Speed Solving the Rubik’s Cube, Layer By Layer.

An introduction:

The purpose of this document is basically to offer a basic way to solve the Rubik’s cube quickly, while still not needing to memorize 78+ algorithms. With a little practice, I’ve seen this method actually be used to solve a cube in less than 40 seconds. (I’ve actually done it myself as well, using this very method)

There are some basic requirements however:

Notation. I’ll have a basic notation guide here to help with some common things you’ll see.

A cube.

Open mind, and a willingness to actually try and put in place what I suggest.

I am putting this forward in a way that would very easily lead to new methods that are much faster. The reason I say this however is because every pattern you learn here, will actually be used if you were to get more serious about speedcubing later on. Everything you are learning from this document will actually be able to be used in the future. I’m simply showing you a stripped down version of what some of the top speedcubers in the world use! That being said, if you’re only interested in solving that little cube sitting there on your desk, this guide will also work very well for that too

Now before we begin, there are some things that you’ll have to know that we’re going to get out of the way first however.

1 – Notation

2 - Understanding

3 – Glossary

1 – Notation – a series of symbols that represent an action or sequence. In this case, the same way music has notes or chess has move notation, cubing needs a way of describing how to do something.

When you see this: ‘ <- That represents Counter-Clockwise. It’s said out loud “Prime”

When you see U, D, F, B, L, R, <- These represent face turns. They’re all implied to be clockwise by default. If you see the ‘ after it however, it’s understood to be counter-clockwise.

U = Upper face

D = Down or lower face

F = Front face

B = Back face

L = Left face

R = Right face

There are other more advanced methods that we’ll talk about later, but I’ll mention what they mean now so you have an understanding:

U = Upper face Clockwise

U’ = Upper face Counter Clockwise

U2 = Turn the upper face 180 degrees

u or Uw = Turn 2 layers of the upper face (In other words, grab both the top face and the layer below it and turn them both as one)

u’ or Uw’ = Same as above, but counter clockwise

u2 or Uw2 = Same as above, but 180 degree turn. Same as uu or u’u’

The same applies to all of the other face twists; just substitute U or u with whatever face you’re turning.

You might also see things like X or Y or Z, these represent entire cube twists… More on this in the next section: Understanding.

2 – Understanding – What I mean by understanding is that before you can really get into solving cubes comfortably, there are some things that we’ll have to talk about, and wrap your head around.

I find one of the mistakes that a lot of people make that look at Rubik’s cubes for the first time are usually ones of spatial perception. When you look at a cube, you probably see 3 cubes, 3 rows high and 3 rows deep. This would indicate that there are 27 cubes total right? 3 to the power of 3, or 3³, 3^3 or whatever. Anyway, the idea is this: It’s not 27 cubes. Not at all! You never see the very center inside cube do you? The reason is because there isn’t one! It’s a special core designed to have all other pieces float around the center. There are 2 major ways of illustrating this, though the easiest way to really see this is to take apart the cube see it for yourself.

That being said, here is a diagram that represents what I’m talking about:

The idea here is that the centers don’t actually go anywhere. They rotate, but they don’t move. Sure, you could move the centers around and keep the outside stationary, but in essence you’re only moving the sides around and then simultaneously rotating the cube… The centers ARE the faces. This isn’t true on any of the smaller or larger cubes that are an even number (like the 4x4x4 or 6x6x6 cubes, because they don’t have a dedicated center)

So what’s the point then? Well, the point is this: There are only 3 types of turns. There’s a U turn. In this case, that’s rotating the yellow face clockwise. (It’s the same as turning all of the cubes as well as the yellow center in a clockwise rotation, like a record or CD)

Well, that’s 1 type of rotation. Then you have R, which is turning the green face clockwise, like a bicycle tire or rollerblade. It spins the say way. That’s the 2nd type of rotation.

The 3rd and last type is F which is the same as watching a desk fan spin. There are 3 major plains of rotation that we’re looking at, and as long as you understand that the centers simply rotate, then I think we’ve made a major breakthrough! You’re already on your way to understanding the cube in a new way.

You might be asking now though: But if there’s 6 faces, why only 3 types of rotation? Well that’s because the other faces are simply mirrored or opposites. The opposite of U is D, F is B and R is L. So when you rotate U, D is the complete opposite side of the cube, however in the opposite direction too! If you rotated the entire cube so that yellow was on bottom and white was on top (or Blue if you have an Asian based color scheme) then what used to be D is now U, and vice-versa.

The next big thing is that because we have to consider, now that we know that it’s not actually 27 cubes, but more like 54 faces with a color on the face, is that there are types of cubes. The Rubik’s cube has 3 types of cubies that exist.

The first time is a Center. That’s listed above there, and they’re the ones that determine the color of the face. They’re like a 1 dimensional piece that represents the color for just that face. The next type is an Edge. An Edge has 2 colors on it. If you take the cube apart, you’ll actually see that of the two main plastic types, this one is the one that only has 2 colors on it. Here’s what I’m talking about:

The darker colored cubies are the edges that I’m referring to. They’re not a corner, and only have 2 colors on them. These are the only ones ever to touch a center cubie. There are 12 of them, and no 2 are alike, in that no two of them ever share the same 2 colors. If you ever see a messed up Rubik’s cube that has an edge with the same color or two with the exact same colors on them, you know someone has been causing a mess with the stickers of that cube. (And is impossible to solve without re-stickering it)

The last type is a corner. They’re… well, they’re the corners. There are 8 of them, and each has 3 colors attached. Like this:

It’s interesting now though, because we’ve gone from 54 faces, to 27 cubies down to 8 corners and 12 edges! Suddenly, we’re getting somewhere with the understanding part of solving the cube.

3 – Glossary

Normally this would go at the end of a document, but I feel it important to discuss these terms at the beginning. It’ll make it easier for me to type and for you to read once you know what I’m referring to.

Please feel free to visit http://www.cubefreak.net/glossary.html for a much more extensive listing; I’m only going to include the basics here.

AlgorithmAn algorithm is a sequence of movements which performs the same function every time it's done, and which returns the cube to the starting point when repeated a certain number of times. For example: Start with a solved cube perform R U R' U R U2 R' U2. Done twice more returns the cube to the solved state. Start with a solved cube perform R U R' U R U2 R' U2 (same as the first but without the U2 at the end). Done 5 more times returns to the solved state

BLD= Blindfold Cubing

Center PieceThe piece of the Rubik's Cube located in the middle of each face. In Rubik's Deluxe and new Oddzon cubes, the center pieces are arched on the inside. Odd-number sized cubes have unchanging centers.

CFOP

(abbrev.)Cross->F2L->OLL->PLL= Fridrich Method

COLLSet of algorithms to orient the permute the last layer corners in one step without disturbing the edge orientation.

Corner PieceThe pieces of the cube that are the corners of the whole cube.8 corner pieces in a Rubik's Cube. A corner piece has three orientation.

Cross

The orientation and permutation of edges of the first layer. First step in most LBL methods, including Fridrich Method. Can be solved in at most 8 moves, and almost always in 7 moves or less. Most speedcubers prefer to put the cross on bottom or on left during F2L.

DNFDid Not Finish. Includes pops and timer defects.

Double Layer Turn

A kind of turn in which 2 layers are turned as one in one direction. indicated by lower-case letter of the face or by adding a "w" after the face name (used mainly by JSCC).

Edge PieceThe piece of Rubik's Cube that is between two corner pieces.resembles the sides of the Rubik's Cube.edge piece has two orientations.There are 12 edges on a Rubik's Cube.

Extended Cross

Also called XCross. Completing the first slot of F2L in addition to the normal cross. An approach invented by Chris Hardwick. Can be extended to Double Extended Cross

First 2 Layers (F2L)

[speedcubing]The part of the cube solve right after the cross in Fridrich Method.consists of 4 slots between each adjacent pair of cross edge piece

FSC[speedcubing](abbrev.) Finger Short Cut

LBL(abbrev.)Layer by Layer

LL(abbrev.) Last layer

MMiddle. The slice between R and L. "M" as a notation refers to the turning of the M slice in direction of L.

OLL(abbrev.) Orientation of last LayerThe flip of a piece on a Rubik's Cube.3 flips on corner piece (0,1, and 2), and 2 flips on edge piece (0 and 1)

Permutation of Last LayerSet of algorithms to permute all last layer pieces in one step without disturbing the orientation. Total of 21 patterns including mirrors and inverses. Last stage in Jessica Fridrich's LBL. Average 14 moves. Also called LLP.

So at this point, I’m sure there’s a LOT that’s been taken in, most it probably not. It’ll take some practice and time to actually completely understand what all of this is, however it’ll all come with time.

That being said, let’s start on with the actual cube solving stuff!

Stage 1: The CrossYou’ve picked up the jumbled mess on your desk, table, drawer or toy box and you’ve decided

that “Yes, I will today solve this cube”

Well, here’s where it starts.

So we need to break it down: The cross is easy and hard all at the same time. It’s easy to solve, but hard to solve in very few moves. Well, we are going for SOME speed, but for the sake of just being able to solve the darn thing, we’re going to focus on simplicity. There are some amazing guides out there, and Dan Harris has one of my favorites for slightly more advanced cubers. I’ll show you a more basic method that’ll get the job done, but he takes great time and care in explaining the intricacies of solving the cross. His site can be found here: http://www.cosine-systems.com/cubestation/cross/cross.php

In the meantime, here’s a simple way of working it.

Something that needs to be kept in mind is that for this to be completely seamless into the next methods, I highly suggest you get used to solving the cross on the BOTTOM of the cube. You can solve it on the top like Dan Knights, and then flip the entire cube over, however that cube flip takes time and also prevents you from somewhat seeing the next stage which we’ll talk about a little later.

So here’s the idea. It’s a cross. It’s a cross that involves only the edges, and only the edges of a specific color. Most people seem to choose white or blue based on the color scheme of the cube, but the end result tends to be the same: Yellow ends up on top. I think this is partially

based on recognition of the last layer which we’ll talk about later as well, however for the time being, it seems to work just fine for most people.

Anyway, let’s pretend that you have a cube where the top is yellow, the bottom is white. We’ll focus on that for now.

So let’s say that you’ve solved the cross. You have a cross on the bottom, and you see that there are 4 white edges that are touching the white center. GREAT! But is it right? Here’s the trick about the cross. You can’t just solve it, you have to make the OTHER colors match too.

<- Seeing this is great. But see the dark grey? The trick is to get those to match the color they’re touching as well.

Dan has an explanation on his site that talks about the 3 color rule. It can be a little confusing to get at first, however once you start messing around with the cross, it’ll begin to make sense.

Again in the meantime, here’s my take: If you have a messed up cube, your focus will be to get the cross first. The easy way is actually like this:

<- If you can get the 4 white edges up to the top, then you’re doing well. The point here is that once you get them here, you can then place them properly simply by matching up the color that isn’t white, and putting them below where they’re located. I won’t suggest HOW to make the edges up top, and the reason I am saying this isn’t to give you a hard time. It’s to help force you to understand HOW the edges move around. Once you are able to make the cross up top, eventually you’ll be able to just plop them directly to the bottom. For now, here’s the next step:

<- See here how we have the white edges facing up and the colors all around the upper ring? (Top layer) The idea here is to match up the colors and then drop them directly below where they are. The way you would do it in this example is by performing: U F2. U matches the red edge with the red face (and incidentally the blue face which is opposite green but that’s a little more advanced than what I’m showing) and then F2 would put the white on the bottom layer. Once you finish that, you can rotate the whole cube clockwise or

counter clockwise and start again! Do this 4 times and you’ll have a cross on the bottom that looks like this:

<- Good

<- Bad

In a case where you happen to have a bad cross like this, you can simply move them into the top layer (F2) and move it above where it needs to go, and then drop it down again in the correct spot with F2.

You can start getting into more advanced methods where you just drop the cross into the bottom and skip this top layer thing completely. It’s MUCH faster that way, however takes some look-ahead and pre-planning. This is an easy method and can be easy to master in a matter of days with a little practice. You can usually solve the cross in under 10 seconds with this method if you plan it out right, though I’ve been able to do it in around 5-6 seconds this way.

Stage 2: The First Layer Corners

So you’ve solved the cross huh? Feels pretty good to have that first step all done? Well if you’ve survived up to this point, let’s move onto the next step!

Once you’ve made the cross, we have to start putting in the edges into the first layer so that it’s all done and we can move onto the middle layer.

Speedcubers refer to this and the next step as F2L or First 2 Layers. Speedcubers combine the next 2 steps into 1 big step (it’s actually 4 little steps), but again in the interest of making this easy to remember – I’ll show you this method instead. The way I’m going to show you however, will actually make it very logical to jump into the more advanced version of this LBL (layer by layer) method of solving the cube.

There are going to be 7 situations you’ll encounter, 1 of them is easy since it’s a solved state, and the others are actually only 3 situations, but mirrored. Let me show you what you’re looking for though:

<- I say this is Right Handed because that’s what direction the upper white cubie is facing.

<- I say this is Left Handed because that’s what direction the upper white cubie is facing.

<- I say this is Up because that’s what direction the upper white cubie is facing (Even though you can’t see it here)

There are some things you need to keep in mind. Even though you can see a white cubie, this doesn’t mean it’s in the right spot. Remember how previously with the cross, I said you need to place the edge ABOVE where it needs to be and then you can perform the “algorithm?” (incidentally, in this case, it was F2) The exact same applies here as well. The corner will be placed directly above where it needs to be in a solved cube. But how do you know exactly? Well, see the 3rd example right above there? In a solved cube, the front corner below that green/red/white cubie is where that cubie needs to be. We know the colors should be that because of the centers! If you don’t know what color goes where, look at the centers. They’ll dictate what goes in between them. If you see a red center, and a green center to the left of it, then you know the piece that goes between them will have green and red on them.

That being said, let’s take a look at a pretend bad example. Let’s say the top color on the corner was Blue/Red/White. We know that this is the wrong piece because the centers that we’re looking at are Green, Red and White. Even if we fit it in, it’ll look wrong once placed. It would look like this:

<- See how the Red doesn’t touch Red? We put the piece in, but it’s in the wrong spot. Now we have to take it out, and put it back in the right spot.

Well, those are actually cases 4, 5 and 6! We’ll talk about those soon as well. But before you can learn how to take the back pieces out, let’s learn how to put the good pieces in!

<- See here how the white is pointing to the right on the top layer? That means we’re going to perform the next algorithm with the Right hand. Because we’ve got a matching color as well, this means that we’re going to make the matching color side our F face. In this case, Green will be our front face. Rotate the cube so that Green is in front of you, and the red face is to your right (or whatever colors you have that you’re starting with.)

Now perform this move: R U R’

This move does 3 separate things:

R turns the red face clockwise, and at the same time it also twists or rotates the corner

U matches up the white corner with the white and red edge

R’ undoes the first move we made, and puts the cross back how we found it.

Suddenly, we have an inserted bottom layer corner!

<- See how the white is pointing to the left in the top layer? That means we’re going to perform the mirror of the exact same algorithm we just learned above. Remember, because we have the Red from the corner and Red from the center matched up, that this is going to be our F face now.

The mirror of the above is like this:

L’ U’ L

This works in exactly the same way that R U R’ worked on the above example, except now it’s done with the left hand instead.

<-Now what can we do? We know that white is pointing up, and that isn’t going to do us any good. We need to twist this before we can place it properly. In this case, because we’re going to perform this with the right hand, we’ll put the Green face as F. If we were going to do it with the left hand, Red would be our F face.

Here’s the algorithm, and then I’ll explain what it does for the Right hand:

R U2 R’ U’ R U R’

R – This twists the corner.

U2 – This moves the corner out of the way and keeps it twisted for us later

R’ – This fixes the cross. Because we used this move to break the cross AND twist the corner, we need to “undo” it or re-fix the cross again.

U’ – This puts the new corner above where it needs to go. Now it should look like our first example with the white pointing to the Right.

R U R’ – This is that insertion algorithm that we learned from before.

Since we know this new R U R’ alg, let’s put it in brackets. By doing that, we’re implying that it’s a FSC or Finger Short Cut. Something that we’re going to get used to doing over and over, and because of that when you see (R U R’) you don’t need to follow the move letter by letter… because you know the whole movement. It’s kind of like reading a word. You don’t look at each letter when you read, you look at the word as a whole. This is the same idea with the brackets – you’ll get used to this because there are some major FSC’s that you’ll use a LOT in cubing, and this is one of them.

So now that we know that we have some FSC’s we can use, here’s how we might write our new algorithm:

(R U2 R’)U’ (R U R’)

Yes, R U2 R’ is actually its own finger shortcut as well, and it can be performed in one nice motion. That comes into finger tricks which I won’t really talk about here too much. That’s something that comes later

For the sake of having it here, this is the algorithm you’d use for doing the same as above but left handed. Remember that we’d put the Red face as our front face if we intend on doing this algorithm with our left hand.

(L’ U2 L)U (L’ U’ L)

Now what about those other 3 things that might happen? Well, they’re actually the EXACT same as what we saw above, but they’re in the wrong corner! Remember how we talked about putting the Red/Blue/White corner in the wrong spot? Well the solution to that is to put a fake corner it to get that one into the top layer. Once that misplaced corner is in the top layer, you can put it above where it needs to go, and then it’ll be one of the above examples I’ve mentioned there. Suddenly, you’ve just learned 3 algorithms very quickly!

Wow – so if you do this 4 times in a row, we should actually have a completed first layer with properly oriented corners! Looks like this:

So let’s summarize quickly:

Put the proper corner above where it needs to go. We can find out which colors we need by looking at the centers.

White points to the hand we’ll use. (Unless it points up, then we need to do that longer algorithm)

The matching color on the corner and on the face shows us which face needs to be the front face.

Do (R U R’) or (L’ U’ L) to put the corner into its spot

If white points up, remember we can do (R U2 R’) U’ (R U R’) as a way of twisting and then inserting the corner into its spot.

If the corner is already in somewhere but it’s the wrong spot, we can do (R U R’) to get it out quickly, and then place it like normal.

When we do this with all 4 corners, we should have the whole first layer completed properly!

If you feel like you’ve got that pretty comfortable now, we can move onto inserting the edges to complete the whole F2L (First 2 layers)

Stage 3: Finishing the F2L

Feeling pretty good? I hope you are because the next 3 situations that can happen are all common. Fortunately you actually only have 1 new algorithm to learn here.

Let’s take a look at the next 3 cases you’ll see:

<- Notice the L we made with the Red and Green edge piece in the top layer? This means we’re going to perform an algorithm to insert the edge without messing up anything else, and it involves moving the Green/Red piece to the LEFT in the top layer.

<- This will be the backwards L shape, and this will be exactly the same as above, just moving the piece to the RIGHT.

<- This is where we basically do the above algorithm twice. Once to get it out, and once again to get it back in properly. We’ll look at that a little later.

So the question now is: What do I do to fix it?

Let’s take a look together at the first one.

<- Basically, there’s an algorithm you can perform that will fix this. This alg is performed while looking at the Red face:

U (R U R’) U’ (F’ U’ F)

If you’re interested in actually going to the next step and doing the more advanced F2L method (which we don’t talk about here) you’ll need to understand what’s going on when we do this algorithm.

U is a preparation move. It moves the target square out of the way, and gets it into place for:

(R U R’) This gets our corner out, and actually puts it into a position where we can DO something with it.

U’ is undoing our first preparation move. If we do something, we eventually need to undo it.

(F’ U’ F) is a way of undoing the first R U R’ we did, only with 1 key element in mind: pick up the edge that we prepared along the way.

Here’s a key element however: Look at the cube after we do U ( R U R’) U’, but before we do (F’ U’ F)

Notice how the top color on the corner we’re inserting is the OPPOSITE color of the edge we’re inserting? If the two colors match, (in the diagram on the top layer, if you see two reds or two greens) we’re doing it wrong. The colors should be opposite. The reason for this is when we perform the next move we do:

(F’ U’ F)

What that move does is it makes the green and red edge match. The U’ makes the red and white touch, and the F puts it back where we found it in the first place.

Do it slowly though, and watch what happens. When you get into doing intuitive F2L with speedcubing, this is one of the two fundemental preparation setups you’ll see, which is why I’m showing this to you now.

Should you fully understand it right now? No, that’s not necessary. However, if you want to start learning intuitive F2L, it’ll help to somewhat understand what it’s doing.

So then, what about the other cases?

<- This is the EXACT same as the first one, just do it opposite! Before we were looking at the red face. Now we’ll look at the green face.

U’ (L’ U’ L) U (F U F’)

You’ll notice that the same rules apply. The U’ moves the Red/Green edge out of the way, (L’ U’ L) prepares the move. U puts the edge back above where it needs to go. (F U F’) then inserts the corner the exact same way we always have.

Something you’ll notice though is this: Why are we doing (F U F’) – why can’t we just turn the cube and do (R U R’) instead? Well, you actually can. As long as you remember the first part of the algorithm: U’ (L’ U’ L) U, this is the preparation. Once you do that, you can solve the corner like you would do normally!

Well, then the question comes up: What about the last case where it’s in place, but in place incorrectly?

<- In the right spot, but put in the wrong way.

Well, there are 2 things you could do. You could panic and throw the cube, but I certainly don’t recommend it!

The other alternative is to substitute one of the above moves and simply replace the edge with a different, wrong edge. Now that will put the edge you’re looking for in the top layer, and then you can apply the algorithm again with it being in one of the above cases… which will place it correctly.

In the meantime though, let me give you a “Blind” algorigthm that you can do if you see this that will take care of it in 1 big algorithm. (You don’t have to learn this one, but it’ll make it a little faster if you see this pattern in the future)

The algorithm for this is:

(R U R’) U2 (R U2 R’) U (F’ U’ F)

**Just as a side note, you SHOULD recognize the pattern in the top layer after the (R U2 R’), because it’s a shortcut to getting the opposite colors on top we were looking for. The U puts it into place**

Once you do this for all 4 edges, we should be looking at a cube that has the whole bottom 2 layers completed!

This is a reason for celebration because this is probably the hardest part of the whole cube. It honestly gets easier from here because there’s no more need for understanding. It’s just raw performance processing now. *In other words, you simply just do algorithms to make things happen*

This brings us to:

Stage 4: Orienting the Last Layer (2 look)The premise here that we’re focusing on for this step is to get yellow one the top. By

orienting the last layer, we’re making sure all of the cubes in the top layer are pointing upwards. This means we can narrow down exactly how else to manipulate them.

The orientation step will have 2 parts. First part is to make a cross on the top. Once we have a cross on the top, then we’ll finish solving the rest of the top. In total, you will have to learn to recognize and memorize 9 algorithms. All of them are different, however these ALL can be used in the full Fredrich version of speedsolving. The ones that I’m going to present to you I find very quick, and seem to be the more widely used algorithms.

So part 1: Cross on top.

There are going to be 4 situations you’ll see on the top of the cube after the whole F2L are completed:

This is empty This is Right Angle This is Line This is complete

Empty is easy, because you can do the right angle alg, and then the line alg. (A + B or B + A, but both together will make the cross)

Right angle is like this: (F U R)(U’ R’ F’)

Line is like this: F (R U R’ U’) F’

The complete cross… is already complete. Move to the next part:

Part 2: Solving the top corners.

There are 7 situations you’ll see, and I’m going to put them from easy to hard. Something to keep in mind is this: the F face isn’t yellow. That should be the TOP face (U) when performing these algs unless otherwise noted as part of the algorithm.

= Known as Car Wheels: F (R U R’ U’) (R U R’ U’) (R U R’ U’) F’

= Known as the Frog: x’ (turn the cube so that yellow is now F) and do: (R U’)(R’ D) (R U R’) D’

= Known as Fisheyes. Note the double layer turns: (r U R’ U’ r’) y (rotate whole cube clockwise. Like U but for the whole cube) r U r’. (The whole alg is: (r U R’ U’ r’)y(r U’r’))

= Known as the Sune: (R U R’ U)(R U2 R’)

= Known as Anti-Sune, same as above but other hand: (L’ U’ L U’)(L’ U2 L)

= Known as Wheelchair: (R U2) (R2 U’) (R2 U’) (R2 U2 R)

= Known as Headlights: (R2 D’)(R U2 R’)D(R U2 R)

At this point, your cube SHOULD look like this:

YAY!!! You’re 2 steps away from solving the entire thing!

These next 2 steps don’t need to be done in any specific order. You can do Edges and then Corners, or Corners and then Edges. Sometimes, the corners are already done for you so you just need to do edges. Sometimes it’s the other way around where the edges are done, and you just have to fix corners.

This part is pretty easy because there’s not many more algorithms left to learn. If you’re this far, it’s not much further before you’re solving the cube in under 1 minute! Which brings us to:

Stage 5: Permuting the Last Layer (2 look)This is actually pretty easy, because there are 7 algs you need to learn here. There are 3

situations that happen for the corners, and 4 situations that happen for the edges. The same idea applies as OLL – When you’re solving these, the yellow face should be the U face. Unless the alg says to rotate the cube, yellow should still be on top.

Let’s break this up into the two groups though. We’ll start with the Corners:

Start with the top facing away from you. (Same as doing x) (R’ U R’) D2 (R U’ R’) D2 R2

Same as above, but in the opposite order: x R2 D2 (R U R’) D2 (R U’ R)

This one starts out like the Frog up until half way, but ends up totally different: x’ (R U’)(R’ D) (R U R’) u2 (R’ U R) D (R’ U’ R). (Remember that the u2 in the middle is the top 2 layers)

These are the corners. You don’t have to do them first, though for myself anyway, I find it faster to recognize the position.

Now, we’re going to look at the 4 edge situations that can happen when solving for

Edges:

I call this Ziggy, but it’s a very fast one to recognize. It’ll look like this if the

corners are done:

The next series of moves are able to be done VERY quickly, but take a decent cube:

(M2 U)(M2 U)(M U2)(M2 U2) (M U2) (M2 is done by pulling the middle layer towards you from the bottom with the ring fingers of both hands. The other way to look at it that has the same affect is like this: (r2 R2). The M in the middle of all of this is done the same way, and it’s the same as doing: r R’.

This is a reverse cross, and looks like this: It’s easier and faster than Ziggy, and works like this: (M2 U)(M2 U2) (M2 U) M2

This is the 3 edge permutation and it’s VERY fast. There are easier algs to remember, but not quite as fast as this: (R U’ R) (U R U R)(U’ R’ U’ R2)

Same as above, just done with the left hand. (L’ U L’) (U’ L’ U’ L’)(U L U L2)

So there you have it. The complete beginners guide that will very easily translate into being able to incorporate the Fredrich method of speedsolving should you choose to do so.

Special thanks goes to Dan Harris for having an awesome site with awesome tutorials, to Bob Burton who seems to have a lot of similar cubing ideas as myself and who has been a big inspiration (and who I stole a few of the pictures from as well lol) and encourage you all to check out their sites:

www.cubewhiz.com

www.cubestation.co.uk

Also for feedback, please feel free to e-mail me at enigma@enigmahack.com or enigmahack@hotmail.com for tips, tricks, suggestions and such.

Thanks for reading!