ZZF2L Full Guide
By yoruba
The road to improving your ZZF2L can be daunting. There are many topics to learn, which can seem like a maze to navigate. No worries, this guide will give you a step-by-step order to go from beginner to master in ZZF2L.
Learn intuitive F2L
Continue until you can do it comfortably.
Improve your pair solutions
Learn good solutions for Last Slot, and F2L cases with at least 1 piece in U. Also learn keyhole and solutions with free slots.
Drill pair solutions
Drill them into your muscle memory with good turning. That is, you can spot the pieces of an F2L pair, and then be able to solve the pair blindfolded/with eyes closed. You can do that without thinking about the solution, and with 100% confidence that they will be solved. This might take a few weeks or 1-2 months, depending on how much and how consistently you practice. Go to the next step once you have done that.
Develop your F2L Instinct
Learn these skills together:
- ‘Tracking’ lookahead.
- Improve pair choice to prevent ‘tunnel vision’.
- Deduction.
Do untimed solves for practicing pair choice and deduction. Then, practice the lookahead drill at a slower speed for warm up, and then train your lookahead at a more challenging speed.
Learn ‘Knowing’ lookahead
Continue doing the lookahead drill from ‘Tracking’ and apply the techniques there to accelerate the process.
Once you achieve that, focus on turning as fast as possible in F2L. Aim for 10 TPS (turns per second). Do solves where you only time your F2L and aim for 2.8 seconds or lower. F2L at that time is equivalent to the level of a low-mid 6s ZZer. If you have achieved ‘Knowing’ lookahead and applied all the previous techniques, that would only require good turning (which I assume you have already developed). Proceed if you have achieved that benchmark.
Learn multislotting
This is the final step for optimizing efficiency. Implement influencing, pseudoslotting and learn algorithms for bad Last Two Pairs cases. After this, your ZZF2L should be under 26 moves on average.
Apply these to your solves and continue timing F2L. This time, aim for 12 TPS, which comes out to be 2.1-2.3 seconds depending on efficiency. This is the equivalent of a skill level for a high 4 - low 5 solver. You can push to 13 TPS, then assuming 26 move efficiency we have 2-second F2L, or a level of mid-4 solving. We can continue pushing, but the limit is going to be somewhere around the skill level of very high 3 to low 4. In my opinion, this is possible.