You’ve seen it on a shelf. Maybe it’s been sitting on your desk for three years, gathering dust and mocking you with its scrambled, chaotic faces. Most people pick up a Rubik’s Cube, twist it for five minutes, get one side done, and then realize they’ve completely destroyed any progress they made on the other colors. They give up. They think you have to be a math genius or some kind of savant to figure out how to solve a 3 by 3.
Honestly? That’s total nonsense.
Solving the cube isn't about being a genius. It's about muscle memory. It's about recognizing patterns that have been standardized since Erno Rubik first scrambled his prototype back in 1974. If you can follow a recipe for sourdough bread, you can solve this puzzle. But the way most "guides" teach it is actually counter-intuitive. They jump straight into complex notation like $R' U R U'$ without explaining why those moves work or how to look at the cube as a set of moving pieces rather than just stickers.
The Mental Shift: It’s Not About the Stickers
Before you even make a move, you have to understand the anatomy of the thing. This is where everyone messes up. You aren't moving "stickers." You are moving pieces. Specifically, there are three types of pieces: centers, edges, and corners.
The center pieces? They don't move. Ever. The white center is always opposite the yellow center. Blue is always opposite green. Red is always opposite orange. If you have a cube where red is next to orange, you’ve either got a weird knock-off or someone has been peeling stickers. Because the centers are fixed, they tell you what color a face is supposed to be. If the middle piece is blue, that whole side must become the blue side.
Edge pieces have two colors. Corner pieces have three. You can never move an edge piece into a corner slot. It sounds obvious, but once you start twisting, people lose track of this basic geometry. Stop looking at the cube as 54 individual squares. Look at it as 20 moving parts (12 edges, 8 corners) revolving around a fixed core.
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Phase One: The Cross and the Foundation
Most beginners start by solving one side. That's fine, but if you don't align the edges with the side centers, you've basically built a house on a swamp. You need to create a "White Cross" on the top, but those white edges must also match the colors on the side faces.
Here is a pro tip: start with the "Daisy." It’s the unofficial, ultra-easy way to get the cross. You put the four white edge pieces around the yellow center first. It looks like a flower. Why do this? Because it lets you align the side colors one by one without messing up what you’ve already done. Once a white-red edge is lined up with the red center, you just rotate that face 180 degrees to send it down to the white center.
Simple.
Once the cross is done, you tuck the corners in. You’ve probably heard of the "Sexy Move." In cubing notation, it’s $R U R' U'$. It is the backbone of almost every solve. You repeat those four moves, and eventually, a corner piece will rotate into its correct spot. If you do it right, you’ll have the entire bottom layer finished, and—this is the crucial part—the "T" shapes on all four sides will be aligned.
Dealing with the Middle Layer
Now the cube is upside down. White is on the bottom. You’re looking at the yellow top. This is usually where people get stuck because they’re afraid of breaking the white layer they just spent ten minutes fixing.
You’re looking for edge pieces on the top layer that do not have yellow on them. If an edge piece has yellow, it belongs on the top. If it doesn’t, it belongs in the middle layer. You align the edge with its matching center, then perform a sequence to "slot" it into the left or right.
It feels like magic the first time it happens. You’re essentially moving the piece out of the way, lifting the slot up, putting the piece in, and bringing it back down. If you find a piece is already in the middle layer but flipped the wrong way? Don't panic. You just "kick it out" by putting a random yellow piece in its place, then re-inserting it correctly.
The Top Layer: Orientation and Permutation
This is the home stretch. By now, the bottom two-thirds of your cube are solid. The top layer (the yellow side) is where the real "algorithms" come in. This is the part of how to solve a 3 by 3 that feels the most like a chore, but it’s actually just two steps: OLL (Orientation of the Last Layer) and PLL (Permutation of the Last Layer).
- The Yellow Cross: You don't care about the corners yet. You just want a yellow cross on top. You use the algorithm $F (R U R' U') F'$. If you have a "line," hold it horizontally. If you have an "L-shape," hold it in the back-left.
- The Yellow Face: Now you turn the whole top yellow. The "Sune" algorithm ($R U R' U R U2 R'$) is the classic tool here. It’s named after a Swedish cuber and it’s arguably the most famous sequence in the hobby.
- Positioning the Corners: Look for "headlights"—two corners of the same color on one side.
- The Final Edges: This is the "H-Perm" or "U-Perm" stage. You’re just swapping the last three or four edges into their final homes.
Why Speedcubers Do It Differently
If you watch someone like Max Park or Feliks Zemdegs, they aren't using these beginner steps. They use a method called CFOP (Cross, F2L, OLL, PLL).
The biggest difference is "F2L" (First Two Layers). Instead of doing the corners and then the middle edges separately, they pair them up and slide them in together. It’s way faster but requires memorizing about 41 different cases. Then there’s OLL and PLL, which involve another 78 algorithms.
For a casual solver, that is overkill. Stick to the beginner's method. It’ll get you to a sub-two-minute solve, which is plenty to impress your friends at a party.
Common Pitfalls and Hardware Issues
Sometimes, you follow the moves perfectly and the cube still won't solve. If you have one single corner twisted, or two edges swapped that shouldn't be, your cube is mathematically unsolvable. This happens if you dropped it and a piece popped out, or if a "friend" decided to be funny and flip a piece manually.
If you’re stuck in an infinite loop, take the cube apart (twist a face 45 degrees and pry an edge out) and put it back together in the solved state. This "resets" the puzzle's internal logic.
Also, the hardware matters. Those old-school 1980s cubes are clunky. They lock up. They require precise alignment. Modern "speedcubes" from brands like GAN, MoYu, or QiYi use magnets and rounded internal plastic. They feel like butter. If you’re serious about learning how to solve a 3 by 3, spend the $10 on a magnetic entry-level speedcube. It makes the learning process significantly less frustrating because the cube won't fight you.
Taking Action: Your First Solve
Don't try to memorize everything at once. It won't work. Your brain will turn to mush.
- Step 1: Just practice making the "Daisy" and the White Cross until you can do it without looking at a guide. This builds your spatial awareness.
- Step 2: Master the "Sexy Move" ($R U R' U'$). Do it with your right hand. Do it with your left hand ($L' U' L U$). This move alone handles about 50% of the solve.
- Step 3: Use a "Cheat Sheet." There is no shame in looking at the algorithms while you learn. Eventually, your fingers will remember the moves even if your mind forgets the letters.
The first time you solve it, it’ll probably take you thirty minutes and a lot of swearing. The second time? Ten minutes. By the tenth time, you’ll be doing it in under three minutes. The cube isn't a test of IQ; it's a test of persistence. Once you break the barrier of that first solve, the "mystery" disappears, and it becomes a meditative, tactile habit that’s hard to put down.
Pick it up. Scramble it. Start with the white cross. You've got this.