How To Solve a 3x3 Rubiks Cube Last Layer (Yellow Cross) - Beginners Method

Hey guys , what is up Rubik's life here ?

Welcome back to the video today .

In this video , I'm gonna be teaching you guys how to solve the Yellow Cross .

Now , I've done videos like this in the past .

If you want to check them out , there's a whole playlist on how to solve the three method , Rubik's Cube using the beginners method or the advanced method .

But in this video , I wanted to go over one of the most common questions I've read throughout all the comments is how to get the Yellow Cross .

A lot of you guys have had either just two yellow pieces or one and you're just confused on how to get them oriented the correct way and put into the right positions .

So today I'm gonna go over a few basic al algorithms you guys can use in order to get your Yellow Cross perfectly solved .

And hopefully next week , I will have a video out of how to get the yellow corners out because a lot of you guys have worried about those too .

So I try to get both of those videos out in the next two weeks .

And uh hopefully you guys like this .

If you have any other further questions or have any other video ideas you guys want me to do , please leave them down in the comments section down below .

Now , the camera is struggling to focus but here we go .

Let's just get started .

OK ?

So as you guys know , I'm gonna put a diagram on the screen here , but it'll show you that you start out with four different cases here .

For the Yellow Cross , you can either have the dot You can have the L shape like this .

You could have the bar just like this or you can have the completed Yellow Cross just like this .

Now , a lot of you guys have struggled with having uh either just one piece or two pieces in places and not sure what to do or you have just a weird case .

Um Now I'm afraid to tell you if you have one piece that's straight up like this , if you have it flipped and there's just one yellow piece and there's a yellow piece here .

It's something to do with your cube .

It's nothing that you did wrong .

It's just your cube has been taken apart in the past and has been uh messed with and my camera keeps going out of focus .

So I apologize for that .

But uh if you have one piece on top and just one like that , there is no way for you to solve it , you're going to have to take that piece out and either flip it upside down or flip another piece up .

Now , it may seem like cheating , but there's no way for you to do that .

That means your cube has been taken apart or tinkered with before or you've taken it apart trying to solve it and just put it back together the incorrect way .

Now , this happens a lot whenever you're speed solving and you have a cube that's not meant for that and it falls apart .

You guys have seen that in my other videos where I'm trying to solve a cube that's not meant to be solved very fast , trying to solve it quickly and pieces pop out and fly everywhere and I just put them back together and then they're not in the right spot that also happens with corner twisting .

Now , this cube that I have is not meant to corner twist like I can do it , but whenever you're solving , it's not gonna happen .

Now , corner twisting is whenever you're solving and you're trying to um turn really quickly and you don't do it very well .

Uh And in the corner we'll just go like this and twist .

Now , that may not seem like a big deal .

But in um speed solving , if your corner is twisted the wrong way , it could mean that you cannot solve your cube and that will result in ad NF in a competition or whenever you're trying to solve it .

Um So this will not allow you to solve your cube .

So those special case that you guys are talking about is probably because your cube has been messed with before and is literally impossible to solve .

So in that case , take out the piece by turning your cube like this , put it in your thumb under and just crying up and this piece will pop out , then you can take out the rest of the cubes .

Now , I have a video on taking a cube apart and lubricating it and tension it .

So you guys can go check that video out and that'll help you if you have trouble getting the cube apart .

Also , if your cube is really , really tight , you can either take off the center cap and loosen it or you can get a screwdriver like a flathead screwdriver and pry up on this part and it'll pop off .

Now , getting into the actual algorithm , I've found an algorithm that is very simple .

It is only six moves and um once you get it going , it's just muscle memory , you can keep it going and going and going .

Now , sometimes I use this method still .

So it works for me and my records like 11 seconds .

So you guys can definitely solve quickly even using this algorithm that I'm about to show you .

And it's very , very simple .

So if you have a dot It does not matter which way you orient your cube as long as the dot is on the very top , you can have it spun any way you want to because there's no other pieces .

Now , the corners do not matter at the moment .

So please ignore all the corners even though there's yellow ones on top that does not matter right .

Now .

What you need to do is do this algorithm .

If you have a dot Now if you have an L shape or a bar , please wait and do not do this algorithm quite yet because I'm gonna show you the way to orient your cube because it does matter once you have those .

So if you have a dot follow along with me and I'll show , put the algorithm up on screen and you guys can follow along .

So you're gonna do F R you R prime , you prime Ron and now you should have the next step .

So with that diagram , I showed you earlier , I put it back up again .

It has the dot Then it goes to the L , then the bar and then the cross and that's how it's gonna go .

So if you start with the dot You're gonna have to do this algorithm over and over until you get the cross .

Now , in the advanced method , there is a way to get around that from , you can skip the bar .

Like in this step , I can do an algorithm and go straight to the cross .

But that's not what this video is about .

This is for beginners .

So you guys can do it simply , even though you're not gonna do it as quickly , you can still be able to solve it .

So now I have the L shape and for you guys , it may look like a cube and there's like a piece over here .

But like I said , ignore the corners .

If you cover up your corners , you have an L shape .

Well , it's not an elf , I do this , it's an L but it's like a , it's an L shape .

That's what I just call it .

Now , what you're gonna do , it doesn't really matter what way you orient it .

But the way I've found that works best for me is if you rotate the cube like this and you have it in the top left corner , so it's facing out towards the top left .

And once you have it like that , you're gonna do the same exact algorithm again , you're gonna do this F R you R prime U prime F prime and now you should have the bar .

Now , once you have the bar , the orientation really , really matters because you can't have it like this if you cannot have it facing vertically and going towards you , because then the algorithm will not work and it'll mess it up and you'll possibly have to do this all over again , which is a big time waster .

What you wanna do is have it .

So the um bar is facing horizontally and again , ignore the corners because these ones don't matter .

So you can see it's a bar and it's going horizontally .

You can also have it this way , it does not matter which way you hold it .

So holding it like this , you're gonna do that algorithm one last time , you're gonna do F R you R prime U prime and then F prime and that'll give you the yellow cross again .

Ignore the corners and there you go .

Now you have it .

Now , some people may think .

All right , good .

I'm done .

Now , let's move on to the corners .

So now what you want to do actually is check the side .

So if you look at the side , you have the blue and yellow piece attached to the blue and yellow side .

So this one's good , but then you see you have an orange and yellow attached to the red and yellow , red and yellow and there's green and yellow .

So all these pieces are messed up except for this one .

So you need to make all these side pieces the same and you don't have to do that algorithm again .

You just need to rotate these around and that'll come with the next AL algorithm I'm about to show you .

So now this algorithm will just switch these two edges right here .

It'll just kind of switch them and rotate them around and around and this one is a little bit longer .

So you're gonna have to pause the video probably .

And uh write this algorithm down or just put it in slow motion .

I think you can do that in the bottom right and go and make the speed go down .

But uh I will try to go slow and let you guys do that .

So what you're gonna do is hold the cube if you have a solved piece , put it in the very back .

Now , if you don't have any , it doesn't matter .

But if you have a soft piece , put it in the very , very back and you're gonna do this algorithm or U R prime , you R U two R prime , you or you sorry .

Now , as you can see now , we have two pieces that are correct .

We have a blue piece and we have a red piece in place and make sure you go through even though I turn that one piece the wrong way , I've corrected it .

Uh But you need to make sure you follow that .

So if it says prime , that means you're gonna turn it counterclockwise .

And if you're gonna , if it doesn't say prime , it's just a letter , you turn it clockwise .

Now , make sure you do that because even though I turned it wrong , I corrected myself .

But sometimes you just don't think about it , then it could mess you up .

So make sure you do the algorithm correctly because I have a lot of people saying the algorithms didn't work in the last video and they worked for me and they worked for a lot of other people .

So you probably just did the algorithm wrong or just turned one piece the wrong way .

It's really , really easy to happen .

So just be careful with that .

So I've been confused .

I kind of messed up the algorithms .

So I apologize for that , but I'm gonna keep on going .

I've figured out how to switch these two .

I haven't been on the beginner's method in a very , very long time .

Um But I still have the piece here and a piece here .

So now these two pieces are incorrect because they're not the correct colors .

Now , the algorithm I just showed you actually fix the left side and the bottom side .

So it'll fix the front and the left .

Yes .

OK .

So what you're gonna do with this algorithm is do it again , but you need to have it on the right side and the back side , not the back and left my bad .

So you do the right side and the back side and it'll switch these two pieces .

So you're gonna do it one more time .

You're gonna do rur prime Uru two R prime U or you , sorry .

And there you go .

Now you have the solved cross , but I'm gonna um go through it one more time .

It's a little bit quicker .

So if you want to do this part slower , you guys can go ahead and go back and uh go to that beginning part of the video .

But for this part , you remember if you have the dot It doesn't matter which way you orient it .

And you're gonna do this algorithm , Fru R prime U prime F and you'll get the L shape and then put the L in the top left , do Frur prime U prime F prime and then you have the bar , make sure the bar is horizontal , do it one more time , Frur prime U prime F prime and then you have the yellow cross again , make sure the sides are correct .

And in this case , they are not , we have one correct piece .

You're gonna put that correct piece in the back because of this algorithm will switch the front two pieces .

And you're gonna do this algorithm , Rur prime Uru two R prime U and now you have these two pieces are switched .

So now we've got a piece correct here and a piece correct here .

Now , if you have pieces correct in the front of the back , you're gonna have to just uh make it so they're on the side .

So you're gonna have this side and this side that way these pieces will switch or you can try to think ahead and think of OK .

If I switch this piece and this piece , what's gonna happen .

But in this case , it doesn't really matter .

So we're just gonna do that algorithm again .

You're gonna do ru R prime Uru two R prime U and now you got to check and try to find pieces that work .

So if you just got to rotate it , so you've got one piece here .

But if you rotate it , then you have a blue piece and a green piece that's not correct .

A red piece that is not correct , but you have orange .

So now you have two pieces that are correct .

And again , the algorithm which is these front too .

So you're gonna rotate the cube .

So your solve pieces are on the right and solve pieces on the back .

And then you've got one on the left and one in the front that need to be switched and once you switch , that'll be solved .

So you're gonna hold it like this .

So the algorithm we're gonna do it one more time .

You're gonna do rur prime uru two R prime U and then your Yellow Cross will be solved .

So hopefully , that helps you guys out .

And if it did , please leave a like down below , share this with your friends .

If they're struggling .

Also , if you have any more questions or concerns or special cases that I forgot about , please leave it down below in the comments or go to my Instagram and send me a picture of what it looks like .

That way I can screenshot it and put it in the next video and try to figure out what's going on .

Um If I uh help you guys out , please let me know if you guys are confused .

Also , let me know .

Uh So I will see you guys next week , hopefully doing the yellow corners .

Thank you guys for watching and I'll see you guys in the next one .