Hey guys today we'll have some tips and tricks for how to solve the 4x4 faster. So first of all, you have to know the Yau method for solving the 4x4 and if you don't already know it, there will be a link on screen or in the description. Even if you're a total beginner, never solved a 4x4 you can still learn the Yau method. With these tips you could definitely improve a lot in 4x4 and what your your average ends up being largely depends on what you average on 3x3, so for example if you average around 18 seconds on 3x3 you could probably get sub 1 minute on 4x4. Of course, this is assuming you practice 4x4 a lot and also watch example solves to see where else you can improve. so with that being said, let's get into it. Number 1 influencing other centers. So I always solve the white or yellow center first, and it doesn't really matter which one I do first and in this case we can see we have 2 yellow bars already which makes a very easy yellow center. So instead of doing yellow first, I'm actually going to do white first and the reason is because I can preserve both of these yellow bars while I do white and If you just do a very simple solution on white such as this: To pair these up, and then move it in here then you've broken up the last yellow bar So in order to influence other centers while building one Center you do extra moves. So here we can pair up these two white pieces and then right before inserting the white into the bottom here, this yellow bar is horizontal. If we make it vertical instead we can move it into the top while finishing the white center. Then we can finish off the yellow center like that. So here we have a yellow bar and two more yellow pieces here and when it's a very easy first center you should at least try to plan out one bar from the opposite color. So here we're just going to go through that slowly. If I move this yellow center over to here and this one over here So I can pair them up in one move like that then Notice where this white Center, and this white Center are and if we have a diagonal case like this after pairing this up That's a very bad case to deal with later so instead from here. We can just do an F move and then join these together. Then we have a white bar already made so now when we insert yellow We can actually do a little bit more influencing on the white center. So here have this and this and we could just join these up while inserting yellow. So again this is only going to take one more move. We're gonna do an F2 and then that joins these up when we insert yellow. Then lastly this bar that we created earlier Just insert onto the top. This concept also applies to the last four centers after making the first two and three pieces of the cross. So here we have a green bar here and two more green pieces over here So what we can do is join these up like this, and then insert them over to here. So when we move this one down here we break up the red which is the next spot, red is supposed to go here next. So what we can do instead is just Move red to the side, and then insert green like that so now We've preserved a red bar which makes the red Center a lot easier So whenever you're building a center, you can often save a lot of moves just by adding one move here and there in order To make your next centers better And if you're always looking out for these then it will make your look ahead a lot better as well Number two: Try to save moves on cross edges (I mix up left/right a lot because much of this video is mirrored. Sorry for any confusion!) So the step after the first two centers where you build your cross edges can be pretty difficult to get down because there's a lot of freedom in How you build your edges. So for most cases, like here White-Red and White-Red, you just want to get them on opposite sides Like one over here on the left and one over here on the right then join them together and insert into the cross Sometimes it can be harder to do though so if you look at white and blue Putting this one at the back is the intuitive way to go so that you can move this one down onto the right side so on one on the right one on the left and Join them together like that so here if you do a lot of slow solves you can start experimenting with new ways to pair these Up for example the best way to pair up the white and blue would be like this Which is not very intuitive. Join them together. Now I found that when I was trying to learn all these tricks Doing fast solves didn't help me see these tricks or build the good habits to use them so I recommend doing lots of slow solves Play around with the cross edge pieces and see if you can come up with more efficient ways. Also, watching example solves from good cubers is also a good way to go Now one more tip for cross edges, this is something that happens very commonly when you have one piece over here and the other piece on the opposite side right here Now one thing you could do is do like F2 here to get them across from each other Which doesn't always work because you may have a cross edge over here And so having to reposition your cross edges may not be the best option However pretty much in every case your top cross edge will be open because you're doing [U] moves So what you could do instead is just move them like this then do that. Now they're on opposite sides so that's a very common trick you should be using And doing it this way does take one extra move, but it's a lot easier on your hands Number three: Knowing the best ways to make the last cross edge So once you've solved three cross pieces and all of the centers Then the last thing to do is to make the last cross edge before you go on to edge pairing. So depending on the case that you get it might be better to keep the cross on the left side But it also might be better to put the cross on the bottom So whichever way you use more often here are just some guidelines On how you should be pairing these up, so if we were to do this with the cross on the bottom Then what you want to do instead of for example: inserting them across from each other, pairing them and then removing them. You'll have to restore the center's afterwards and then insert it into the cross which is a lot of moves. The better way to do it however is to do a slice move first then insert this cross edge into for example the spot So that when we slice back, it'll join together I can also slice the other way and put it over here so that when it slice back they join together So as an example if I just want to slice this way, then I would insert the cross edge right here and slice back. Now it's in the middle there. I didn't have to remove it up to the top and I can easily insert it into the cross Now for the same case if we were to do it on the side here this may be a little bit weird if you haven't Done it this way before but there are a lot of cool tricks You can do from here and this case I actually prefer to do it from the side. You can do it like this And then just insert after In fact from the side there are many cool tricks You can use and you can watch example solves to get a feel for this Another example is this one which is a really good case so if that one goes like this. That pairs them up and then insert Number Four: Don't pair edges one by one Pairing up the Blue and Orange edges So I insert one at the top and one at the bottom Then pair them up now what you could just do in order to bring this into a solve state is you just have any other Unsolved edge replace it and then slice back, so now we have this solved 1, but for that sequence of moves We've only solved one edge, and we could have done 2 instead So here we have 2 options for which other edge to pair and those are the ones that are touching the Blue-Orange so these two pieces Either of these we could make as our second edge So when we join these together, When we slice back the Green-Red is going to come back over to here. So if we just put a Green-Red on the bottom here, then that will pair it together So I put a Green-Red over here on the bottom Right there, and then when I slice back they paired together And I've made 2 edges at the same time. Now the other option I had after pairing Blue and Orange is to make the Blue-Red pair So I could put Blue-Red on the top here so when it's sliced back they'll join together It's a little bit harder for this one because the Blue-Red is all the way back here but this actually can be done all we have to do is remove it from the back and Then insert it onto the front, so this is another way that works as well So that's a decent way to pair edges and you will have to know that with whatever edge pairing method you use and Generally what's considered the best way to pair edges is called 3-2-3 edge paring I have a full tutorial on this going over a bunch of different cases you can get but the general idea It goes like this you do a slice move to start and the idea is when you slice back This edge will pair with whatever is right here. We're going to put Green-Red over here, so like this Then when you slice back they'll pair together, but don't slice back yet We can do more edges. Yellow-Blue is gonna pair with whatever is here, so we're gonna put Yellow-Blue over there Like that and then lastly one more edge, we're gonna do three edges in total. Blue-Red it will pair with whatever is here So we find Blue-Red and insert it into here, then when we slice back We've made one, two, three edges So not only does that solve three edges at once you're back slots are now solved Which means you don't have to look there anymore So now what you do next is just what I talked about so Yellow-Red is gonna pair with Yellow-Red So we put them one at the top one at the bottom Slice and notice that when we slice back Yellow-Green is going to come back here So we slice it's gone, and then you put yellow green down here so that when it comes back It'll pair together so that's the general idea you do three edges at first And then you do the rest of them with that basic idea of solving multiple edges at once This technique can make 4x4 edge paring super easy because look ahead is pretty simple all the bottoms solved all the back is solved and All you have to do is look for pieces on the top and on the front Number five: How to deal with bad cases for centers So here we've solved up to the last two centers and the cases look pretty bad whenever you have diagonal pieces But actually these are not so bad if you know the right way to do them All right now if you get the diagonal on top Then there are two possible cases either The red bar is over here or the red bar is over here so starting with the red bar attached to the cross here It's on the left side. This is a pretty simple case all you do is drop this one down to here like this and then you get this three case so then we can just do it like this If the bar is on this side instead of moving it over Which will take three moves, and then you'll have to continue as usual We can save those three moves and instead do something else. So all you have to think about is this take the piece over here Join it together to make a bar and now just think about this one as the bar so we're gonna save this bar by moving it over to the left side and Then you'll notice another bar too to automatically gets created on top then we can just insert that like this So if you get diagonal on the front what you want to do is take your right? Side piece because we're always going to be trying to do our moves So take the right side piece and join it with either one of these two and then bring it back down So that'll make three pieces on the front if we join it with this one that would look like this Join them like this and bring it back down to the front Number six: Being smart with PLL Parity So when you get to PLL and you have an unsolvable case then of course you have PLL parity And it's really important to be smart with how you do this because you can force a good case or a bad case depending on What angle you do PLL parity from or even when you do PLL parity so just starting with angle if I do PLL parity right here, Then what I get is a T perm which is very nice However, if I had done it from a different angle like this then What I get is F perm which is not as good However there are also super unintuitive cases like this one where it's really hard to see what you'll get after PLL parity so in every PLL case you actually have quite a few options on what you can do first I'm gonna see what happens if we do PLL parity from this angle We're left with a G perm which is very bad on 4x4 And then do PLL parity from here and see what I get and I get an R perm so this is not bad It's better than a G perm but can we do even better? So we only get two angles to do PLL parity from so it seems like R perm is our best bet for this one, but actually there's a better option and that's J perm before PLL parity And then now we have PLL parity afterwards So whenever I get cases like that where I can either force an R perm or a G perm Often you can get a better PLL if you do it first and then do the PLL parity afterwards. Here's another great example That's easy to memorize so we have a big block here in what looks like a J print from this side But there's a block so there's PLL parity, so if you get this as a lefty J perm instead of doing it left handed, which you may not be able to do as well as you do right handed You can just do the PLL parity first Then you end up with a right-handed J perm, which can be a lot nicer and As the opposite case if you get the right handed J perm with parity, first then instead of doing PLL parity to force a lefty J perm just do the right handed J perm first and Then you get PLL parity afterwards Number seven: Forcing cross oils so when you're inserting your last lot here We have this end this so we pair them up and then insert So before we insert we noticed this one yellow oriented on top and no yellow over here So, if we insert this we're only going to get one and this is OLL parity so coming back to after you paired it here If the front edge is not oriented correctly, then you can just do sledgehammer like this and then what that does is it gives you three edges on top and Very very often when you have OLL parity you will be able to force three edges on top then of course just do parity with the last edge Then you can force the cross, and if you only know to look OLL then you get one look OLL So here's just another example if you have a solved edge here And only one edge on top you should know right away that you're gonna Have a OLL parity so what you can just do is pair these up, and then do a sledgehammer Then orient this edge So these were some partially beginner, partially advanced tips, and if you want to see more advanced tips Then you should check out this playlist I have on 4x4. There are more things there I didn't talk about here such as more things about cross edges and also half centers Which is a cool technique for last four centers. So thanks for watching. Let me know if you learned something new this video, and I'll see you guys all next time