Reference Card

Cube Notation

Every algorithm you will ever learn is written in this language. Hold the cube with one face toward you; all letters are defined from that fixed viewpoint.

Face turns

Six faces, six letters. A bare letter is a 90° clockwise turn as if you were looking directly at that face — which is why L and R feel like they move in opposite directions from your viewpoint.

Letter	Face	Clockwise means (from your seat)
U	Up (top)	top layer turns leftward
D	Down (bottom)	bottom layer turns rightward
R	Right	right column rolls away from you
L	Left	left column rolls toward you
F	Front (facing you)	front layer turns like a clock
B	Back	back layer turns counter-clockwise, seen through the cube

Modifiers

Symbol	Name	Meaning
' (prime)	Inverse	90° counter-clockwise. R' undoes R.
2	Double	180° turn. Direction is irrelevant; U2 = U2'.

The inverse rule

To undo a sequence, reverse the order and invert every move — exactly like unwinding a stack of function calls.

R U F ' ⟲ F R' U'

Undo of R U F' is F U' R' — last move first, each move inverted.

Later notation (skim now, learn when needed)

Symbol	Name	Meaning
M E S	Slice moves	Middle layers only. M follows the L direction, E follows D, S follows F.
r, Rw, etc.	Wide moves	Turn that face plus its adjacent middle layer — two layers at once.
x y z	Rotations	Whole-cube reorientation, no layers move relative to each other. x like R, y like U, z like F.

Color scheme (Western standard)

White opposite yellow, green opposite blue, red opposite orange. With white up and green facing you, red is on the right. Centers never move relative to each other — they define which face is which.

Canonical source with animations: J Perm — Move Notation. Part of the speedcubing course · see Lesson 1.