The Easiest Method to Solve the Rubik's Cube

There are quite a few similar tutorials on the internet that show you how to solve the cube with just one algorithm. But this one is part 1 of a from-zero-to-hero series of posts that will show you how to evolve this simple method into the preferred method of solving the cube that most leading speed cubers use. Besides, it neatly visualises all steps so that you don't have to learn the cube notation from the beginning.

Just one algorighthm? Well, not quite. They are really two algorithms but they are mirrored versions of each other. And sometimes you have to do a rotation or another turn before or after or both.

Basics

But let's first get accustomed with the cube and the way how we describe it here.

Structure of the Cube

The cube has 8 corner pieces with three stickers each, 12 edge pieces with two stickers each, and 6 center pieces with one sticker each. The position of the center pieces to each other never changes. They define the color of the whole face.

Notation

You can find the notation for all turns here: https://ruwix.com/the-rubiks-cube/notation/.

But for this solution, you only need a small fraction of these turns. Let's look at them now!

R and R'

R stands for the Right face. The letter on its own means that the face is turned once (one quarter rotation) in clockwise direction. With a single quote (') behind it, it is turned counter-clockwise. If a 2 follows, the face is turned twice, no matter in which direction.

Try clicking the buttons under the images to get accustomed with the user interface! You can also grab the cube with your mouse or with your finger on a phone and rotate it in all directions so that you can see all sides of it.

By the way, you pronounce R' as R-Prime.

L and L'

L stands for the Left face.

F and F'

F stands for the Front face.

U and U'

U stands for the Upper face.

There is also D (as in Down) for the bottom and B as in Back for the back face, but we don't need these in this solution.

y and y'

The lowercase letters x, y, and z are used for rotations of the whole cube. We only need y and y'.

A clockwise rotation is y, a counter-clockwise rotation is y'.

Steps of the Solution

You do not solve the cube side by side, but layer by layer. It is best to start from the bottom and work your way up. That requires holding the cube upside down, with the parts already solved at the bottom. Why? It is more important to see the unsolved parts than the solved parts.

The individual steps are:

1. the bottom cross
2. the bottom corners
3. the second layer
4. orient the edges of the top layer (cross)
5. position the corners of the top layer
6. orient the corners of the top layer
7. position the edges of the top layer

This is already pretty close to the strategy that the top speed cubers use. The main difference to their method is that steps 5 and 6 are swapped. They first completely orient the last layer so that all stickers of the top face have the same colour. And then they swap (permute) the pieces of the top layer so that the cube is solved. You will see later that it is relatively easy to switch to that strategy from our beginner's method.

The correct term is actually not position but permute which is the mathematical term for the act or process of changing the linear order of an ordered set. We stick to positioning here but feel free to use the term permuation instead.

Which Face to Start With?

This tutorial starts solving the white face of the cube and finishes with the yellow face. This is very common but it is actually bad to always start with the same colour. You should instead start with the face that is easiest to solve. Try to be colour agnostic from the beginning! It will make it easier to become faster and more efficient in the future!

The Sexy Move

The only algorithm you need is the Sexy Move, but in two variants, one on the right side and one on the left side of the cube. We will abbreviate the two algorithms as RSexy and LSexy from now on.

The Algorithm

Note above that except for the slot where you perform the Sexy Move, all parts of the bottom two layers stay in their place.

By the way, the move is really commonly referred to as the Sexy Move.

Performing the Sexy Move six times, brings you back to the starting position:

If you have a solved cube, this is a great way of exercising the Sexy Move. You just do it six times in a row, and the cube should be solved again.

Improving Your Turns

If you have the ambition to become faster, you should try to optimise your turns. But you need a reasonably good cube for it. The original Rubik's cube or the cheap ones from supermarkets are not sufficient for speed cubing.

The instructions given here are meant for RSexy. For LSexy, just swap left and right. You have to practise both variants.

First, you should hold the cube the correct way. Put your left thumb on the centre sticker of the front face, and your left middle finger on the centre piece of the back face. The left ring finger just stabilises the cube.

The Sexy Move consists of four turns:

1. Turn the (right) side by 90 degrees upwards. Place the thumb on this side under the cube and your middle and ring finger on top. The work is done mostly by them. The thumb only stabilises the cube a bit. And the index finger is not used at all.
2. The second turn is the turn of the top layer. Now use your index finger, but only your index finger.
3. The third turn undoes the first turn. You use the same fingers but this time, the thumb does most of the work, and the middle and ring finger stabilise.
4. The last turn undoes the second one. Again, you only use your index finger but this time it is the left index finger.

Start practising in slow motion. Once you can turn that into kind of a rolling movement, try to become faster. Depending on the quality of your cube, you don't have to be 100 % accurate with your turns but you can "cut" a little bit.

Bottom Layer

Cross on the Bottom Layer

Solving the bottom cross can be achieved intuitively. If you have trouble solving the cross with the cube upside down, you can make a "daisy flower" instead. This is done by bringing all edges correctly oriented to the top layer. This creates a (yellow) pistil with four (white) petals of the opposite colour. Then you rotate the upper layer until the edge fits with the centre piece, and bring it down by rotating the side by 180 degrees:

With this strategy, you bring one edge after another to the right position.

Corners of the Bottom Layer

This can also be done intuitively. Try it!

But there is also a fool-safe method. You bring the corner above the position where it belongs. Then you repeat the Sexy Move (RSexy or LSexy doesn't make a difference) until the corner piece is in the bottom layer and correctly oriented. Example:

You can do that with one corner after another until all corners are solved. You can skip the last turn of the upper layer because that does not change anything relevant.

If the corner is already in the bottom layer and at the correct position but has the wrong orientation, you do exactly the same. The corner will pop up and down after each Sexy Move and at one point it will have the right orientation.

If the corner is already in the bottom layer but at the wrong position, you do the Sexy Move just once. That brings the corner to the upper layer, and you can then just continue.

Second Layer

Search any edge piece in the top layer that belongs into the middle layer. That are all edges that have no sticker in the same color as the centre piece of the upper layer.

Now turn the upper layer until the centre piece of the second layer fits in terms of colour with the edge. The side matching the other sticker of the edge piece is then either left or right of it.

Then turn the upper layer so that the edge goes exactly to the other side and do the Sexy Move in the slot where the edge belongs. Did you have to turn the edge to the left, do RSexy. Did you have to turn it to the right, do LSexy.

But this is only the first step. The second step is to do the opposite Sexy Move in the same slot. To do this, you first have to rotate the whole cube by 90 degrees. All in all, you have to do two Sexy Moves, either first RSexy, then LSexy, or first LSexy, then RSexy, and inbetween you have to rotate the cube by 90 degrees.

Example:

You can skip the last turn of the second Sexy Move because it does not do anything relevant.

If there are no edges from the second layer in the top layer, one edge is either at the wrong position or not correctly oriented. If that happens, then just swap it with one edge from the top layer with the method described above, and then continue as usual.

Third Layer

Cross

In the next step, you solve the cross of the upper layer. For that, you can completely ignore the position of the edges. And you ignore the corners altogether.

Four distinct cases can occur. The lucky case is the one that has the cross already solved. You can then skip this step. In all other cases, you have to do something.

Line

The easiest case is a line of three stickers in the right colour.

Rotate the cube – or just the upper layer – so that the line is parallel to your eyes. Now turn down the front layer by 90 degrees and do the sexy move. Finally, you turn the front layer up into its initial position. You can either turn the the front layer down to the right, and then do RSexy or rotate the front layer down to the left, and do LSexy. It does not make a difference.

Attention! Depending on the orientation of the corners, you may see additional stickers in the same colour on the corners. Just ignore them!

Angle or Hook

The next case is that with three stickers in the same colour forming an angle respectively a hook.

Turn the cube – or just the upper layer – so the hook sits at the front. If it is on the right side, use RSexy, if it is on the left side, do LSexy. Alternatively, always move the hook to the same side if you are significantly better with one of the two Sexy Moves.

The algorithm is exactly the same as that for the line above. But the result this time is the line, and you already know how to solve that.

Dot

That is the worst case. You do exactly the same as for the other two cases. Turn the front layer, Sexy Move, then bring the front layer back.

That gives you the hook that you can already solve. x

Positioning the Corners

You position the corners by swapping two adjacent corners, ignoring the orientation. You either don't have to do that at all, or just once, or twice.

This is the algorithm:

Search for two adjacent corners in the upper layer that have stickers in one colour in common, but not the colour of the upper layer. In the example below, we have found two corners with green stickers next to each other. Turn the upper layer so that they are on the right (green) side.

Should both corners be at the correct position, check the pair of corners on the opposite side. If that is correct, too, there is nothing to do. Otherwise, rotate the cube so that the two corners sit on the right side.

Then you do RSexy three times and then three times LSexy in the same slot. That requires rotating the cube by 90 degrees clockwise, when changing from right to left:

Here, you have to swap the two green corners. You hold the cube so that the green side with the pair of corner pieces is on the right side, and swap with three times RSexy followed by three times LSexy.

When you look closely, you can see that in the end, you have to turn the top layer by 90 degrees. You can avoid that by simply omitting the last turn of the Sexy Move.

This pair is now positioned. Now look at the pair on the opposite side. In the example, it is already positioned correctly. Otherwise, rotate the cube so that the other pair is on the right side, and swap those corners, too.

Important! In the beginning, finding the corners is a challenge. Try to follow exactly the strategy outlined above!

Orienting the Corners

For this step, take the cube upside down and hold it in such a way that one wrongly oriented corner is at the bottom right. Now repeat the Sexy Move until the corner has the right orientation. You either have to repeat the Sexy Move twice or four times.

The cube is now pretty scrambled but you should not worry about it, just concentrate.

In order to orient the next corner, turn only the bottom layer until the next wrongly oriented corner piece sits at the bottom right. Now you repeat the Sexy Move, until it has the right orientation.

You repeat that until all corners have the right orientation.

Use the +-button above to see exactly, step-by-step what is going on.

The first corner has the correct orientation after doing RSexy twice. Then you move the next corner at that position. This time, you need four times RSexy. For the third corner, you need four times RSexy again, and for the last corner you only need two of them.

Positioning the Edges

Sometimes, the cube is already solved at this point. Most of the time, however, you also have to position the edges of the third layer. For this step you hold the cube again so that the unsolved side faces upwards.

If one edge is already in the correct position, hold the cube so that this edge faces the front. If all edges have the wrong position, it does not matter how you orient the cube.

You swap the edges like this:

After performing this algorithm, exactly one edge is at the correct position. You then solve the remaining three edges in the way described above.

Conclusion

The cube is now solved! Well, it probably took you a couple of times, because at one point, you will have done a wrong turn you had to start over. That is normal.

Once you are more confident, try to learn the method by heart, and try to turn the cube faster.

In the next post of this series, we will have a look at how to optimise our beginner's method, so that you save some moves. Stay tuned!

The Road Ahead

As mentioned in the beginning, the method described here is relatively close to the preferred method of almost all speedcubers. Their method is called CFOP for Cross, F2L (First 2 Layers), OLL (Orient Last Layer), and PLL (Permute Last Layer).

F2L means that the corners of the first layer, and the edges of the last layer are usually solved in pairs with just one step respectively. There are 41 different cases which means that you have to know 41 algorithms.

For OLL , all pieces of the top layer are oriented correctly so that all stickers of the top face show the same colour. To do this in just one step, you have to know 57 algorithms.

PLL finally moves all pieces of the last layer to their correct positions. This involves 21 different cases with 21 algorithms to solve them.

All in all, you have to learn 119 algorithms by heart, a pretty steep learning curve. The goal of this series of blog posts is to give you a guideline how you can learn these algorithms one after the other, gradually replacing inefficient parts of our method with more efficient algorithms.

You can stop anywhere you like, when you are happy with your performance. But you know that you can always improve in little steps if you want to, without being overwhelmed by that scary amount of algorithms involved.

The next article in this series is Improving the Easy Cube Solving Method.