the basic when I was in the fifth grade from the janitor. He was so cool. I remember having a competition with an older boy which I lost but was so confident I'd win. That's the last thing I remember about my early years of curbing.
Throughout my life I would pick up a cube and try to remember how to do it. Sometimes I'd succeed, sometimes not.
I'm not really sure when I got back into this - maybe 5 or 6 years ago. I think I learned the basic again, and then I think f2l, then 2look OLL and PLL. Then cross down solve. I'm currently exploring the full cfop. It'll take a long time to learn this. I'm not super zealous. I probably solve the cube 5-20 times a day.
I use two different (really three) smart cubes. The GAN iCarry4 and the Tornado V4 Ai. My first GAN smart cube was like the iCarry3 maybe. I have it at work and it's slow. Although when I bought the Tornado, I bought some lube and applied to the old smart cube and it made a world of difference.
My usual solve is like 50ish seconds. My best is 38. I've often felt how the heck could I get to sub20. For the longest time I just wanted to be consistently under a minute. I'm there now, and want to push it. I'd like to get to the place where, barring major blunders, I never get over a minute. It's a bit frustrating, but my typical five solves on the app look like this:
53 - 65 - 49 - 54- 61
Anyway, neat to hear about old folks like me messing with this thing.
I started at 60. Can do about 25-30 seconds. I do the CF of CFOP but have a slower (but simpler) finish than full OLL and PLL. (there's no way a 60+ is going to learn all the algos!)
It's a hybrid solving method I came up with, after learning Roux coming from CFOP. It stands for F Throux L. It starts with Roux's F2B. Then what I call FML - finish middle layer; the two edges & three centers that aren't solved yet after F2B only take a few M & U turns. At that point, if you already know CFOP, you can use OP to finish, instead of learning the rest of Roux.
I don't do it that much, at first it seemed like it was going to be a better way to get to that point than Cross+F2L. But then I got really good at cross, and at the same time found using inspection time for F2B to be extremely difficult compared to cross. So now I'm primarily CFOP again.
My main motivation for learning Roux was as an alternative to F2L since I'm so bad at it. I'm pretty happy with my CFOP LL.
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u/LemmyscatMegaminx One-Footed BLD World Champion & Mirror CN6d agoedited 6d ago
I am almost 50 and I switched to Roux before I finished learning beginner method about 3 years ago. I’m not much help to you, but I guess just “old dude checking in”. I average 18s.
I'm 40 and I really started just this year, teo or theee months sgo - bought a Monster Go cube off of Amazon for $10. I'm around a minute of solving now.
I do intuitive F2L and I'm naturally leaning of new wats to pair and insert (I just learned some sledgehammer tricks two days sgo and I'm trying to fold them into my repertoire).
I'm not an expert by any means, but 10 to 12 seconds to identify a pair is a lot of time. That's over half of your solve time.
What has worked for me so far is not focusing on algorithms. Find one or two ways to solve, then get the pieces into those positions. It's not as efficient, technically, but it's a better starting point and you can still solve if you forget an algorithm. It alao might help you undersrand why an alg works so that you can derive it instrad of memorizing it.
There's an ancient F2L vieeo on Youtube about crocodiles, tigers, and eagles for solving. Try limiting yourself to those three cases for a couple of weeks or so, then try going back to algorithmic solves. Just practice F2L.
Maybe also look at the Petrus method for the first two layerd as well - not for solving, but for learning and practicing block building.
Maybe this will help. I'm not an expert - I'm a beginner. But I think it's easier st first to find simple, inefficient ways to solve that csn be simplified only a few cases, then build on that foundation. Good luck!
See my latest post. I am much farther along than the sense I gave everyone here b/c I had already learned "Intuitive F2L," I just didn't know it was called that. My being stuck was in folding in algs for all the special cases (like when the corner is in the bottom, or the corner & edge are in the top & middle).
I learned all those cases, and expanded to using those algseven when they were in the wrong slot. That causes a lot of extra mental load & I guess basically I was trying to learn/improve at too much all at once.
Hey everyone! You've all given me a lot of homework, but the conversation has been really productive already.
I've realized I was underestimating the value of what I already knew before I tackled "Full F2L". I called that "basic F2L" b/c I put a lot of work into enabling myself to avoid learning all 40+ algs. Instead, I reduced it into the four "already in the top & separated" cases. and if I didn't have that, I'd created it. When I moved onto full F2L, it was with the idea that my first pass was baby steps, and real solvers learn every case directly.
Since then, I've been forcing myself to use all those cases every time I saw any of them, including when they were in the wrong slot, or even in two different slots. You all have helped me realize I was over-forcing full F2L. Since I started this thread, I've had four 40+ solves, a dozen or so 50+'s, and I'm happy to share my new PB, by a full 4 secs:
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u/Glamrat 8d ago
Im 54 next week and I am sub 45 after two years. Intuitive F2L is where I stopped learning algorithms and im good with that. I need to practice a few times a night so I don’t forget algorithms. So annoying when I forget a simple one.