The Beginner's Method

A 3×3 cube has three horizontal layers: top, middle, and bottom. The whole method comes down to one idea. You solve the cube layer by layer, not color by color.

The lit band on the cube is the top layer. Try dragging it around, and grab empty space to orbit the whole cube.

Each flat side is a face, and the single tile in the middle of a face is a center. Centers are fixed to the core, so they never move relative to each other. Press play and watch: every layer spins, yet the six glowing centers stay put.

That means the center tells you what color its face will be when solved. The pairs are always opposite each other: white opposite yellow, blue opposite green, and orange opposite red.

An edge piece sits between two centers and has exactly two colored tiles. There are twelve of them, lit on the cube now. On a real cube you would pinch an edge with two fingers.

A corner piece has three colored tiles, and there are eight of them. Every piece on the cube is a center, an edge, or a corner. A piece can never change type, and its colors never separate. That is why the cube is solvable at all.

Each face has a letter. A letter on its own means: turn that face a quarter turn clockwise, as if you were looking at that face straight on.

These cards are live: tap one and that face turns on the cube - or press the same letter on your keyboard: U D L R F B. Four turns of the same face bring the cube back to where it started.

Two marks change a letter's meaning. An apostrophe like U′ means counterclockwise, and is spoken “U prime”. A U2 means turn the face twice. Every move card in this guide carries a small arrow so you always know the direction at a glance.

Feel the difference: tap U then U′ and the cube is back where it began - a prime undoes its plain twin. Two taps of U2 do the same. On a keyboard, hold Shift with a face letter for the prime turn.

A sequence of moves in a specific order is called an algorithm. You will learn only a handful of short ones, each laid out move by move on cards like these.

One rule matters when following an algorithm: the face you start with as the front stays the front for the whole sequence. Do not re-grip halfway through.

Occasionally the method asks you to rotate the entire cube between algorithms. In this guide the cube rotates itself when that happens, so you can focus on the turns.

Begin with the yellow center on the up face. It feels backwards to start the white layer by looking at yellow, but the daisy makes the next stage almost automatic.

From here on, tiles that do not matter yet are dimmed, exactly like the gray tiles in the printed guide. Focus only on what is lit - right now, the four white edges.

This is a finished daisy: four white edge tiles around the yellow center, like petals - they are glowing on the cube.

Look closely at their sides: none of the side colors line up with the centers below them, and that is completely fine. A daisy only cares that white points up. Matching the sides comes later, in the cross stage.

Look at the top layer first. Any edge that already shows white on top is a finished petal - the two glowing ones here. Leave those alone and count how many you still need.

Next, scan the middle layer. This cube has a white edge sitting in the middle layer, its white tile facing sideways - it is glowing. Turn the front face so the edge rises into the top layer. Watch it travel.

Careful: if the landing slot on top already holds a petal, a turn would knock it right back out. Both pieces involved are glowing on the cube - the petal in danger and the edge that wants its spot.

Finally, the bottom layer. A white edge tile facing down is two quarter turns from home: turn its face twice and it lands on top with white showing up.

Sometimes an edge reaches the top layer with its white tile facing sideways instead of up. Hold the cube so the flipped edge is on the right face, then run your first real algorithm. Three moves: out, over, back in.

Time to do it yourself. Three scrambles, from easy to sneaky. The cube is yours - drag faces to turn them. Remember: any four white petals count, no matter what their side colors do.

Keep the daisy on top. Pick one petal - the one nearest you - and look at its front tile (the color that is not white). Turn the up face until that tile sits directly above the center of the same color.

With that one petal matched, turn its face twice. The white tile travels to the bottom face, and the matched color stays glued to its center on the way down. The other petals stay on top - you will come back for them next.

That is the whole loop: match one petal, send it down, turn the cube to face the next one, and repeat. Four petals, four times. Sometimes a lucky top turn lines up more than one petal - send each matched one down before you spin the top again.

Flip the cube over and admire it: a white cross, with each arm's side tile matching the center below it. That side matching is what separates a real cross from a lucky daisy.

A daisy whose petals are out of order. Match and sink them one at a time - the last drill is the rare lucky case where one spin lines them all up.

Hold the cube with the white cross up. A corner piece belongs exactly where its three colors meet: the glowing white, red, and blue corner goes between the white, red, and blue centers. No exceptions, so you can always work out a corner's home just by reading its colors.

Find a white corner in the bottom layer. Turn the bottom face until that corner sits directly between the two side centers that match its colors, right under its home.

Hold the cube so the corner's white tile faces you. If the corner sits on the right side of the front, walk it in with four moves. Think of it as one motion: out of the way, open the slot, carry it in, lift it home.

Mirror image: if the white tile faces you on the left side of the front, the same dance runs through the left hand.

If a white corner sits in the top layer but in the wrong spot, evict it first. Hold the cube so the corner is on the right, then drop it to the bottom layer. From there, park it under its slot and insert as usual.

One awkward case remains: the corner is under its slot but its white tile points straight down, so neither insert applies. Twist it out and back to make the white tile face front, then insert it with the moves you already know.

Four corners, four situations. Each drill is one corner away from a finished layer.

The entire first layer is done: a solid white face with a matching ring of colors around it. Now flip the cube over so white faces down. It stays there for the rest of the solve, and everything from here happens on top.

Pick any front face. Turn the top face until the edge above the center forms a vertical line of one color with it, like the blue line the glowing edge makes here. Only edges without yellow belong in the middle layer, so skip any edge showing yellow.

Now read the edge's top tile. Its color tells you whether the edge needs to travel left or right to reach its slot.

The top tile here is red, matching the center on the right. The edge moves right, in two halves of four moves. Step through slowly and keep your eye on the glowing edge the whole way.

Here the top tile is orange, matching the left center, so everything mirrors: same dance, other hand.

Sometimes no vertical line is possible from any side, because a middle edge is sitting in a slot the wrong way around. Hold the cube so that misplaced edge is in the front right slot, then run the right insert once to eject it.

One edge left in each drill, and none of them are lined up yet. Form the line, pick a direction, insert.

Two full layers done. Everything that remains lives in the top layer, and from here to the end you never break the bottom two layers again. The final stretch is four short stages: cross, orient, position, position.

Look only at the yellow edge tiles on top and ignore the corners. You will see one of three shapes: a lone dot, an L, or a line.

The hold matters: point the L's arms to the back and left, or lay the line horizontally. The cube on screen is an L, held correctly.

With the shape held correctly, run the six moves below.

One pass does not always finish the cross, but it always moves you one shape closer: dot becomes L, L becomes cross. After each run, rematch your cube to one of the three pictures and run it again.

All three shapes, hardest first. Work the algorithm and the re-holds yourself; Show me will walk any drill if you get lost.

With the cross done, count how many corner tiles on the top face are yellow: none, one, or two. Each count has a hold, and a saying to remember it by.

None yellow: hold so a yellow corner tile looks at you from the left face. “None, left.”

One yellow: the single yellow corner and the cross form a fish. Point its nose to the front left, so it can eat out of your left hand.

Two yellow: hold so your left thumb rests on a yellow tile at the front left. “I see two, my left thumb's on you.”

Held correctly, run the seven moves below. Notice the rhythm: the right face alternates direction every other time, while the up face always turns clockwise.

Like the cross, this stage loops: run the algorithm, recount the yellow corners, re-hold by the sayings, and run it again. You may need several passes, and that is normal.

Three counts, three holds. Take each one the rest of the way.

Twist the top face until two corners land in their correct spots, side colors matching the centers below. Correctly placed corners sitting together look like the tail lights of a car - the glowing pair here - and tail lights belong at the back. Hold the cube that way.

With the tail lights in back, this swaps the two glowing front corners. It is the longest algorithm in the method, so the printed guide teaches it as a chant - follow along under each move.

If no two correct corners sit together, they are diagonal. Run the algorithm once from any hold: tail lights will appear. Put them in the back and run it once more.

Corners may look solved from the top - yellow everywhere - but their side colors give them away. Seat them properly.

By now one side of the cube is completely solid. Hold that face at the back, yellow still up. If no face is solid yet, any back works for the first pass.

Before you turn anything, read the glowing unsolved edge on the front: if its color matches the left center, the edges need to cycle left. If it matches the right center, they cycle right.

Here the front edge matches the left center, so the three glowing edges hop one seat to the left. Up to three passes finish the cube; usually one does it.

On this cube the front edge matches the right center instead. Same algorithm, with both U turns switched to U′.

Three edges out of place. Everything you need, you already know.

That is the whole method: daisy, cross, corners, middle layer, yellow cross, orient, position, position. Every scramble in the world falls to those same eight stages.

Scramble the cube and run the journey end to end - this time with nothing dimmed and no help lit up. The cube is all yours here: drag faces, or turn with the letter keys.

When the layered method feels automatic, speedcubers graduate to CFOP, which collapses these stages into fewer, bigger algorithms. A guide for it is on the way.