Why the beginner method is slow
Where a two-minute solve actually spends its time, and which part of the beginner method each lesson in this track replaces.
By the end you will be able to
- Say roughly how many turns your solve takes and where they go
- Tell the difference between turning slowly and stopping to look
- Know what each lesson in this track is replacing, and in what order
You can solve a cube without help. Everything from here is about doing the same thing in a third of the time, and it begins with an unwelcome fact: moving your hands faster is not how that happens.
Count the turns
A beginner solve runs to something like a hundred and ten turns. A solve built from the methods in this track runs to about seventy. That saving is real, but it is the smaller of the two available — the larger one is in the time between the turns.
| Step | Beginner method | This track |
|---|---|---|
| Cross | about 10 turns, built on top and then flipped over | about 7 turns, worked out before you touch the cube |
| Bottom corners and middle edges | about 62 turns across eight separate looks | F2L: about 32 turns across four looks |
| Last layer | about 35 turns across four steps | about 30 turns across two steps |
| Whole solve | about 110 turns, thirteen pauses | about 70 turns, eight pauses |
The three expensive habits
Three things in the beginner method cost far more than the rest put together. Each of them is there because it makes the method quicker to learn, which was the right trade at the time.
- Repeating a sequence until it works. Seating one first-layer corner can take six goes at
R U R' U'— twenty-four turns to place a single piece. Reading which way the corner is twisted replaces all of them with three or five. - Turning the cube over. Building the cross with white on top and then flipping the cube costs a moment of turning and, far worse, costs you every piece you were keeping track of. You come out of the rotation looking at a cube you no longer recognise.
- Placing pieces one at a time. A bottom corner and the middle edge above it finish up side by side. The beginner method puts the corner in, then lifts it out again as part of an eight-turn algorithm for the edge, then puts it back. Pairing them up first and inserting them together does both jobs in about eight turns.
What replaces what
- The cross moves to the bottom of the cube and gets planned in full before your hands move.
- The bottom corners and middle edges become one step, F2L, done a pair at a time and mostly worked out rather than recalled.
- The four last-layer steps become two: make the top face one colour, then move the pieces to where they belong.
- Lookahead — knowing where the next piece is while your hands are still busy — takes the pauses out of everything above.
Nothing you already know is discarded. The sexy move you have done a thousand times is the backbone of F2L, and the last-layer algorithms in the beginner set reappear inside the two-look sets under their proper names.
Time ten solves before you start Scrambles, inspection, and an average of five, so the number you write down means something. How the methods compare What CFOP asks of you against Roux and ZZ, in move counts and algorithms.