The World's Fastest Cuber

Sub-20 Seconds

Weeks passed, then months. It was mid-summer when I got interested in and bought other twisty puzzles like a 4x4 cube, pyraminx and others which I started practicing somewhat, but not more than the original 3x3. My main goal of being good at 3x3 was never dissuaded.

At this point, I was getting solves done in 30 seconds, and I really enjoyed the process of solving, but 30 wasn’t good enough for me.

“I need to practice harder,” I told myself. “I’ll learn more algs and follow example solves from Feliks. I won’t bother with lookahead yet though, that’s too advanced.” That was my plan, and I stuck to it.

Another few months went by, and I was in the 15-20 seconds range, having learned all of the algorithms I felt that I needed.

The cold November weather made my fingers cold and slow, which was counter-productive. I had to do something about it, so I thought, “I have a lot of pauses in my solves, and since I can’t turn as fast with cold hands, I’ll try reducing my pauses.”

Reducing pauses means, while already executing moves, planning ahead the next moves you’ll do. That is what lookahead is, and I felt I was ready for it.

I started training specifically to reduce my pauses by turning slowly, but looking ahead to the next moves. The concept was terribly difficult to grasp at first, but after a few weeks of dedicated practice, it became nearly second nature.