History: Jan-Apr 2006
******* January 6, 2006 *******
Summary of last 6 weeks
Tried out a new LL order (OE, OC, PC, PE) and switched to cross on bottom – however, wasn’t able to make any real dent in timings, so decided to go back to old LL order (OE, PC, OC, PE) for San Francisco. Have stayed with cross on bottom, I think it is still widely variant in terms of net effect but when I get quickly to the first pair I definitely see the difference in times.
The old speedcube (with textured tiles) suddenly got all stiff – I think all the silicon wore off. I switched to the backup cube, a Rubik’s 25 year which had never been lubed. It’s tight, but still stiff and seems to jam. however, I was able to pull a decent percentage of sub-40 times. I’ve recently lubed up the old speedcube and it’s a little dicey in terms of how well it holds together but I can do times with it.
I also lubed up the little (rubik’s) 2x and the big (eastsheen) 2x – the big one is now pretty awesome for speedcubing. I think I can pull sub-15 times on it now, in early testing.
I ordered some new puzzles – two magics, a harry potter 2x, rings and a tangle. They should get here soon.
San Francisco is next week, and here are my goals:
average sub-40 in 3x,
average sub-90 in 3x-onehand
average sub-15 in 2x,
average sub-2:30 in 4x,
average sub-7:00 in 5x,
average sub-6 in the magic.
The 4x and 5x will be hard – I need to practice more, the same with the magic. we’ll just see how it goes.
******* January 9, 2006 *******
Lots of cubing while in Turlock for soccer tournament over the weekend – had lubed up the cubes so was getting used to the old cube again, and also playing with 2x and 4x/5x.
Did Sunday contest for Jan 8 – felt really sloppy and tense; there were some great times but it got really nasty towards the end with mistakes everywhere. The 29.79 was a beauty – fast F2L, then orient edges and corners were oriented, so did a PLL and was done! But overall, times really were eh – sub-40, but not much else.
Name: Jeff Soesbe
Country: USA
Average: 39.01 seconds
Individual Solving Times: 31.05, 41.27, 37.80, 39.45, 40.21, 36.83, 37.94, 36.95, 44.54, 44.08, (29.79), (48.20)
Quote: Had trouble staying focused, and fell apart at the end (except for the slightly lucky 29.79). I'm not sure how SF is going to go next week - we'll just have to see
Did some one-handed too, using five oldd scrambles. The new speedcube does not seem to work well for one-hand – too loose, I might have to switch to the old cube, but it has a totally different color shading and it’s hard to read. Not sure what to do
Times: 1:29.50, 1:18.68; 1:30.26, 1:35.55, 1:30.15
Average of middle 3 = 1:29.97 (under 1:30, just barely)
******* January 20, 2006 *******
Report back from last couple weeks.
San Francisco contest was very disappointing – incredibly nervous while up on stage, very clumsy, couldn’t get my mind in it, made mistakes twice at the very end of what were shaping up as good runs, costing me 5-10 seconds to recover. In the end, I had one 32.65 (great run), one 38.9X (OK), one 40.0X, one 41.XX and one 45. Not very good, and I was really ticked off.
One handed wasn’t too bad, except I made a mistake at the very end of the fourth run by trying a PLL. I essentially solved the cube twice, ended up with a 2:33 and was out of the competition (there was a 2:30 time limit). So that wasn’t good either. The other three times were 82, 79 and 76.
On my first 4x, I totally spaced out, took forever in edge matching (I swear I matched like 18 edges), ended up at 3:10 and was out (again, 2:30 limit).
The only thing that went well was Magic – five good runs, averaged less than 5.00 seconds (using “old-school” method).
Since then, have been up and down on the 3x, but just tonight tried again and pulled five straight under 40 with three of them under 35.
I think that I can stick with my four-step LL and get under 35 as the average. That would mean having a cross/F2L at about 15 seconds – tough, but I know it’s possible. This is my next goal. I might consider switching the LL order if it can help, but it’s not a requirement. I know I can do it. I was talking to Mike Grimsley and we’re talking about some NorCal “friendly” tournaments perhaps in March and June – that would be fun and a good chance to get some more tournament practice.
Have learned the “twist” style of Magic and am immediately faster. I did some runs tonight with the timer and averaged just over 4 seconds.
Times: 2.95, 3.11, 5.17, 4.36, 3.28, (2.88), 6.70, 2.92, 3.48, 3.65, (17.04), 4.91
Comment: First try with the “twist” method. The big times were clumsiness. The really big time was a mis-twisted puzzle that I worked on fixing because I didn’t want to break a string. Almost sub-4!
******* January 23, 2006 *******
Was too late for the deadline, but I did the Jan 22 Sunday Contest just for run and got a PR! It was pretty amazing; with three sub-30 runs (2 or 3 of them were lucky). I also had two over-50 runs where I just flat messed up, but overall it was a very nice set of runs. Maybe I can do it for real next week. Mainly I was just very relaxed, not too concerned, and shooting for about 35 seconds.
The 27.72 is my fastest “official” time ever (including lucky solves). The 29.72 might not have been lucky, but I don’t quite remember so I can’t claim it on my unofficial world records.
Name: Jeff Soesbe
Country: USA
Average: 36.45 seconds
Individual Solving Times: 40.26, 33.19, (27.72), 28.13, 51.06, 29.72, 40.89, (52.28), 34.85, 34.44, 32.80, 39.18
Quote: Did it late and on a whim and holy cow! 3 sub-30 (lucky, but still). PR average!
I also managed to completely mess up my magic – somehow something got twisted and a panel was messed up. I was able to get it back to solved and flat but in the process one panel is now out and I have a bunch of strings hanging in space. I guess it’s time to learn to restring a magic.
Summary of last 6 weeks
Tried out a new LL order (OE, OC, PC, PE) and switched to cross on bottom – however, wasn’t able to make any real dent in timings, so decided to go back to old LL order (OE, PC, OC, PE) for San Francisco. Have stayed with cross on bottom, I think it is still widely variant in terms of net effect but when I get quickly to the first pair I definitely see the difference in times.
The old speedcube (with textured tiles) suddenly got all stiff – I think all the silicon wore off. I switched to the backup cube, a Rubik’s 25 year which had never been lubed. It’s tight, but still stiff and seems to jam. however, I was able to pull a decent percentage of sub-40 times. I’ve recently lubed up the old speedcube and it’s a little dicey in terms of how well it holds together but I can do times with it.
I also lubed up the little (rubik’s) 2x and the big (eastsheen) 2x – the big one is now pretty awesome for speedcubing. I think I can pull sub-15 times on it now, in early testing.
I ordered some new puzzles – two magics, a harry potter 2x, rings and a tangle. They should get here soon.
San Francisco is next week, and here are my goals:
average sub-40 in 3x,
average sub-90 in 3x-onehand
average sub-15 in 2x,
average sub-2:30 in 4x,
average sub-7:00 in 5x,
average sub-6 in the magic.
The 4x and 5x will be hard – I need to practice more, the same with the magic. we’ll just see how it goes.
******* January 9, 2006 *******
Lots of cubing while in Turlock for soccer tournament over the weekend – had lubed up the cubes so was getting used to the old cube again, and also playing with 2x and 4x/5x.
Did Sunday contest for Jan 8 – felt really sloppy and tense; there were some great times but it got really nasty towards the end with mistakes everywhere. The 29.79 was a beauty – fast F2L, then orient edges and corners were oriented, so did a PLL and was done! But overall, times really were eh – sub-40, but not much else.
Name: Jeff Soesbe
Country: USA
Average: 39.01 seconds
Individual Solving Times: 31.05, 41.27, 37.80, 39.45, 40.21, 36.83, 37.94, 36.95, 44.54, 44.08, (29.79), (48.20)
Quote: Had trouble staying focused, and fell apart at the end (except for the slightly lucky 29.79). I'm not sure how SF is going to go next week - we'll just have to see
Did some one-handed too, using five oldd scrambles. The new speedcube does not seem to work well for one-hand – too loose, I might have to switch to the old cube, but it has a totally different color shading and it’s hard to read. Not sure what to do
Times: 1:29.50, 1:18.68; 1:30.26, 1:35.55, 1:30.15
Average of middle 3 = 1:29.97 (under 1:30, just barely)
******* January 20, 2006 *******
Report back from last couple weeks.
San Francisco contest was very disappointing – incredibly nervous while up on stage, very clumsy, couldn’t get my mind in it, made mistakes twice at the very end of what were shaping up as good runs, costing me 5-10 seconds to recover. In the end, I had one 32.65 (great run), one 38.9X (OK), one 40.0X, one 41.XX and one 45. Not very good, and I was really ticked off.
One handed wasn’t too bad, except I made a mistake at the very end of the fourth run by trying a PLL. I essentially solved the cube twice, ended up with a 2:33 and was out of the competition (there was a 2:30 time limit). So that wasn’t good either. The other three times were 82, 79 and 76.
On my first 4x, I totally spaced out, took forever in edge matching (I swear I matched like 18 edges), ended up at 3:10 and was out (again, 2:30 limit).
The only thing that went well was Magic – five good runs, averaged less than 5.00 seconds (using “old-school” method).
Since then, have been up and down on the 3x, but just tonight tried again and pulled five straight under 40 with three of them under 35.
I think that I can stick with my four-step LL and get under 35 as the average. That would mean having a cross/F2L at about 15 seconds – tough, but I know it’s possible. This is my next goal. I might consider switching the LL order if it can help, but it’s not a requirement. I know I can do it. I was talking to Mike Grimsley and we’re talking about some NorCal “friendly” tournaments perhaps in March and June – that would be fun and a good chance to get some more tournament practice.
Have learned the “twist” style of Magic and am immediately faster. I did some runs tonight with the timer and averaged just over 4 seconds.
Times: 2.95, 3.11, 5.17, 4.36, 3.28, (2.88), 6.70, 2.92, 3.48, 3.65, (17.04), 4.91
Comment: First try with the “twist” method. The big times were clumsiness. The really big time was a mis-twisted puzzle that I worked on fixing because I didn’t want to break a string. Almost sub-4!
******* January 23, 2006 *******
Was too late for the deadline, but I did the Jan 22 Sunday Contest just for run and got a PR! It was pretty amazing; with three sub-30 runs (2 or 3 of them were lucky). I also had two over-50 runs where I just flat messed up, but overall it was a very nice set of runs. Maybe I can do it for real next week. Mainly I was just very relaxed, not too concerned, and shooting for about 35 seconds.
The 27.72 is my fastest “official” time ever (including lucky solves). The 29.72 might not have been lucky, but I don’t quite remember so I can’t claim it on my unofficial world records.
Name: Jeff Soesbe
Country: USA
Average: 36.45 seconds
Individual Solving Times: 40.26, 33.19, (27.72), 28.13, 51.06, 29.72, 40.89, (52.28), 34.85, 34.44, 32.80, 39.18
Quote: Did it late and on a whim and holy cow! 3 sub-30 (lucky, but still). PR average!
I also managed to completely mess up my magic – somehow something got twisted and a panel was messed up. I was able to get it back to solved and flat but in the process one panel is now out and I have a bunch of strings hanging in space. I guess it’s time to learn to restring a magic.
posted by yeff at 12:06 AM
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