Notation

Single face rotations

Capital letters show which side of the cube to turn:

• Front, Back, Right, Left, Up (top), or Down (bottom).

A plain capital letter represents a single (90-degree) turn clockwise.

• A prime mark (e.g. R') makes it counterclockwise.
• A "2" (e.g. R2) makes it a double turn (180 degrees).

Wide turns

A wide turn moves two layers at once: the face you name and the layer behind it. The official WCA notation writes a capital letter followed by w, so Rw turns the right two layers. Plain Rw always means two layers; on a 3x3x3, Rw and2Rw are the same move.

• Most cubers write the same move with a lowercase letter, and this site does too: r meansRw, u means Uw, and so on.
• Primes and "2" work as they do for face turns: Rw', Rw2.

Big cube moves

On 4x4x4 and larger cubes, a number in front of a wide move says how many layers turn together, counting in from the named face. 3Rw turns the right three layers. The number must be at least 2 and smaller than the cube's size, so 3Rw is valid on a 4x4x4 or larger but not on a 3x3x3, and1Rw is never used. Leaving the number off means 2.

Big-cube scrambles are written entirely in this notation, such as Rw U2 3Rw' F Uw2 L'. The lowercase shorthand covers only two-layer turns, so a three-layer turn is always written with the number andw.

Middle slice rotations

Some algorithms use the inner layers of a 3x3x3:

• Middle (between L and R, turns like L), Equator (between U and D, turns like D), and Standing (between F and B, turns like F)

Slice moves are not part of the WCA scramble notation, which describes everything with face and wide turns, but they are standard in algorithms, especially for Roux.

Cube rotations

x, y, and z turn the whole cube in the direction ofR, U, and F. They change your grip, not the cube's state, so they do not count as moves in the WCA's Outer Block Turn Metric. Rotations are rare in most methods, buty and y' are the most common.

Reading algorithms

Moves are read left to right. Parentheses group a short, repeated sequence, called a trigger, that you can learn as one unit, and a number after a group repeats it. For example, (R U R' U')2 isR U R' U' R U R' U'. See the common triggers.