Learn
Four tracks. Start wherever you actually are.
Nothing here is locked. A track is a reading order, not a gate — if you have solved a cube before, skip straight past "this is a corner piece". Your level is set to Beginner, which is why that track is highlighted.
Your first solve
Layer by layer, from a scrambled cube to a solved one.
No prior knowledge assumed, and nothing skipped. You will finish with a method that solves any cube every time, using seven short algorithms. It is not the fastest method — that is deliberate. Everything here is a foundation the later tracks build on rather than replace.
- What you are actually holding Why a cube has only twenty moving pieces, why the centres never move, and what that means for solving it. 8 min
- The white cross The first step, and the only one you should work out yourself rather than memorise. 12 min
- The first layer Four corners, one repeated algorithm, and the first thing that feels like magic. 10 min
- The middle layer Two algorithms that are really one algorithm, and the first step where you have to choose between them. 14 min
- The yellow cross One algorithm, three shapes, and the first time you are told to ignore most of what you can see. 10 min
- The yellow face One algorithm repeated, and the step where you have to trust a cube that looks wrecked. 12 min
- Placing the corners Three corners at a time, and a hunt for the one that is already home. 12 min
- The last edges One three-way swap, run once or twice, and the cube finishes in your hands. 10 min
- Your first solve What to practise now you can finish a cube, why this method is slow, and what changes next. 8 min
Faster, with fewer pauses
Trade memorised steps for understanding, and stop turning the cube so much.
You can already solve it. This track replaces the beginner method piece by piece: pairing corners with edges instead of placing them separately, two-look last layer instead of four steps, and the habits — lookahead, finger tricks, planning the cross — that separate a two-minute solve from a thirty-second one.
- Why the beginner method is slow Where a two-minute solve actually spends its time, and which part of the beginner method each lesson in this track replaces. 10 min
- Planning the cross Build it on the bottom, work it out before the timer starts, and stop turning the cube over. 14 min
- F2L, intuitively Pair each corner with its edge and put them in together — the single largest saving in the whole method, and mostly not memorisation. 22 min
- Two-look OLL Make the whole top face one colour with ten algorithms instead of fifty-seven: three for the edges, seven for the corners. 18 min
- Two-look PLL Move the last-layer pieces to where they belong in two steps: corners first, then edges. Six algorithms, or seven if you want the comfortable one. 18 min
- Lookahead Knowing where the next pair is while your hands are still on this one — the largest saving left after F2L, and the one nobody can hand you. 16 min
- Finger tricks How a turn gets made without regripping, which ones everybody ends up using, and why algorithms are written the way they are. 12 min
Full CFOP
All 57 orientation cases, all 21 permutation cases, and the recognition to match.
The long haul. Learning 78 algorithms is less daunting than it sounds if you take them in groups that share a shape, and this track sets out an order that keeps the payoff coming. Just as much attention goes to recognition, because knowing an algorithm you cannot spot in time is worth nothing.
- Committing to full CFOP What seventy-eight algorithms actually buy you, how long they take, and why they are learnt in shape groups rather than in numerical order. 14 min
- Learning OLL without drowning A concrete order for the fifty-seven cases, why the dots come last, and how to drill a group until it stops needing thought. 20 min
- OLL recognition Reading the case from the stickers instead of counting them, and the single sticker that separates each pair of lookalikes. 16 min
- Learning PLL properly All twenty-one, recognised by headlights and blocks, and why this is the set where fluency pays back most. 20 min
- Cross to first pair What to plan in fifteen seconds beyond the cross, and how to come out of it already knowing which pair goes in first. 16 min
- Getting to sub-20 Where the twenty seconds go, what to measure, and why the answer is almost never that your hands are too slow. 14 min
Past CFOP
Last-layer subsets, alternative methods, and building your own algorithms.
Where the interesting choices are. COLL and Winter Variation for skipping steps, Roux and ZZ for a different shape of solve entirely, and commutators for the point at which you stop looking algorithms up and start working them out.
- The subsets, and what they cost COLL, Winter Variation and ZBLL weighed against the seconds they actually save. Most people should learn COLL and stop. 16 min
- COLL in practice When to reach for it instead of OLL, how to recognise a case in the time you have, and the four edge permutations it leaves you with. 18 min
- Roux, seen from CFOP Two blocks, one corner algorithm and a slice-turn finish. What the method is, why the middle slice is left until last, and whether switching is worth it. 18 min
- ZZ, and the others Edge orientation first, F2L without a single rotation, and a fair account of who Petrus and Mehta actually suit. 16 min
- Commutators The [A, B] pattern, interchange and insertion, and how to build an algorithm for a case nobody has written down. 20 min
- Blindfolded, briefly What a blind solve actually involves, why it is a memory problem rather than a turning one, and why commutators are the door into it. 14 min