Cube notation: how to read moves

Algorithms are written as letters. Learn these six and you can read any of them.

The six faces

Hold the cube so one face points at you. That face is the front, whatever its colour.

Which way to turn

• A letter on its own (R) means turn that face a quarter turn clockwise, as if you were looking straight at that face.
  • For R the front column of the right side goes up.
  • For U the front row goes to the left.
• A letter with an apostrophe (R', said "R prime") means a quarter turn the other way, anticlockwise.
• A letter with a 2 (R2) means a half turn. Either direction works. The player pauses briefly between the two quarters so you can see it's two turns.

Reading an algorithm

R U R' U' means: right side up, top to the left, right side down, top to the right. Do the moves left to right, without changing how you hold the cube.

Brackets and ×3 mean "repeat": (R U R' U') ×3 is those four moves three times.

Undoing an algorithm

To undo a sequence, play it backwards, with every move reversed:

• R U R' U R U2 R' is undone by R U2 R' U' R U' R'.
• Prime moves become plain, plain moves become prime, and 2 stays 2.

Use this when you lose track in the middle of an algorithm.

A good first exercise

Repeat R U R' U' six times from a solved cube. It scrambles a bit, then the cube comes back to solved. If it doesn't, one of your turns went the wrong way. This little sequence is used all through the beginner method.

Common mistakes

• Turning R the wrong way. Imagine looking at the right face from the right: clockwise from there is "front column up".
• Rotating the whole cube between moves. Keep the same face pointing at you for the whole algorithm.
• Doing U' instead of U. For U, the front row goes left.