Twisting Puzzles
Pocket Cube (2x2x2) - Simple Solution

Notation

pocket cube notation

The letters represent clockwise rotations of one of the cube faces. If you need to turn the face anticlockwise, there will be an apostrophe after the letter.

For example, R U' R' means rotate the right face 90° clockwise, rotate the upper face 90° anticlockwise, rotate the right face 90° anticlockwise.

Step 1 - Complete The Top Layer

Your first job is to solve the top layer of the cube. In the example below, the white face has been solved.

pocket cube image

You must look carefully at where these white corners are placed. The colours that connect to the other faces must also be solved before moving on.

Step 2 - Orient Bottom Corners

Turn the cube over so that you can see the bottom face (yellow on my cube).

Rotate the cube with the bottom face up until you have an incorrectly oriented corner as the top left corner of the cube as it faces you.

Use one of the following moves to correctly orient the corner depending on which of the positions the corner is currently in.

Yellow Sticker FrontYellow Sticker Left
pocket cube imagepocket cube image
D L D' L' D L D' L'L D L' D' L D L' D'

Once the corner is correctly oriented, rotate the U face until the next incorrectly oriented corner takes the position of the one that you have just oriented. Do the sequence of moves that is required and continue until all corners are correctly oriented.

If you do this correctly, you will not lose the layer that you started with although it looks like it when you are doing the moves. Start again if you make a mistake. It's easy to make a mistake with this until you get used to doing it from memory.

Step 3 - Permute Bottom Corners

Unless you were very lucky, you should now have a cube with one layer solved. The bottom face should have the correct colours but the corners may still need to be moved about.

BottomTop
pocket cube imagepocket cube image

In the image above, the cube is solved except for 2 corners on the bottom face which need to be switched over.

You can swap the position of 2 corners (without messing anything else up) by using the following sequence of moves, holding the cube as shown in the diagram and performing the sequence of moves shown below. Hold the cube as shown below with the solved layer on the top face and the two correctly placed corners on your right.


R' D L D' R D D L' D L D D L'

Sometimes you can't find a pair of corners that are correctly placed - don't worry. Just do the algorithm anywhere with the solved layer face up and then you will magically find what you need.