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🧊 Learn CFOP

The way fast people solve it. The beginner method does seven steps, one layer at a time, and takes about a minute and a half. CFOP does four — and it is the same four steps whether you take thirty seconds or set a world record. This page walks you through it in order, one step at a time.

Getting fast — how people solve it in under ten seconds

There is no secret method
The people you see solving in eight seconds are using exactly what is on this page — CFOP, these very cases. Once you have learnt them, you know everything a world-record holder knows. The difference between thirty seconds and eight is not knowledge; it is hands and eyes, and here is where the time actually goes.
Look-ahead — the big one
A fast solver is never looking at the pair they are solving. Their hands do it from memory while their eyes hunt for the next pair, so there is no pause between stages — the moment one pair lands the next begins. Practise this by solving slowly on purpose: turn at a steady crawl and refuse to let your hands stop. Slow and smooth beats fast and stuttery, every time.
Inspection
In competition you get fifteen seconds to look before the timer starts. The fast ones plan the entire cross in that time — every move of it — and solve it without looking, eyes already on the first pair. That is why the advice on the cross page says to spend your looking time there.
Finger tricks
Turns come from the fingertips, not the wrist: a U-turn is one flick of the index finger, and the cube never gets regripped between moves. This is why algorithm choice matters — of two algorithms the same length on paper, one may flow twice as fast under real fingers. It is also why speedcubes have magnets: the layers snap square so sloppy fast turns do not jam.
The honest ladder
Beginner method, about a minute and a half. CFOP learnt, about thirty seconds. Look-ahead trained, under twenty. From there to ten is years of ordinary practice — thousands of solves, a few a day — not a thing anybody can teach you in a page. Every fast solver climbed exactly this ladder, and none of them skipped a rung.

How to Use It

What CFOP is
Cross, First two layers, Orient the last layer, Permute the last layer. The beginner's method does the layers one at a time; CFOP does the first two together and then finishes the top in two goes. It is how nearly every fast solver solves a cube.
Reading the pictures
The small case pictures look down at the top of the cube with the four sides folded out around it — for the orientation cases, yellow means that sticker already shows the top colour and grey means it does not. The big flat picture next to the turning cube is the whole cube unfolded: top above the front, bottom below it, and the four sides in a row. Nothing is hidden, so you can see the bottom layers being built even when the 3D view is facing the other way.
Stepping through
Click any case to open it. The cube turns in three dimensions as each move plays, with the move being made picked out in the algorithm underneath — Next and Back go a move at a time, Play runs the whole thing, and the arrow keys work too. Drag the cube round to see the back of it. The speed slider goes from very slow, for following along with a cube in your hands, up to full speed. The flat picture beside it is worked out from the same moves, so the two can never disagree.
The left hand
Every case also shows its mirror — the same thing done with the left hand. It is worked out from the right-hand algorithm rather than kept as a second list, so the two can never drift apart. Fast solvers use whichever hand the case favours.
Trying it on a real cube
Every case shows the moves that set it up from a solved cube. Do those, and your cube is in the case — then try the algorithm. That is the fastest way to learn one.
Where to start
Do not try to learn all 78. Start with Sune and Anti-sune in the orientations, and the T and U permutations. Those four alone will get you through a great many solves, and the rest can wait.
Why the numbers are what they are
There are exactly 57 orientation cases and 21 permutation cases, and this page does not take that on trust. The top layer's four corners can each be twisted three ways and its four edges flipped two, with the twists having to add up to a whole turn and the flips to an even number. That gives 216 arrangements, which come to 58 once you count the ones that are the same picture turned round — and one of those 58 is a cube that is already done. Hence 57.

Once This Is Second Nature

Advanced CFOP picks up from here — Winter Variation, COLL, VLS, BLE and CLS, the techniques that read the last slot and the top layer together instead of one after the other.