How to Solve F2L in the Back [tips & more] — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:00Most F2L tutorials or algorithms you’ll find  online focus a lot on solving pairs in the front.
2. 0:06And while this is fine for dipping your  toes into F2L, doing this for too long
3. 0:10creates a terrible habit of always having  to rotate to solve pairs on the front.
4. 0:15Like bro, what I just did is terrible.
5. 0:19But luckily, our savior Mr.  CubeHead will teach you today
6. 0:22how to intuitively solve pairs in the back.
7. 0:26Let’s start by talking about when  you should solve pairs in the back.
8. 0:30When you have a pair you’re solving— for example,
9. 0:32the blue-red pair with a good edge— and  the slot it belongs to is in the back,
10. 0:36you should always solve this without a  rotation, using only R U moves or L U moves.
11. 0:41But when you’re solving a pair with a bad edge,  for example this pair right here, instead of
12. 0:46rotating so the slot is in the front, you can  alternatively rotate so the slot is in the back.
13. 0:51This is especially useful for the first two  pairs, because when the back two pairs are solved,
14. 0:56you have an overview of all of the remaining  F2L pieces, making lookahead way easier.
15. 1:01Whereas if I had rotated to this side,  lookahead would be way, way, way, way, way,
16. 1:06waaaaaay more difficult.
17. 1:09The cool thing about intuitive F2L is that when
18. 1:11you truly understand everything you’re  doing and all of your setup moves—
19. 1:15for example, for this pair right here— I can  turn this into an easy insert by doing that.
20. 1:20You can just apply the exact same  logic, but from this angle right here.
21. 1:24So, hiding the corner, putting the edge  into position, which sets up a three-mover.
22. 1:29Technically, you could just take every F2L pair,
23. 1:31mirror it, and apply the  same solution in the back.
24. 1:34And you’d be totally fine with that.
25. 1:36But there’s one drawback: finger tricks.
26. 1:40When solving front pair slots,
27. 1:42I’ve always emphasized solutions  that start and end in home grip.
28. 1:45Meaning, you never want to regrip your hand—  for example, by doing something like this.
29. 1:50The reason this works so well  is that when opening a slot,
30. 1:52your opposite hand can still do  all of the normal or push moves,
31. 1:55while your main hand can do a  pinch move from this position.
32. 1:59So there’s no reason to  regrip for front slots ever.
33. 2:02But when we’re talking about  back slots, things change.
34. 2:05Because my opposite hand can still  do normal moves or push moves,
35. 2:09but the hand opening the slot becomes limited.
36. 2:11There’s only one thing it can do, which  is a drag move— where you drag the upper
37. 2:17layer, mostly using your ring finger.
38. 2:19Now drag moves aren’t ideal because they leave  your hand in an awkward position afterwards,
39. 2:24which is why a lot of people avoid them.
40. 2:26Now, because the slot-opening hand  doesn’t have many clean options,
41. 2:29some people choose to regrip  thumb-on-top for certain cases.
42. 2:33This makes it easier to do regular  turns after opening the slot.
43. 2:36And for some cases, this is totally fine.
44. 2:39I’ll be marking those with an asterisk, so  you know where it might be helpful to regrip.
45. 2:43I say might, because you  never truly need to regrip.
46. 2:47This is something I learned from Yiheng  Wang, the best cuber in the world,
47. 2:50who almost never regrips during F2L.
48. 2:53But let’s be real— we’re not Yiheng yet.
49. 2:57So when solving in the back, you  basically have three options.
50. 2:59Now, option one— which is the ideal— is  that the same solution you would use in
51. 3:03the front also works well in the back, and it flows really well from home grip.
52. 3:09The second option is that we tweak the solution  to improve the finger trickability from home grip.
53. 3:13Now sometimes this means a tiny change,  like inserting a pair with a U2 flick.
54. 3:18But for other cases, we’ll completely  change the way we solve a pair.
55. 3:23And then the last resort is regripping  to make the finger tricks easier.
56. 3:28And as I said, this is always optional.
57. 3:30But the alternative is that you’ll be  doing more push moves or drag moves.
58. 3:34So you have to decide for  yourself if it’s worth it or not.
59. 3:36So now, for the rest of the video, I will show  you how to apply those rules to specific cases.
60. 3:41And if you want to have a complete overview of all  of the F2L pairs and their back slot solutions,
61. 3:46you can find that in the free F2L PDF  which I linked in the pinned comment.
62. 3:50Now let’s start with the foundation of  our back slot solving— the easy inserts.
63. 3:54When we’re solving this pair in the back right,
64. 3:57normally from this position right  here, we would open the slot.
65. 3:59And we have two options, as I said.
66. 4:01Either push it in like that, or drag  it in with the right hand like so.
67. 4:06I advise you guys to learn both,
68. 4:08because even a drag move can become  almost instant if you practice it.
69. 4:12However, we can insert a back pair without any  special moves from this position right here.
70. 4:17So if we just open the back slot, we can  insert a pair with a U2 flick like that,
71. 4:21and then close the slot again.
72. 4:23Aside from that, there’s one more insertion I  want to show you from this angle right here.
73. 4:27So normally, we would turn this into a good  edge and then just insert it to the left.
74. 4:31But we can do the same moves from this angle right  here, which can be useful for your last pair,
75. 4:36because you don’t want to do  it in the middle of your solve.
76. 4:38Or as we’ll see, we’re also  going to use it as setup moves.
77. 4:41So starting with a wide F-prime to put  the pair in this position right here,
78. 4:45flicking the pair in its place.
79. 4:46And while doing the wide F move, just make sure  you regrip your left hand so you end in home grip.
80. 4:52And I advise you guys to just practice  this a bit until it feels natural.
81. 4:55So all of the same inserts,  but now on the left side.
82. 4:58So either push it in, or drag it in.
83. 5:01But the best insert with the pair right  here— just double-flicking it like so.
84. 5:06And then from this angle right here— just like so.
85. 5:10And then the normal insert  is really straightforward.
86. 5:13However, I want to show you the  trick from this angle as well.
87. 5:15So once again, we want to do these smooth  inserts from this angle right here.
88. 5:19And notice that if I do a f,  L', f, I form a pair right here.
89. 5:23So I bring the edge to the corner.
90. 5:29And notice that I regrip my  hands during the wide f move.
91. 5:32I notice that some people prefer to regrip  in the beginning, and I would say it is okay.
92. 5:37Although I would really advise you guys  to just learn how to do it from home grip.
93. 5:41And then the same on the left side.
94. 5:47And we can already apply some of these easy  insert basics to the next case I’m covering,
95. 5:52which is this disconnected pair.
96. 5:53So we can hide the corner and  bring the edge next to it.
97. 5:56And now that we have a pair, normally we do  a U2 and then just insert it in the back.
98. 6:00But from this angle right here, it’s  actually better to do a U move, R-prime,
99. 6:04and insert the pair with a U2 flick like that.
100. 6:07This way, we don’t add any moves,  but the execution becomes better.
101. 6:11And this right here is a really interesting case.
102. 6:13Because when white is facing  up, we align the edge.
103. 6:16And to stay in home grip, we can just  hide it, bring the corner over it,
104. 6:20which leaves us with this pair right here.
105. 6:22Now, one way to stay in home grip is actually
106. 6:24pushing right here and pushing  again for the insert like that.
107. 6:28However, we can also easily stay  in home grip by adding some moves.
108. 6:32That is by doing a U2 and inserting it with a U2.
109. 6:35Now, for some people, this might be  worth it, so just have a play with it.
110. 6:38Or alternatively, for this one I think  it is okay to start thumb-on-top,
111. 6:42and the insert should be pretty straightforward.
112. 6:44Let’s cover some corner-in-slot cases.
113. 6:46So when we’re solving this pair in the  back right, we have a good edge right here.
114. 6:50Now, the R U solution for this one is actually  pretty intuitive, although pretty lengthy.
115. 6:55So what we want to do is basically take out  the corner, which creates this pair right here.
116. 7:00But for finger tricking this one, I think  it is fine to start with thumb-on-top,
117. 7:03because we’re going to do this right here— pushing
118. 7:06the pair to this position— and then we  can solve this in the back right like so.
119. 7:13But even something like this  can be executed regripless.
120. 7:18Then for the next case, white  facing to that side right there.
121. 7:21Notice that we can form a pair.
122. 7:22So the intuitive solution is actually to hide the
123. 7:24edge and push the corner above  the edge, which forms a pair.
124. 7:29And now we’re kind of overworking the left hand
125. 7:31by doing the same moves to  insert the pair right there.
126. 7:35Even though this is a lot of overworking,
127. 7:37Yiheng did these finger tricks during his world  record solve, so it’s definitely a good solution.
128. 7:41Although for this one, execution becomes  way easier if you start with thumb-on-top
129. 7:48and do this instead.
130. 7:49Now notice that for this case right  here, when we’re solving in the front,
131. 7:51we would do three inverse sexy  moves to improve the finger tricks.
132. 7:56However, when we’re solving this pair  in the back, we do not want to do that,
133. 7:59because we’ll have to do a lot of awkward moves.
134. 8:01So instead, with the corner above its slot, we  can just do three normal sexy moves in the back,
135. 8:08which solves our pair and makes  it easy to stay in home grip.
136. 8:12Then for the flipped pair right here, what we  want to do is drag out the pair right here.
137. 8:16So we can alternate hands and do a U' right here.
138. 8:20And depending on the solution, you might  either want to rotate to either side,
139. 8:23or do the rotational solution like that.
140. 8:27Now for this flipped edge case  with white facing to the right,
141. 8:30notice that for our front solution,  we would set up a pair like this.
142. 8:34However, when we get it from this  angle, it actually becomes easier.
143. 8:37Because notice that if I just do an  R', we have this three-move insert.
144. 8:40So we can just use R moves to set up a pair.
145. 8:43Now for this pair, depending on your solve,
146. 8:45you might want to rotate or do  a rotational solution like so.
147. 8:49When white is facing to the left,  however, we would set up a pair like this.
148. 8:53And we can still do that from this  angle right here using wide moves.
149. 8:56Because if I do f, f', notice  that we have a pair right here,
150. 9:02which we can just drag in in the back like so.
151. 9:05Then for this pair right here, normally we would  insert the edge, which sets up into this F2L case.
152. 9:11However, when we do this from the  back, these moves don’t flow that well.
153. 9:15So what we can do instead is notice  that we have different colors on top.
154. 9:19So if I hide the corner and put the  edge in this position right here,
155. 9:23we can cancel into solving this  pair into the back and then
156. 9:26cancel into reinserting the front pair like so.
157. 9:30Moving on to this case right here.
158. 9:32So for the front solution, we would put the  pair right here and then set up into this case.
159. 9:36But once again, this case in the  back isn’t ideal without regrips.
160. 9:40So alternatively, with the pair above its  slot, we can just insert the corner like this.
161. 9:46And that sets up into this case, which can  be done in the back without any regrips.
162. 9:51And now let’s talk about some cases where both  of the pieces are stuck in their own slot.
163. 9:55When you have a good edge in the front,
164. 9:56I always told you to break apart the  pieces and then deal with the case.
165. 10:00However, when we’re solving in the back,  it actually flows better to take out the
166. 10:04pieces as a pair, and then deal  with the case you’re left with.
167. 10:09And the reason this is better is that  if you want to break apart the pieces,
168. 10:12we would have to start with a drag or a push  move, which we can avoid by simply doing this.
169. 10:19Then for the remaining cases, where we  have a flipped edge in its own slot.
170. 10:22Now these are really bad cases,  especially when you have them in the back.
171. 10:26However, if we take apart the  pieces by doing a wide insert
172. 10:29like this, not only does it split the pieces, but it also turns this bad edge into a good edge.
173. 10:35So now we can simply solve that  case in the back without a rotation.
174. 10:39And this is also true, for example, for this  case right here— where we turn it into this case.
175. 10:47Now I have one more video for  you about the standard cases,
176. 10:51and those are extra solutions which, for  example, take advantagea of open slots.
177. 10:55For example, this case right here—  you can simply solve like that.
178. 10:58So to see that video and more, check out the  Intuitive F2L playlist on screen right now.
179. 11:03And hey, if you want to support the channel,
180. 11:05you can use discount code  “CUBEHEAD” at thecubicle.com.
181. 11:08Or you know, check out the CFOP Pack, where I go  even deeper into every step of the CFOP method.
182. 11:13Thanks for watching, and  I’ll see you in the next one.
183. 11:16Ciao guys!