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Comment by progbits | Hacker News Reader

Are there statistics on how many moves people used for record runs? I've only seen them measure the time but from the video recording you could probably get a rough count of moves too.

I would love to see the trend lines for those. Are the world records getting faster due to quicker execution of same number of moves, or using fewer moves thanks to better algorithms?

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There are two main 3x3x3 speedsolving methods. Cfop and roux. 90% of world class solvers use cfop which has significantly higher move count (55 vs 45). The cfop method has characteristics which make it considerably more finger friendly, allows for less regrips and makes look ahead easier which makes up for the extra 10 moves.

The world record progression is mostly due to top solvers being able to turn faster with fewer pauses.

E.g. the fastest cuber ever Max Park averages less than 6 seconds but his solves are not more sophisticated than those averaging 10s.

I chose Roux specifically so I didn't have to learn a bunch of algorithms. You do obviously have to know a few, but you get to a couple points and while you can use a specific algorithm, you can also basically do the same thing X number of times and it works out and gets you to the next step.

CFOP is definitely more finger friendly (no middle layer changes), but I think Roux has fewer regrips, at least at non-speedcube levels (maybe I'm wrong, but I never change the orientation). Roux is also considered more "intuitive", there are points where you can look at the cube and (after a while) just see what needs to be done.

I don't do it for speed, so I haven't bothered learning all the algorithms. I'm "fast enough", but I probably only do 10ish solves a day, and Roux makes it really easy to remember the 3-4 algorithms needed to solve that. It still amazes people when you can do it, and even taking 90 seconds to do it, but with hardly any pauses, still makes people think you're a wizard or something.

>> It still amazes people when you can do it, and even taking 90 seconds to do it, but with hardly any pauses, still makes people think you're a wizard or something.

I find this to be quite true. I learned a fairly slow method back in the 80's and can't remember all of the details so I have to figure it out. I don't run across a cube more than say once a year, so it may take 2-3 minutes to solve it. But part of the time I'm doing memorized sequences which allow looking up at a person while solving. You have a little conversation while doing it, and at the end you just put it down like it's not a big deal. The person looks at you not quite sure if there's any significance to what just happened and then you move on as if you were timing your nails or something. It's just a fun little thing to do from time to time.

Zz is also not unpopular and is “ focused both on low move count and high turning speed”. https://www.speedsolving.com/wiki/index.php/ZZ_method

ZZ is actually rather unpopular and seems to have decisively lost its spot as a top tier method a few years back. The tradeoffs vs CFOP are generally not considered worthwhile, because an entirely rotationless solve doesn't make up for a dramatically more complex EOLine and harder xcross. Only ZBLL exists as the extant remnants of ZZ.

Q: Wasn’t ZZ an attempt to avoid the crazy ZBF2L algorithms and came after ZB? People understood the value of ZBLL (hell, even I wrote out all the speed-oriented algorithms for it) but everyone doubted the viability of ZBF2L, so they tried to find other ways of orienting edges. Or was ZZ around before and people just realized they could apply ZBLL to it?

ZZ is definitely younger than ZB, and I think that story checks out. ZBF2L just tries to orient LL edges with the last pair, while ZZ moves it to part of the EOLine/EOCross. In both methods, ZBLL can be used to do LL.

At a high enough level it becomes a numbers game. In CFOP you will occasionally skip whole sequences due to a favourable permutation, a lot of high level cubing is just solving enough cubes that you get these rare and extremely fast permutations in a competition setting.

Particularly good solvers are able to see potential skips or favorable arrangements and alter their solve to "force" a particular arrangement in a later stage.

Preserving an F2L pair during the cross, or choosing a better OLL algorithm during F2L.

It's pretty neat to watch breakdowns of solves.

Most records have "reconstructed solutions", where people recreate the solution from start to end. You could get the number of moves that way, though I couldn't find a dataset of them.

> Are the world records getting faster due to quicker execution of same number of moves, or using fewer moves thanks to better algorithms?

My novice understanding is that it's the former. The algorithms haven't changed very much in the past 20 years or so, maybe a few variations that are more ergonomic. After learning all the algs, it's a matter of improving look-ahead (making sure you know what alg to perform next while your current is wrapping up) and otherwise increasing your turns per second (TPS).

The records dropped quite drastically a few years back, which is likely coming from advancements in cubing hardware. Adding magnets to prevent overshoot while turning helped people speed up quite a bit.

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