Rubik’s Cube is a 3D combination puzzle invented in 1974 by Hungarian sculptor and professor of architecture Ernő Rubik. Originally called the Magic Cube, the puzzle was licensed by Rubik to be sold by Ideal Toy Corp. in 1980 via businessman Tibor Laczi and Seven Towns founder Tom Kremer. Rubik’s Cube won the 1980 German Game of the Year special award for Best Puzzle. As of January 2009, 350 million cubes had been sold worldwide,making it the world’s bestselling puzzle game and bestselling toy.
how to solve a rubik’s cube
These Rubik’s Cube tips will help you to significantly improve your solving time of the Rubik’s cube, they are generally designated for beginners who use the beginners solving method, but they will help also to more experienced solvers. If you don’t know yet how to solve a Rubik’s cube or forgot it, here is the How to Solve a Rubix Cube Guide. Let’s begin:
- Practice, Practice and.. Practice. Practicing is the only way to improve your solving time. There is no way around it. Cutting your solving time requires practicing. However, the following tips will make the practicing much more effective. Without them, practicing may won’t get you that far. Keep in mind that most of these tips will
show their success only after a bit of practicing. - Get a quality Rubik’s Cube. The solving time depends on two things: you, and the cube. Let’s focus on the other one: A Hard turning cube that stuck all the time will dramatically increase your solving time. Moreover, a quality cube will make the practice much more effective and fun, and will allow implementing tricks like fingertricks much more easily and effectively. Read my: Best Speedcubes Guide – where I review the best cubes in the market, what to look for in a cube, and what cubes does the world-record holders use.
- Know the algorithms by heart. Practice until you’ll be able to execute the algorithms without thinking about their notation. In order to do this, execute an algorithm couple of times, after some time you’ll be able to execute it just with your “hands memory” and without having to think about its notation. Your solving time will dramatically reduce.
- Look ahead. The solving time splits into two parts: the execution time of an algorithm, and the time it takes until you start executing it (looking for the next piece, realizing what algorithm to use and from what angle). Algs execution time is basically a matter of practice and good technique, Just keep practicing to work on that. The “thinking” part is a different story, many are not aware to, and can take up to half of your total solving time. In order to reduce the ‘thinking‘ time you should: while executing the current algorithm- Instead of watching the pieces being solved, already start to look for the next piece to solve. Slow down a little bit your execution speed toward the end of the algorithm, and make it much easier to find the next piece to solve while still working on the current alg. This slowing down will triple its value in the time reduced in the thinking part, Even for people that solve the cube under 10 seconds!. For example: in step 3, when solving the middle layer edges, try to completely avoid looking at the being solved edge piece, and start looking for the next edge piece to solve. Eventually you’ll success finding it before completing the execution of the current algorithm. That will allow you to start the next algorithm immediately after finishing the previous one without loosing time. It won’t be easy at first, and requires some practice and implementing tip #3, but implementing this tip will help you to drop your solving time substantially, more than all other tips! That is one of the key-factors for sub minute, sub 30, and even sub 10 & 20 second solving time! (this tip will be effective mostly in steps 2-3, but still very effective in all steps)
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Use fingertricks. This tip is aiming at shortening your execution time. That will be accomplished by using fingertricks. Fingertricks means performing a single move (rotation) with a single finger instead of the whole hand. The easiest finger trick is executing a U or U’ with the right/left index finger. Most finger tricks will eventually come naturally with practicing, but being aware of them will shorten this process. However, There are some finger tricks that won’t come naturally and will require some practice in order to implement them in your solving. All faces are rotatable using 1 finger move, however, that sometime requires changing the grip of the rubik’s cube in your hand. Implementing fingertricks will substantially reduce your algs execution time.
