TecSpy.com Michael Erskine's Domain

In no way can I be described as a speedcuber! At time of writing (October 10th '08) I have been cubing for 4 months and I can barely maintain an average time of 2 minutes on the 3x3x3. There are plenty of reasons (or "excuses") for my lack of progress but it isn't for want of trying!

My goal for the end of 2008 is to get consistent times of below one minute.

I now have my speedcube from Puzl and I love the improvement over my Rubik's original.

I'm currently learning 2-look OLL and PLL (as taught by badmephisto on youutube) but most of my delays are in F2L.

To aid my memorisation of the 2-look OLL/PLL algorithms I've created a little drawing in OpenOffice that I can carry around for practice when I have a spare moment.

There's 13 algorithms and I have 5 of them memorised but I still make mistakes!

* Here as an image.
* Here as a PDF.
* Here as the original Oasis OpenDocument Drawing.

Update

The date is now 18th October 2008 and I now have 11 of the 13 2-look OLL/PLL algorithms memorised. The ones that I haven't learned yet are the H-Permutation PLL (I just do a clockwise A-Permutation twice with a twist inbetween) and the "Headlights" OLL for which I do a Sune and Anti-Sune. My cross is getting better with the 15 second examination period being used properly. I'm still making a lot of mistakes in F2L which is all intuitive and I'm unable to look ahead. I'm averaging 1:25 or thereabouts with a best of 0:58 and most of my messed up solves coming in around 2:00 - 2:30.

Update Nov 2nd '08

There's less than a week to go until the UK Open and my average is 1:07.00 which would place me at 2464 in the WCA world rankings for 3x3x3 averages. One of my main reasons for entering the event is to get my name in the rankings somewhere... just anywhere! And breaking into the 2500 is my personal goal I set a while ago. My other personal goal is to achieve sub 1 minute averages by Xmas and this seems quite possible. My ultimate goal is consistent sub-30 second solves which should be possible if I spend the time learning the full OLL and PLL algorithms.

Update Nov 10th '08

Hooray! I achieved my goals at the UK Open and didn't make an absolute fool of myself whilst achieving the dizzying heights of the top 2500 in the world rankings for 3x3x3! I know that my position in the 2500 won't stand for long but that's understandable considering the rising popularity of speedcubing. I am now the proud holder of my own WCA rankings page at http://www.worldcubeassociation.org/results/p.php?i=2008ERSK01 with my single competition results!

I achieved my current average in the 3x3x3 with an official average of 5 time of 1:01.73 (out of 1:08.03, 58.04, 1:00.71, 52.99, 1:06.44) giving a best of 52.99 - not bad! I didn't make any major mistakes other than the incorrect placing of the odd F2L pair and my 2-look OLL and PLL went to 4-look on occasion! I would've loved to achieve sub-1-minute but the pressure of competition environment cannot be discounted.

For the 4x4x4 I got two attempts weighing in at 7:14.17 and 4:20.95 which I thought was fine considering I didn't practice at all in the preceding weeks. I hope to spend more time solving the larger cubes now the 3x3x3 pressure is off.

I had a great time and I loved the friendly atmosphere. I'd most especially like to thank Ron van Bruchem for his help and guidance during such a busy event.

Moving on, I need to learn the remaining algorithms for the 2-look OLL and PLL, namely "Headlights OLL" and "E-Perm" to see if it improves my averages. Ron advised me to spend more time if necessary in pre-inspection to work on the cross. I also know that my F2L hesitation is a time killer!