Rubik’s Cube Corner’s First Tutorial Here’s an imaginary cube. Your cube may not be the same as this (official cubes are), so you have to imagine that you substitute the colours so it matches the scenario you have in your cube. Ignore the black CUBICLES (the small cubes); it’s just unnecessary for me to colour everything in with real colours, and it could mean that part of the cube is just not solved and it is not going to be solved just yet.

F = (turn) Front face, B = (turn) Back face, R = (turn) right face, L = (turn) left face, T = (turn) top face, D = (turn) bottom (down) face, H = (turn) horizontal face, V = (turn) vertical face

One important thing to note is that the sides can dynamically change as you turn the entire cube in your hand to solve a problem on the back face, for example. However, if you do not change the entire cube in your hand, but instead just turn a face, then the sides are not changing. You judge the sides by their centres because they never move. So in this case, Blue is your right, Red is your front, Green is your left and Orange is your back. This can change! What usually doesn’t change is that Yellow is your top and White is your bottom.

The arrows represent the clockwise motion if the faces are facing you. Hence the Front face moving clockwise is the opposite direction to the Back face moving clockwise (if the back face were facing you).

When I write algorithms such as F T R T’ R’ F’, F means turn it in the direction of the F arrow, which is clockwise (or the opposite direction if there is a dash or an i after the letter; F’ = Fi = Front Anticlockwise). If I say B2, that means turn the back face twice, or 180 degrees; likewise with any other face, e.g. X2 (x being unknown).

Also, sometimes the drawn cube might not be in the exact same position as your cube, so you usually just have to adjust it with 1 or 2 moves of the top/bottom face that doesn’t mess up the entire thing. This might mean for instance turning the top face or bottom face when you’re solving the bottom, or it might mean turning the whole cube so you get a new right/left face.

There are also mirror algorithms that you can do if what you do on one side of the cube sometimes is on the opposite side of the cube... I might write them down a few times, but you can guess the mirror algorithms, e.g. if you’re solving the cube based on a cubicle on the left side, then the algorithm might be Li Ti L, and if you’re solving the exact same cube reflected in a mirror then the mirror algorithm would be R T Ri. So basically the way it works is this, if you have a mirror on your side, then R will become Li, L will become Ri, B will become Bi, T will become Ti, D will become Di and F will become Fi. The reason why R and L completely change sides as well as go in opposite directions is because the mirror is on your left/right side, so when you look in the mirror as you solve the cube, you will see this as such; the other faces do not switch sides like the left/right, but they do go in opposite directions.

The TRICK to remembering algorithms is first of all to practice them.

Muscle memory!

The second thing is to LOOK at what you’re doing.

Visual understanding!

My advice is read this whole guide completely before trying it out. It makes more sense that way, as you will have less misunderstandings and you won’t miss something out by reading only scenario 1 and 2, and not 3, for example. My guide is not 100% complete but you should read in between the lines if you find a gap. However it should be enough to carry you through without having to do so...

Try not to see algorithms as just letters... try to see it as movements, or if not just that, a mixture of letters and movements. It will help remember. So don’t just keep looking at this guide while doing something – look at the cube much more. Keep repeating from the start everytime you want to memorise a new step. So keep repeating Step 1, scramble the cube and repeat until you memorised+understood it. Then do Step 1+2 over and over, then Steps 1-3, then 1-4... and so on! You might not need to do this if you understand and remember it already.

KNOW THIS: The scenarios are only examples. You might have to manipulate the cube slightly to get those scenarios! Also, where they show colours, you might have to ignore the colours drawn and instead substitute in your current problem’s colours!

STEP 1: Bottom X

Ok, so the first thing to do is completing the red X at the bottom. (Or whatever side you have at the bottom on your cube.) If you need to, turn the top face so you get one of these scenarios.

But first of all check if you have some white corner pieces on the white face already – if so, check if you need to correct them (line up the other two colours with their respective center faces), because it saves you a lot of time: e.g.

Scenario group 1: White is on the top, facing the side

Remember, if you need to, turn the top face so you get one of these scenarios

Solution: Li Ti L MIRROR Solution: R T Ri

Scenario 2: White is facing the top

Remember, if you need to, turn the top face so you get one of these scenarios

Solution: R Ti Ri T2, then scenario 1: R T Ri MIRROR Solution: Li T L T2, then s1: Li Ti L

Scenario group 3: Green/white/red corner cubicle is in WRONG place (not necessarily like diagrams in those EXACT places!)

Solution: Li Ti L, then scenario 1 or 2

This can also be applied to any white corner piece that is in the wrong place, wherever it is! IGNORE THE COLOUR OF CENTER FACES IN SUCH CASES (THAT IS WHY I HAVE BLACKED OUT THE FRONT AND RIGHT CENTER FACES). All you need to remember is which side is your front, right and left!

Once you have solved the bottom cross, it will look like this:

STEP 2: Top X

What you have to do now is solve the top cross. This is much simpler as there are much few possibilities, and you just keep repositioning the cube to make it look like one of the pictures below, and do the same algorithm over and over until you get all 4 top corners.

Scenario group.

Solution: R T Ri T R T2 Ri

You will have to do the algorithms a maximum of 3 times I believe! At a minimum it will be 0, but on average it may be 2 times, each time you do this step.

It should look like this at the end:

Don’t worry if it the corners are not all in the right place – we’ll get to that.

STEP 3: Correcting top corners

Scenario 1: all yellow corners are in the right place

i.e.

Skip to STEP 4, if so!!

Scenario 2: if you have NO two top corners that are next to each other in the right place

Ri F Ri B2 R Fi Ri B2 R2

You will now have two corners CORRECTLY side by side. Now go to the next scenario.

Scenario 3: If you have ONE pair of two top corners next to each other

Turn the top so that those two correct corners are facing the back like so:

The two orange/yellow corner cubes are in their right places. Repeat the algorithm.

Ri F Ri B2 R Fi Ri B2 R2

Then turn the top anticlockwise, and you’ll get Scenario 1!

All the black pieces are probably wrong, but you’ll have X’s on all faces.

STEP 4: Top edges – leave 1 edge unsolved

The reason you have to leave one edge unsolved is so that it makes solving the bottom edges (STEP 5) much quicker.

To make things simpler, I am recycling an old diagram from someone else’s guide, which is currently unavailable on the internet. It will look weird because I had to colour-fill the squares to make them look like my cube, but the faces are still the same: red is the front face, green is the right face and yellow is the top face.

Remember: only solve 3 top edges, because you’ll just waste your time solving all 4. On the other hand... it might be good practice for understanding the algorithms (which are really very simple).

The diagram below shows that you have to fill in the top right edge (the blue/red edge in the diagram). That means you’ll have to keep turning the top and/or the entire cube in your hand to get one of these scenarios, and keep filling in the top right edge. You can use your own mirror algorithms if you want a shortcut.

It is this edge that the diagrams want you to solve!

When you practice these and actually LOOK at the cube as you do them, you’ll see that it makes sense what you’re doing. It’s simply a matter of “uncovering the lock and slotting the key in”, so to speak.

KNOW THIS: you don’t have to keep the other Xs (e.g. red X, green X). Only the white and yellow Xs matter. THAT MEANS YOU MAY NEED TO TURN THE TOP TO GET ONE OF THESE SCENARIOS SO FEEL FREE TO DESTROY YOUR RED OR GREEN X BUT KEEP THE YELLOW AND WHITE Xs! I re-coloured many of the squares black (you can see their original colours as borders) because they don’t matter AS LONG AS YOU FOLLOW THE ALGORITHMS, which will not destroy anything if you do them – if they do, then obviously YOU did it wrong.

Also, the purple arrow shows which one has to be solved... and the purple box shows where it should be placed if it’s not already in the right place.

(1) Solved

If the piece is not already in place, like (1), then perform the following moves. You may notice all the moves only consist of moving the Right and H-Center slices so we don't disturb our corners.

(2) R' H2 R2 H R'

(3) H R H R'

(4) R' H' R

(5) R' H R

(6) R' H2 R2 H2 R'

If you have (7), (8), or (9), you will need to break the piece out first. For these cases, perform the following move, then match back up with the above diagrams. This means that solutions 7-9 lead you back to doing solutions 2-6! Steps 7-9 are essentially all the same, that’s why they all contain R’ H R – can you see?? So don’t worry about memorising these...

(7) T' R' H R T

(8) T2 R' H R T2

(9) T R' H R T'

Again I am just recycling material. This is a different cube, but treat the red as your front, the white as the new top (the yellow face is at the bottom). The keyhole is the unsolved edge on the yellow face from STEP 4. If you don’t understand this, keep messing the cube up and doing step 4+5 until you understand what slotting is all about, because it is pretty easy!

For step 5, you will have to move both the top and the bottom – the top right edge is the one that you always want to solve so every-time you solve the top, you keep turning the top so that the top-right always has an unsolved edge, and you need to turn the bottom if and where necessary so that the keyhole remains underneath the unsolved top-right edge.

STEP 6: Solving the keyhole

You will now have either of these solutions (or you might have to turn the top and the entire cube in your hand to get the mirror scenario – so you’ll have to do the mirror of the solution). The purple arrow points at the cubicle that you want to put in the purple cubicle’s place!

SOLUTION: R' H R H R H R' SOLUTION: R' H R2 H R' MIRROR Solution to (2) is: L H’ L2 H’ L

(Orange is front)

You should end up with this:

Step 7: Positioning remaining edges

You may have 0, 1 or 4 edges on the horizontal slice in the right place (regardless of how they are turned). So at maximum, you’ll be doing 2 algorithms from this step... but you may not need to do this step.

Scenario 1: all cubicles on horizontal slice are in the right place

If you have something like this, you can skip this step:

The cubicles with purple arrows, below, are the ones that solve the purple cubicles!

Scenario 2: the purple cubicle’s solution is in front of it (on front face)

If you for example want to put the orange/green edge in the purple’s place, do:

H F2 H’ F2

Scenario 3: the purple cubicle’s solution is furthest from it (diagonal, on front-right)

If for example you want to put the orange/green edge in the purple’s slot in this scenario, do:

F2 H F2 H’

Scenario 4: one edge is solved

Say for instance you solved Scenario 2 or 3, turn the cube so that the blue face is your front face, red face is your right face and the green face is your back face (or whatever colours you have on your cube), and check what scenario you have.

You will have to solve either scenario 2 or 3 (again).

Eventually you should get scenario 1 (step completely solved) and go to the next step.

Step 8: final step!

You might have to have to correct 1 or 2 pairs of the final edges.

Scenario 1: a completely solved cube!

You might have accidentally solved the cube in STEP 6 or STEP 7! If so, congratulations, now scramble the cube up and start all over again! Practice makes perfect. And you will find some shortcuts by yourself probably...

Ok, for a change, the yellow/white face is going to be your front/back face, instead of the top/bottom.

Scenario 2: There are two pairs (4 edges) that need to be turned around.

Ok to switch the top pair of edges around so that they are corrected, do this:

R' H R2 H2 R' T2 R H2 R2 H' R T2

Then to switch the bottom pair of edges, just turn the cube upside down and repeat the above algorithm.

R' H R2 H2 R' T2 R H2 R2 H' R T2

Scenario 3: Only the top pair needs correcting.

The bottom pair might already be correct.

Just repeat the algorithm for the top pair. You only need to do half of step 1.

R' H R2 H2 R' T2 R H2 R2 H' R T2

Scenario 4: where there is a pair of edges (2 edges) that are not side by side.

Sometimes you will get this.

This is very simple to solve. Just do R2. Now you have scenario 2 (whether you believe it or not!), so just do the algorithm:

R' H R2 H2 R' T2 R H2 R2 H' R T2

NOW YOU WILL BE DONE!

Scramble the cube and start all over again!