Tips for solving the Rubik’s cube 3×3

Tips for solving the Rubik's cube

Tired of solving your favorite puzzle with the basic beginners method? Would you like to improve your solving time by learning tips? You are on the right place... I am going to give you all the tips that will help improve your Rubik's cube skills and allow you to solve it much quicker. I guess that you already know how to solve the 3x3 Rubik's cube.

This page does not present a new method but many improvements to the existing beginners method. Most of the time it's small tips but can save you time. I also introduce two new way of solving a given step. This will help you to solve the cube much faster. If you have learned to solve the cube with our 3x3 solution for dummies, these tips will help you too.

All these tips and optimizations should make you solve the cube in under 30 seconds. With a basic beginners method, you probably solve it between 1 and 2 minutes. This shows you how much these tips are going to help you. This improvement will be done by only a couple of new algorithms to learn. You do not have to learn everything at once, you can just improve progressively and learn new algorithms when you have some time. If you are not familiar with the beginners method, I encourage you to have a look on how to solve the Rubik's cube and also to our solution for dummies.

Last layer tips

At each step of the last layer on the beginners method, I am going to give you a couple of tips and formulas that will allow you to solve the Rubik's cube faster. By choosing the right algorithm, you should be able to only use one algorithm for each step. This should be a big improvement as you currently need to do the same algorithm many times.

Sometimes, I will add brackets to an algorithm. There is nothing different, it's just a tip for you. The idea is to group the sequences of moves that can be performed really fast. They are usually done together without moving the hands, just the fingers. Let's have a look at these tips!

Tips for step 4 on how to orient the edges

Two adjacent edges are yellow on top

If you are in this case, instead of doing the usual formula twice in a row, try : F U R U' R' F'

moves will appear here

No yellow on top for the edges

Here again, you can orient the four edges at once, with the algorithm : R U R' U (R' F R F') U2 (R' F R F')

moves will appear here

Tips for step 5 : Permuting edges

The two edges are on opposite faces

This algorithm is a bit long but can be done without moving the hands away from the cube. The best speedcubers usually do it under one second. Here is the formula : R U R' U' R' F R2 U' R' U' R U R' F'.

moves will appear here

Step 6 in solving the cube : Corners permutation

One corner is in the right place

As you probably noticed with the beginners method, sometimes you have to do the formula twice. This is when the three corners have to be permuted the other way around. Thanks to the following formula, you only need to execute it once : L' U R U' L U R' U'. You will note that this is the formula but the moves are done in the reverse order.

moves will appear here

No corner is correctly in place. Corners need to be swapped in diagonal

Very easy to remember : Rw2 R2 U Rw2 R2 U2 Rw2 R2 U Rw2 R2 U2. It can be performed really fast, under a second.

moves will appear here

No corner is correctly in place. Corners need to be swapped parallel

I would advice you to learn this one last. This is indeed the most difficult and the longest to learn. Good luck with it : Lw U'R'D (R U R') Uw2 R'U R D R'U' Lw.

First two layers technique : The free corner

The free corner is an interesting tip to solve faster the first two layers. I do say interesting because it is more intuitive than the beginners method. It is actually very easy to explain and to understand. It requires a bit a adaptation to start with but will make you save a lot of time in the long run.

Let's start again with a scrambled cube and start with the white cross. Done ? Perfect, let's continue. The white layer has to be on the bottom from now on.

The free corner is called so because we are not going to finish the first face completely. We are solving the first three corner and leaving the four spot unsolved. Then, we are going to use this unsolved corner to solve the three edges corresponding to the corners that are already solved. To do that, we are going to :

• Position the edge to solve on the top layer just next to where it needs to go once solved.
• Turn the bottom face so that the free corner is now under the edge location.
• Now insert the edge with just three moves : R U R' if you need to put it on the right or L' U' L if you need to put it on the left.

Let's look at the animation below. The free corner is the blue red white corner. The red green white corner is already solved. We are going to solve the red green edge with the following algorithm : D R U' R' D'. The other moves in the animation should be ignored.

moves will appear here

Do these steps three times. When you just have to solve one corner and one edge remaining, just use the beginners method to solve the corner first and then the edge.

Again, another Rubik's cube has been solved ! Congratulations. How fast are you now ? If you are still above the minute, some practice will definitely help you !