Every diagram shows the cube from the front, held in the home position (white center on the floor, green center facing you). Diagrams show a scrambled cube on purpose — you do not need a solved cube to learn or practice any move. The outlined stickers are the layer that turns; the arrow shows which way they travel. Once you put your own cube on screen, every diagram uses your exact colors.
Every teach starts the same way: find the centers, get to the home position, then put your cube on the screen. After that, every lesson and diagram matches the cube in your hands. Tap I did it for each rep, set your confidence, mark lessons learned — progress is saved.
Your reps and confidence, tracked per lesson — plus what to practice next.
Copy a summary of your progress to send to anyone, or copy an invite so a friend can learn alongside you.
Three symbols cover almost everything.
A plain letter = turn that face clockwise 90° (as if you were looking straight at that face).
An apostrophe ("prime") = counterclockwise 90°. The exact undo of the plain move.
A 2 = turn that face 180°. Direction doesn't matter — same result either way.
Lowercase or "w" = wide move: turn that face and the middle slice next to it together.
These six faces (each with a prime version) are the whole alphabet of basic solving. Each diagram pulls the rotating layer out of the cube so there is no doubt which pieces move — the gray square is that layer seen straight down its axis, and the circle shows exactly which way it rotates.
Slices turn only a middle layer. Rotations turn the whole cube in your hands — no stickers change relative to each other.
Short sequences that show up inside almost every method.
R U R' U'
The most-used trigger in cubing. Inserts/cycles a corner. Repeat it 6 times and the cube returns to where it started.L' U' L U
The mirror of the sexy move, done with the left hand. Classic beginner tutorials teach this for corners that belong on the left. If you once knew L moves, this is very likely the one you learned.R' F R F'
Another corner/edge insertion trigger, common in F2L.R U R' U R U2 R'
Orients last-layer corners. A pillar of every beginner method's final stage.R U2 R' U' R U' R'
The reverse of Sune — handles the mirrored corner case.F R U R' U' F'
Orients last-layer edges (dot → L → line → cross).R U R' U' R' F R2 U' R' U' R U R' F'
A last-layer permutation (PLL) — swaps two corners and two edges. Note: no L moves anywhere.Most modern beginner tutorials are right-hand only: instead of mirroring an algorithm to the left hand, you just rotate the whole cube (y / y') so the piece is always on your right, then do the same R U R' U'-based moves every time. Fewer algorithms to remember, faster to finger-trick. Older "classic" layer-by-layer tutorials taught both a righty (R U R' U') and a lefty (L' U' L U) insertion — so if you remember doing L and L', you almost certainly learned the classic two-handed Layer-By-Layer method first, then later absorbed a right-hand-only version of the same method.
Compare what each method does and which moves it leans on.
The traditional beginner method from most booklets and older tutorials. Solves the cube in horizontal layers, bottom to top. Corners on the right side go in with the righty trigger, corners on the left with the lefty trigger — no cube rotations needed.
R R' L L' U U' F F' D — both hands share the work.The same layer-by-layer plan, but every insertion is done with right-hand triggers only. When a piece belongs on the left, you rotate the whole cube (y) until it's on your right instead of mirroring the algorithm. This is what most popular YouTube tutorials teach today — and it's almost certainly the method you use now.
R R' U U' F F' D plus y rotations. L and L' never appear.The most popular speedcubing method — an upgraded LBL. The first two layers are solved together in corner-edge pairs (F2L), then the last layer is finished in two algorithmic steps: OLL (57 algs) and PLL (21 algs).
R U F, occasional L D B in advanced algs. Averages ~55–60 moves.Builds a 1×2×3 block on the left, a matching block on the right, solves the remaining corners (CMLL), then finishes everything else with only M-slice and U moves. Very rotation-free and finger-trick friendly.
R r U M L — the M slice does the ending. Averages ~45–50 moves.Starts by orienting every edge while placing a line on the bottom (EOLine). After that, the whole cube can be finished without ever turning F or B — the rest is solved with only R U L moves, which makes it extremely ergonomic.
R R' L L' U U' only.Solves all eight corners before touching edges, then fills edges in with slice moves. This was common in the 1980s (it's how Minh Thai won the first world championship) and is still the standard approach on the 2×2.
R U L, edges with M E slices.| Method | Steps | Uses L / L'? | Algs to learn | Avg. moves |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Classic LBL | 6–7 | Yes — lefty triggers | ~6 | ~110 |
| Right-hand LBL | 6–7 | No — rotate instead | ~5 | ~110 |
| CFOP | 4 | Rarely | 78 (full) | ~55 |
| Roux | 4 | Yes + M slices | 42 | ~48 |
| ZZ | 3 | Yes — RUL only | varies | ~55 |
| Corners-First | 3 | Yes | few | ~100 |