A few things you might notice:
Fixed Center Pieces
Notice that no matter what kind of face rotation you do, the center pieces always stay in the same position. They determine the color of each face.
Edges And Corners
Beside the fixed center pieces the cube is composed of 8 corner pieces with 3 stickers and 12 edge pieces with two stickers.
Too Many Cases
There are so many possible configurations (over 43 quintillion) that it would be impossible to solve it by randomly turning the faces until it’s all done.
The Strategy
It’s hard not to break the solved pieces while fixing new ones. We need to divide the cube into layers and use algorithms in each step which don’t break the finished parts.
How To Solve The White Face Of The Rubik’s Cube
Solving the first face of the Rubik’s Cube is relatively easy because there are not too many solved pieces that you can mess up. Spend some time playing with the puzzle and try to do this without reading further this page.
✔Start with the white edges, then do the corners.
✔Make sure the side colors are matching the side center colors (image below).
✔Can you do this step by yourself without reading this help?
We already know that the center pieces are fixed and they define the color of each face. This is why we have to solve the white edges according to the color of the center piecess as illustrated above.
Solving the white edges is intuitive and quite easy because at this stage there are no solved pieces that we can break. In most cases you can just simply rotate each piece where they are supposed to be.
Here are a few examples that require a few extra moves.
Press the Play button to animate the rotations.
Apply this short algorithm when the piece is in the right spot (FU edge), but it’s oriented wrong.
U’ R’ U F’
Do this when you can’t simply just turn the front edge to its spot because it would be oriented wrong.
F’ R’ D’ R F2
The algorithm to solve the white edge when it’s oriented wrong in the middle layer.
R’ D’ R F2
This is another easy stage where you shouldn’t memorize any algorithm just follow your instincts. If you have difficulties solving the white corners, here’s an easy trick you can always apply, you just have to memorize a short algorithm and repeat it until the piece is solved:
R’ D’ R D
Bring the corner below the spot where it belongs (Front-Right-Down position highlighted with grey) and repeat the algorithm above until the white corner pops into its place oriented correctly. This algorithm sends the piece back and forth between the spots marked with dark, always changing the orientation.
Play the animation for an example where the sequence is repeated five times. Watch the affected white corner going to the top then back to the bottom in each step, changing its orientation. The sixth would bring the cube back to its original position:
This trick always works but requires too many unnecessary steps. Here are the shortcuts:At the end of this step your cube should have a solid white face.
3. Second Layer (F2L)
Now that we’ve finished the white face, let’s turn the cube upside down because we don’t need to see the solved side anymore.
The solution of the Rubik’s Cube could be done intuitively until this point but this is where most people get stuck. The reason for that is that you would have to foresee too many steps to complete the first two layers (F2L).
We have to learn two algorithms which are symmetric to each other. We call them Left and Right algorithms.
The Left algorithm sends the edge piece from the Front-Up position to the left side while the Right algorithm sends it to the right as marked with the arrows.
Left
U’ L’ U L U F U’ F’
Right
U R U’ R’ U’ F’ U F
Wrong orientation
When there’s no edge piece to insert into the middle layer you will have to execute the algorithm twice to pop the piece out in the first step.
For example, when the edge is on its place but turned incorrectly:
U R U’ R’ U’ F’ U F – U2 – U R U’ R’ U’ F’ U F
At the end of this step your cube should have the middle layer solved and an intact white face at the bottom.
4. The Top Cross
In the fourth step we want to form a yellow cross on the top of the cube. Don’t worry if the side colors don’t match the side centers because we will send the pieces to their final positions in the next step.
We solve the yellow edges on the top of the Rubik’s Cube in two steps:First we orient them to form a yellow cross on the top, then we swap the pieces to match them with the side colors.
6. Position Last Layer Corners
We are very close to finish solving our Rubik’s Cube. At this point only the yellow corners remained unsolved which we are going to sort out in two steps. First we have to relocate them and we’ll orient them in the next and final step.
We use a trick to cycle the marked corners on the image, while the Front-Right-Up corner, marked with “OK” stays in place.
U R U’ L’ U R’ U’ L
When you reach this point in the solution look for a corner piece which is in the right place. If you found one then reorient the cube in your hands so this specific piece is on the OK position and perform the formula. In some cases you have to execute it twice.
If there’s no yellow corner on the right spot then do the algorithm to reorganize the corners and then look around again because there must be a good one this time.
An interesting fact is that in this step the number of pieces in the right spot can only be 0, 1 or 4.
R’ D’ R D
Start by holding the cube in your hand having a misaligned yellow corner in the highlighted Front-Right-Up spot (see image). Repeat the R’ D’ R D algorithm until this piece comes to the correct position with the yellow sticker upwards.
Turning only the Up face, move another wrong yellow corner to the highlighted spot and repeat the R’ D’ R D algorithm until that yellow piece is oriented correctly. Move other misaligned yellow corners to the marked spot one by one and do the formula until all corners are solved.
The puzzle might seem to be scrambled between the moves but don’t worry because everything will come together when all yellow corners are oriented properly.
Watch the video or the animation below that demonstrates examples of how to use this move.
More examples on how to use the R’ D’ R D algorithm.
How to solve your Rubik’s Cube
Notation
Front, Right, Up, LeftL – Left clockwiseF’ – Front invertedR2 – Double right (180°)
1,2. White Face
Cross, then corners.
3. Middle layer
Right: U R U’ R’ U’ F’ U F Left: U’ L’ U L U F U’ F’
4. Top Cross
F R U R’ U’ F’
5. Swap Top Edges
R U R’ U R U2 R’ U
6. Position Top Corners
U R U’ L’ U R’ U’ L
7. Orient Top Corners
Move the misaligned yellow corners one by one to the highlighted position rotating the top layer and do R’ D’ R D until the current piece is solved.
Source of the document: cube3x3.com
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