Can you get lucky with the initial configuration of the cube in some way, or is is shuffled in a way that ensures roughly equally hard solves? What's the protocol here?
Even if you don't get a skip, some OLLs and PLLs are faster than others. A "u perm" is way better than a "g perm" for PLL. In the OLL step a sune is really fast.
It says it has to be more than 1 move away from being solved.
>I kind of wonder why they'd have it at such a low number.
I don't know why it's 2 either as you might as well make it 1. They accept that the chance of such a short scramble coming up is too small to happen.
Secondly, sometimes the combination of the scramble and your early path through the solve creates future opportunities. Sometimes you’re lucky that a later step in the solve can be skipped. With a 10-second inspection time, no one can look this far ahead. With a world record hovering around 3 second, skipping one step that requires a 5-10 moves is a big deal.
The world record for the 2x2 is currently an eye-watering 0.49 seconds. 2x2 solvers use inspection time to plan the entire solve, something not possible with 3x3 and above. So that record 2x2 scramble was solvable in under a dozen moves; that’s good luck.