I'm not that amazing, but thanks for the compliment...

According to 99.9% of the world you are. In fact, almost anybody who can solve one is considerding amazing. You are considered amazing among those who are considered amazing by the public.

First day with a 2x2 (borrowed from friend)

8.7 PB
13.43 average. I was hoping for sub 20, I'm going to be sub 10 by the end of the weekend!

with ortega?

my first time ever with a pyraminx. not mine. Tyler showed me the basic stratigy. I figured the first layer out by myself and then I solved the last 3 pieces with commutators. I was soooo proud of myself. I then figured out how to fix all 4 cases for the last 3 peices by myself.

that very same day I broght it home and averaged 14 seconds

Which is 2 seconds above my average... on your first day. Haha good job, I am proud as well.

You know, the US record for the Pyraminx is something like 14 seconds. It's from 2003.

Man, do I need a good Pyraminx. And a chance to solve it in competition.

what kind of pyraminx is it? Available from mefferts or no? I want a pyraminx really bad!

I'm not sure what kind it is. it is made with white plastic. it has vinal stickers that are orange blue green and gold.

I'll just post a thread in the market place then

I think that's the really-old-style one. I heard those can be really good, and apparently a lot of the sub-10 people use them.

Oh man, I just got a nonlucky 2:08.71 on the 5x5x5. I'm happy.

I don't see myself averaging near this, though!

I think if you hire frank morris as your personal coach you could easily average that. Good luck with that venture

I'd love to get Frederick, Takayuki, Frank, Matyas, Milan, Olivier, or Michael Fung (people who are sub-2 in contest) to train me, but it's never that easy. I know Frank, Erik, and Stefan (who have all done sub-2:15 in contest) are all on this forum; maybe I should PM one of them for tips.

Y'know, it would be really cool to do a "cubing camp" type thing - a summer program where people go to hang out, cube, and learn from the best at various events. Imagine: you'd have 3x3x3 seminars, 2x2x2 and big cubes coaching, blindfolded classes, one-handed practice sessions, weekly mini-tournaments, FMC lessons... wow.

Realistically, though, I just need to practice a lot. If I can get a 2:08 I should be able to get a 2:25ish average, maybe a bit better. I don't think I can do a sub-2:10 on the average, though, as that was a really, really good solve.

This isn't really an a accomplishment, but I just got 3 lucky solves in a row! I don't know what the chances for that are!

my best is 8 lucky solves in a row.all low 13's

My best is two (both PLL skips). That was bizarre.

What steps did you skip?


Assuming they were all OLL-skips with Petrus F2L (this has the highest probability), it's still quite improbable... Do you remember what steps did you skip and did you work for it?

I once got 29.31 three times in a row OH. It was funny.

PLL, for all!

Wow! On average it should happen once every 373 248 solves (somebody please correct me if I'm wrong). You were really lucky, it will probably never happen to you again!

Other than that, I hardly ever get lucky! Although 2 out of my 3 sub-20 solves are lucky.

I just beat shotaro's time for solving on a unicycle!!! I got 14.8 I can't believe I did it.

I just got a 2:02.05 on the 5x5x5. It wasn't really lucky., but there were a lot of tredges where two of the pieces were already paired up. The LL were really long, too - all four edges were flipped, and the PLL was V. Crazy.

Over the course of the last 10 hours I've solved the megaminx 6 times. The first was bad, but each of the others was my best time, the last of them was sub-5, finally!

Two of those (consecutive) were 6:01.13 and 6:01.05

On the topic of lucky solves, I wasn't really counting, but one time over the course of about 10 solves I had 2 or 3 full PLL skips and several more CP or EP skips (I do 4LLL). Just my luck that these were when I was playing around trying to figure out Petrus, rather than at speed. I've also gotten, proportionally, around 2 times as many PLL skips on 5x5 than 3x3.

That's really weird, especially for a puzzle that takes so long!


I finished the average containing the 2:02, and the time was... 2:30.01. I thought the last three averages would be sub-2:30, but they have all been either 2:30 or 2:31 (and they were all done on different days too). That's weird, and exasperating as well.

11.27
PLL skip but 2 step OLL.

I got a 7.004 average on the 2x2x2.

This would be me saying "I beat the cave of Ordeals!", but I just died on the 49th level.



And then I realized I could have used my magic armor...

The Cave of Ordeals?

That is easy with Magic Armour

What is The Cave of Ordeals?

Yeah, I'm really angry at myself for not thinking of it earlier.

I think it's from Twilight princess, the new zelda game for the Wii.

3x3 Average:


Average: 16.07

Fastest Time: 14.99
Slowest Time: 19.39
Standard Deviation: 01.02

Individual Times:
1) 15.58
2) 15.84
3) (19.39)
4) 15.27
5) 15.00
6) 17.28
7) 16.95
8) (14.99)
9) 15.01
10) 15.30
11) 16.65
12) 17.79

You need to update your signiture Pembo!

Wow... you're improving really rapidly. What are you doing now that you weren't doing in the time it took you to get from 21 to 19 seconds? Because I need to be doing it...

Well when I was at 21, I was at a wall.
I couldn't improve and then one day, my Look Ahead just clicked in, and lo behold, I improved.

This gave me more self confidence, and also helped my relax so I am now improving very fast.

Add in learning OLLs and you are laughing

I feel that the wall presents itself in all sports, and like in track, the wall can be beaten by perserverence, determination, and hard work

1.21 T Perm

1.25 on film:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=07o1i8WBX7w

True that! I was at a 23 or 24 second wall for a while, but then I started getting faster and concentrating on what I was doing wrong, now 21 and 22 second solves are coming more and more often (although I still can't average sub 23!)

That's crazy, Pembo. Crazy. I can get 1.88, but that's pretty much it. (Maybe you've improved so much because you've gotten better at doing turns quickly without locking up?)

I still lock and pop a lot

I need to round the corners off....

Also, the T Perm flows really nicely with my hands.

I see.

You know what's weird? I've been getting a lot of 17.xx and 18.xx solves, but not enough to give me a sub-20 average. On the low times, the F2L lookahead is usually really good. Maybe I just need to concentrate more when solving!

I've got 1.08 on the edge 3 cykle and recorded an 1.13...

My second sub20 on film. The first was with a camera phone, but the quality isn't that great, although the solve was a second faster!

Here is my 19.77 solve http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUvsGPUFfSI.

I guess I'm even slower at PLL than I thought. Oh well.

I got a 1:02.12 on the 4x4x4 today. All I remember was that the edges went really well and that it was a J-perm.

Practising clock pays off.....0.04 off the WR.

Average: 09.80

Fastest Time: 09.15
Slowest Time: 10.58
Standard Deviation: 00.37

Individual Times:
1) 10.24
2) (10.58)
3) 09.57
4) 09.55
5) 10.05
6) 09.79
7) 09.98
8) 09.55
9) 10.45
10) (09.15)
11) 09.26
12) 09.53

Great job, I can't wait to see your name in lights on speedcubing.com when you get the official world record at a comp, if you can find one that does the clock.

Most European Comps do it

And it's always the first event .....

Well that's fine for you, but us comps never do it, only cube stuff...

Yeah. The US comp record for Clock is something like 35 seconds. I'm getting an average of around 15-16 these days, so if we had a competition that had a Clock event it would be very hard not to have the record beaten.

The US is really annoying for competitions, in that there are a ton of competitions but a lot of them only do 3x3x3 events and almost all of the others only do 2,3,4,5 and the Magics. I visited Caltech and most of the people in the Caltech Cubing Club, which organizes a lot of the US tournaments, don't know how to do the 4x4x4 and 5x5x5, or don't speedsolve them (and forget about other puzzles). So you must imagine, they don't hold it as an event very often. Grr.