adventures in cubing

So, I’ve been working hard on F2L. Refusing to memorize algorithms, and heeding expert advice, I’ve concentrated on learning it “intuitively” or “organically.” While most of the cases feel instinctive at this point, there are a handful whose solution feels slightly less intuitive. This tutorial is a sort of personal dumping ground and cheat sheet for the cases I find toughest. I’ll add cases as they come up for me.

The basic solutions come from Badmephisto’s F2L cheat sheet, with some small tweaks to personalize them into my solving technique. As always, the visual diagrams come from Conrad Rider’s fantastic Visual Cube generator.

Badmephisto Cases ## 15, 16

(connected pair; same color up; split by going over)

pair in front face y’ (R’ U R U’) d’ (R U R’)

	y’		R’ U R U’		d’		RUR’

pair in right face (R U’ R’ ) U2 (F’ U’ F)

	R U’ R’		U2		F’ U’ F

Badmephisto Cases ## 17, 18

(connected pair; opposite colors out / white up; split by going over

pair in front face y’ (R’ U2 R) U (R’ U’ R)

	y’		R’ U2 R		U		R’ U’ R

pair in right face (R U2 R’) U’ (R U R’)

	R U2 R’		U’		R U R’

Badmephisto Cases ## 23, 24

(connected pair; matching colors out / white up; “weird”)

pair in front face (R U R’ U’) U’ (R U R’ U’) (R U R’)

	R U R’ U’		U’		R U R’ U’		R U R’

pair in right face y’ (R’ U’ R U) U (R’ U’ R U) (R’ U’ R)

	y’		R’ U’ R U		U		R’ U’ R U		R’ U’ R