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Guimond Method Overview

The Guimond method is an interesting method that is quite different than most other popular 2x2 methods. Despite that, it is quite simple and doesn't have a lot of algorithms to learn. If you already know the PBL algorithms from the ortega method, then Guimond only presents about 20 new algorithms that you need to learn. And of those, only 4 of them are more than 4 moves long!

The key to guimond method is that in the first couple steps, we treat opposite colors the same. For example, if your cube has yellow opposite white, then you would consider yellow and white to be the same color. Likewise with red/orange and blue/green. We first orient the top and bottom with these mixed colors, then separate the colors into their correct layers, and then finally do PBL (permute both layers, the same final step from the Ortega method). By the way, you absolutely need to be color neutral with this method.

With practice, it is possible to predict the separation step during your inspection time, meaning that you can plan out everything up to the PBL during your inspection, effectively making this a "2-look" solution. Because of this, Guimond has the potential to be faster than Ortega. However, its probably not going to be as fast as something like the EG method. People have achieved sub-3 times with Guimond.

Step 0:

Make 3/4 of a face of opposite colors (single color is also acceptable). This step is usually done most of the time, or can typically be done with 1 setup move. It is possible that you will have more than 1 starting position to choose from, so don't be greedy and choose the first one you see.

Step 1: Orientation

Use one of 16 algorithms to orient the top and bottom faces (but they will still contain opposite colors). Diagrams below show both the top and bottom layers as viewed from the top. You will usually have to turn the top layer to get the case to match up. Also, please note that you can always invert the final move of the algorithm, which can help you force a different case for the next step. The following algorithms are all move-optimal, meaning that shorter algorithms do not exist. Following this, I have some alternative algorithms listed in the next section. I personally use the 2nd set. If you don't like either set, check out some other guimond tutorials on the net, and you will find even more algorithms.

R'UR	RUR'	RU2R'	R2U'R'	RUR'F'	R2F2U'F'	R'U2FR	RU'R'FR2F'

RU'R'	R'U'R	R'U2R	R2UR'	FRUR'	R2F2UR	FR2U'F'	R'U2FR2U'R'

Alternate Step 1: 2-Gen Orientation Algs

The following are *alternate* algorithms for step 1. These algorithms can all be executed with just R and U moves. Some of the cases require 1 extra move compared to the ones listed above. Depending on your style though, you might find these quicker to execute. Also, if you are using these algorithms, then you will know that the two pieces on the bottom left will not move during the orientation step. And note that for memorization, the 2nd row of algorithms are exactly the same as the first row, only the moves are inverted! Also for recognition, the cases are simply mirror images of each other.

R'UR	R2'U'R	R2UR'U2R	RUR'	RU2R'	R'U2RU2R'	RU'RU2R	R2'U'RUR'U2R

RU'R'	R2UR'	R2'U'RU2R'	R'U'R	R'U2R	RU2R'U2R	R'UR'U2R	R2UR'U'RU2R'

Step 2: Separation

Now, the top and bottom should be oriented, but the colors are still mixed. In this step we separate the colors of the top and bottom layers. There are 5 basic cases. Be sure that the layers are turned correctly before doing the algorithm. Sometimes you can change which case you will get by inverting the last move of step 1.

R2	R2U2F2	R2UR2'	R2U'R2U'R2	R2U'R2U'F2

The 4th and 5th cases might require a cube rotation, but this is still pretty fast to execute. And for the 3rd case, you might need to invert the U move depending how the layers are rotated.

Step 3: PBL

Finally, permute both layers. This is the same final step used in Ortega method. You can find algorithms on plenty of other sites, like http://www.speedsolving.com/wiki/index.php/PBL

Tips & Info

Predicting Separation

Predicting the separation step is key to getting fast times with Guimond, because if you don't predict it, then you are going to have to do a slow x2 move mid-solve in order to look at the bottom of the cube!

Luckily there are a few tricks to make this easier. First of all, no matter which set of the above algorithms you use, then the piece in the down-back-left position will never move. So right off the bat, you already know how 1 piece will end up! Next, if you are using 2-gen algorithms, then you also know that the down-front-left piece won't change either!

Now, from here on, you need to track pieces in your head to see where they will end up. Now what pieces do you want to track? You only need to track the pieces of single color. So basically we want to track whatever color is in the down-back-left position, since that only leaves us with 3 (or possibly 2) pieces that need to be tracked.

So for example, if the down-back-left sticker is yellow, then you want to look for the other yellow stickers, and see where they are going to end up after you do your orientation algorithm. Once you know where the yellow stickers will go, then you will automatically know where the white ones will end up.

Now, tracking those pieces during your inspection time might be a little difficult if you are trying to trace through each move in your head. So, rather than just tracing through the moves during inspection, you need to actually memorize what effect each algorithm has on the pieces. By simply memorizing where each piece will move to, you can very quickly work out which separation case you are going to get, regardless of how many moves the orientation algorithm is.

Full face of opposite colors for step 0

If you happen to get a full face of opposite colors (as opposed to 3/4 of a face), it is possible to simply do a normal OLL algorithm to orient the top face and then proceed to step 2.

However, many of the normal OLL algorithms tend to be longer and slower than the Guimond algorithms, so its not necessarily beneficial to do this. The algorithms can be optimized for Guimond to have their move count reduced, but some of them are still not quite as nice as many of the regular guimond algs. Whether you want to learn this is up to you. It's not required by any means, but it certainly wont hurt you to know it either.

Here are some guimond-optimized algorithms for these cases. First, move-optimal algs, and then I have a few alternate 2-gen algs for some of the cases.

R2'U'RU'R'	R2UR'UR	FRU2R'F	RU'R'F'UF	RU2RU2R'	R2U'R2FR2F'	R2U2R'

R2'U'RU2R'U2R	RU2R'U2RU2R'	R'U'RUR'UR	RUR'U'RU2R'

Step 0 Move Count

Step 0 can almost always be done in 0 or 1 moves. Here are some statistics provided by cuBerBruce.

So about 85% of the time, step 0 is skipped.
Roughly 1 out of 500 solves will need more than 1 move.
The odds of step 0 requiring 3 moves is about 1 out of 25,000, which is so low that you may never actually encounter it.

What if we also consider the situation when we have a full face of opposite colors, rather than only 3/4 of a face? Here is how the probabilities change:

The main difference here is that the already rare situation requiring 3 moves is completely eliminated. We also increase the odds slightly of skipping the step, and only about 1 out of 700 cases will require 2 moves.

AUF (Adjust U Face)

One of the downsides of the Guimond method is that there are four seperate points at which you may need to adjust the U layer. This is a maximum of four extra moves that might need to be done during the solve.

There are a couple of points to keep in mind though.
First of all, if you get the last orientation case (the one with 6 or 7 moves), it will never require an AUF.
Also, if you do an OLL when you get a full face of opposite colors, that will also never require an AUF.

Total Move Count

The following assumes using move-optimal algorithms, and does not really take probabilities of each case into account. And there is a fair bit of guessing and estimation thrown in for good measure. These numbers are 110% correct.

Step 0: Minimum 0, Maximum 3, Average 0.15~
AUF+Step1: Minimum 3, Maximum 6, Average 3.75~
AUF+Step2: Minimum 1, Maximum 6, Average 3.10~
AUF: Minimum 0, Maximum 1, Average 0.75
PBL+AUF: Average about 8? Yea, let's just go with 8.

Pre-PBL: Minimum 4, Maximum 16, Average 7-8
Full solve: Average 15-16.

Predicting PBL

This is really hard :-)

Combining Steps

People have often suggested improving the Guimond method by either combining the separation and orientation steps, or combining the separation and PBL steps.

If you are to combine the orientation and separation steps, this results in a LOT of algorithms to learn (hundreds). The OFOTA method works similar to this, but reduces the cases a lot by requiring you to get a full face of opposite colors in step 0. The problem with this though, is that its still pretty hard to predict the PBL step afterwards, so I see this as a lot of work for not much benefit.

The other alternative is combining separation with PBL. This also results in a lot of algorithms, but considerably fewer than combining with orientation would. Since we are still going to be working from a small number of orientation cases in step 1, its much simpler to memorize how each of those cases effects all the pieces, making it possible to predict the whole solve during inspection. The problem with this is that the cases are fairly difficult to recognize, and the existing algs aren't all that great. I think this shows a fair bit of promise, but needs more research before it can really be recommended. Cases and algorithms can be found across several PDF documents posted by Henrik here.

In any case, I wouldn't even consider learning something like this unless you are at least sub-4 with the normal Guimond method.