SpeedSolving.com: learn to solve the cube, then get fast
Learn to solve the cube. Then get fast, with 52,000 people who did the same.
Free help from cubers who remember being stuck. Ask anything in the help forum, compete every week from your own desk, and keep a log of your times as you improve.
- Ask a question and get an answer from real cubers
- Enter the weekly competition in any event
- Keep your times, PBs and a progression log
- 2x2
- 3x3
- 4x4
- 5x5
- 6x6
- 7x7
- One-handed
- Blindfolded
- Fewest moves
- Pyraminx
- Megaminx
- Skewb
- Square-1
- Clock
Where are you right now?
Pick the one that fits. Each path is three steps and ends with other people cheering you on.
I have never solved one
Most people learn their first solve in a weekend with the beginner's method. You need one cube and about two hours.
- Follow the seven steps below, or the full layer-by-layer guide on our wiki
- Stuck on a step? Ask in Cubing Help, most questions get an answer within the hour
- Post your first solve in Introductions
I can solve it, I want to be faster
Sub-minute to sub-20 is mostly method and habits, not talent. This is what the forum is best at.
- Learn CFOP, the method most fast cubers use
- Start a progression log: your times, your goals, advice from people a step ahead
- Time yourself with the free timer, it keeps your history
I'm fast, I want to compete
A new online competition every week, with 3x3 through 7x7, blindfolded, one-handed, FMC and more. No travel, no entry fee.
- Enter this week's competition, 148 cubers already have
- Follow world and national records as they happen
- Find a local group and meet people in person
I've never solved a cube before Open the seven-step beginner's guide, with the video tutorials most of us learned from.
Solve your first cube in seven steps
The beginner's layer-by-layer method, the way almost everyone here learned it. Each step is one small goal and one short sequence of turns. Expect a weekend, not a month.
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Step 1
Get to know your cube
Centres never move: the centre colour is the colour that whole side will be.
Hold the cube with white on top. The six sides are Up, Down, Front, Back, Right and Left, written U D F B R L. A letter means turn that side a quarter clockwise; an apostrophe (R') means anticlockwise.
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Step 2
The white cross
Four white edges on top, each one's side colour matching the centre below it.
Most people start with a daisy: the four white edges around the yellow centre, then turn the top so each petal sits over its matching centre and flip it down with two turns of that face.
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Step 3
The white corners
The whole first layer solved: white face done and the top row of every side matching its centre.
Find a white corner in the bottom layer, turn the bottom so it sits under the slot it belongs in, then repeat the right-hand sequence until it drops in. Four times and the first layer is done.
R U R' U' -
Step 4
The middle layer
Two layers solved. Turn the cube over so white is on the bottom and yellow on top.
Look for a top-layer edge with no yellow on it. Turn the top so its front colour matches a centre, then send it left or right into the middle layer with one of two mirror-image sequences.
U R U' R' U' F' U F (to the right) -
Step 5
The yellow cross
A yellow cross on the top face. The corners can wait.
One short sequence turns a dot into an L, an L into a line and a line into a cross. Hold the L in the top-left, or the line horizontal, and repeat it until the cross appears.
F R U R' U' F' -
Step 6
The yellow face
All nine yellow stickers on top.
With a yellow corner in the bottom-left of the top face pointing at you, or no yellow corners at all with one facing left, repeat the Sune sequence until the top is all yellow.
R U R' U R U2 R' -
Step 7
Finish the last layer
Every side one colour. Solved.
Two more sequences: one swaps the top corners into place (find a side whose two top corners already match and hold it at the back), the other cycles the last three edges. Then turn the top to line everything up.
Corners: R' F R' B2 R F' R' B2 R2 Edges: R U' R U R U R U' R' U' R2
Prefer to watch? These are the tutorials most of us learned from
Learn How to Solve a Rubik's Cube in 10 MinutesJ Perm on YouTube. The beginner tutorial this forum recommends most often.
How to Solve a Rubik's CubeWIRED on YouTube, taught by Tyson Mao, co-founder of the World Cube Association.
CubeSkills
Beginner's Method video seriesFeliks Zemdegs, two-time world champion, on CubeSkills. Free, one short video per step.
Current world records
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most posts in the last 7 daysRegular threads newcomers join first: the Example Solve threads, the Accomplishment thread, Easy and Lucky Scrambles. Nobody minds a first post.