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F2L is an advanced way to go about solving the first two layers of the Rubik’s Cube. It’s the most important element of speed solving the Rubik’s Cube. In F2L, the first and second layers are solved in the same step instead of separately. While generally used by speedcubers and cubing competitors, even beginners can employ F2L to improve their times.
Steps
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Bring an edge piece and a corresponding corner piece into the top layer. Just put a corner and edge piece which correspond into the top layer. You should be able to do this easily if you are an intermediate solver.- At this stage, there is no need to put them together or reorient anything. Just make sure they are in the top layer.
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Get the pieces across from each other. If they are together, break them apart, unless they are correctly paired. What you have to do is get them parallel from each other using the directions below.
- To get a corner and an edge across from each other, find an empty slot and put it behind your corner piece. Then turn the face the corner piece is on down, making sure that it’s the empty slot that gets put into the top layer, not something you’ve solved. Move the edge piece so it is across from the corner piece. More help on this can be found at the bottom of this article.
- If they are already across from each other, you can skip this step.
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Determine whether the colors are different or the same. Either the colors facing up on your edge and corner piece will be the same, or different. Or your corner will have white facing up. Determining this is the most important for the next part of F2L.
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Know what to do if your top colors are matching. For example, if you have a blue and red edge piece and its corner and blue is facing up both times, you have this case. This is one of the hardest to solve, so we will cover it first.
- Find an empty slot on the Rubik’s cube, and put your corner in front of it. Now turn that face down so that the empty slot comes into the top layer. This is called hiding, and will allow you to hide away your corner piece so that you can move your edge where you will have formed a matching pair after the corner piece comes back up. The hiding process is explained step by step at the bottom of this article.
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Know what to do if the corner has white facing up. This is the second case, and you will have to change it to another case by moving your corner.
- With your corner in the front-left, move the left face up, turn your top layer so both the corner and edge are out of the way, and then bring the left side back down in order to change to one of the other cases in this article.
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Know what to do if your colors are not matching. This is the easiest case in this step. What you have to do is explained below.
- Take the corner piece, put it in the front left or front right, then move the left or right face up to join them. Then move the top layer so that the pair is now in line with the face you moved up, and bring it back down. For other cases, inserting the pair is coming in the next step.
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Don’t mess up because of three F2L pairs solved and inserted. When you get into the next step, you will insert your pair into its slot. But once you are three-quarters of the way done, this is where you can mess up.
- In order to prevent yourself from ruining the already solved pairs, always make sure the slot behind where you are hiding your corner piece is empty.
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Find the slot the pair needs to be inserted into. This will be the place your corner and edge pair will be inserted into. This is the place where, after you insert the edge and corner, both of them will be correct.
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Move the pair out of the way to prepare for insertion.
- Turn the top layer so that the F2L pair is out of the way. In order to bring the empty slot into the top layer, the edge and corner pair will have to be moved out of the way.
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Bring the empty slot up into the top layer, without breaking up your F2L pair. This is important to get the edge and corner pair actually into its slot.
- If the pair breaks when you do it, you are doing it in the wrong direction.
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Move the edge and corner pair over where it needs to go. This is the slot that you brought up in order to insert the F2L pair.
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Bring the slot back down. After this is done, you will have solved an F2L pair! Continue to build the second F2L pair after the first has been built and inserted. After you are done with all 4, the first two layers will be solved.
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Always use an empty slot to hide pieces. This is one of the most common ways to mess up F2L. As we go into detail about hiding, make sure you are not ruining a solved pair by using an empty slot, even if three of F2L pairs our solved.
- If you forget about this, you may have to go back when you accidentally knock out a solved pair.
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Take a corner piece and position it as shown. Make sure that the pair behind where your corner is is empty. This is the one that matters. This is important to make sure that you can properly hide your corner and move your edge piece around.
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Bring the corner down so it’s now “invisible” from the top layer. The reason why hiding works is that you are allowing the edge piece to move without the corner piece. Since the corner piece is away in the lower layers, and only an empty slot came into the top layer, the edge piece can be moved without the corner.
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Move the edge piece into its desired position. Make sure that it’s in the position where the corner can come up safely to form a pair. If not you may only mess things up.
- If you’ve done it correctly, then when you bring the corner piece back up you will have formed a pair.
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Bring the corner piece back up. Remember how we moved the corner down in order to hide it? Well, now what you have to do is bring the corner back up. After you do this, your F2L pair will be created.
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Community Q&A
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QuestionWhat if you use roux?BobCommunity AnswerIf you use roux, then ignore this. Instead, find more efficient ways that only work in roux.
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Tips
- Using F2L is one of the most important parts of becoming fast on the Rubik’s Cube. You can achieve very fast solving times by combining F2L with muscle memory.Thanks
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Expert Interview
Thanks for reading our article! If you’d like to learn more about rubik's cubes and puzzles, check out our in-depth interview with Timothy Huynh .
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