Introduction
The cross is the first step of the CFOP method, one of the most widely used speedsolving methods. It consists of solving the white pieces and making a white plus sign. You can make a cross on any color of the cube that you desire, but for the ease of reading this blog, I’ll be using the white cross, which is used by a majority of cubers as their first color. The cross is also used in the beginner method. So, we’ll be discussing how to solve your cross using both the beginners and CFOP (advanced) methods. The cross is an integral part of the solve, which paves the way for the whole solve. So let’s go on to see how to solve the cross with the beginner's method.
Beginner's Method
In the beginner's method, we solve the cross on top, simply because of the ease of learning. The first step towards solving the cross with the beginner's method would be to actually locate the cross pieces. For this blog, we’ll be solving the white cross. We have four cross-pieces in total. In the beginner's method, there’s no need to locate all of them at once. The white cross pieces are basically the edge pieces that have one white sticker on them. Or color, if you have a stickerless cube! So let’s move on with our cross-solution.
First, try looking for any cross pieces on the bottom layer (the Yellow Layer):-
- If there is a cross piece on the bottom layer, we need to match it up to its color. I know this may sound confusing, but let me make it a bit easier to understand by assuming that the cross piece is a white and red edge piece. So, we have this white and red edge piece on the bottom layer of our cube. The next thing to do is to rotate the bottom layer and match that edge with the red center. No matter what the orientation is. You might have a flipped cross piece, which looks like the image below, but we’ll deal with that later.
- If there isn’t any cross piece on the bottom layer, just move a cross piece from the middle layer to the bottom one by making an R or R’ move!
These steps are really intuitive and you can do them by yourself. If you come across any problems, refer to Cubelelo’s video with Aryan Chabbra!
After you have all your cross pieces on the white side or the top layer, notice which ones are flipped and which ones are not. The flipped ones do NOT have the white sticker properly matched with the white center.
Okay, so if you have no flipped cross pieces, good for you! But more often than not, you are going to have one if not multiple flipped cross pieces. Let’s just imagine our green and white cross piece is flipped. We’re going to use an algorithm here! So since we have our green and white cross piece flipped, let’s hold the green side in the front and the white side on top as usual and perform the given algorithm - F U’ R U
Repeat this for every flipped centerpiece. Note that if you had the red and white cross piece flipped, you would perform this same algorithm but with the red side in the front and white on top. Good luck!
Advanced Method (CFOP)
The advanced method is a bit more complicated than the beginners. It uses a lot less amount of moves, so you need a good understanding of the cube to attempt the advanced method. The advanced method uses a technique called relative solving. In this method, the cross pieces are solved relative to each other and can be solved by rotating the white layer. In this method, the cross is solved on the bottom instead of the top. Also, make sure you learn the color scheme of your cube. In this blog, I’ll be assuming the standard color scheme. White on the bottom, yellow on top, and green, red, blue, and orange in clockwise order.
You get better and better with the advanced cross as you keep practicing and figuring out new tricks to solve the cross pieces simultaneously. The advanced method is pretty hard to explain in a blog, so I just recommend you watch our YouTube video for a proper guide!
I hope this helped!
Want to learn from the experts - Enroll yourself in Xskills
About Author
Sarthak Masta
Sarthak Masta is a speedcuber from Raipur. He started cubing in 2013 and now has 9 years of cubing experience. Apart from cubing, Sarthak enjoys making music and singing. He has attended a total of 7 competitions in Raipur and has gotten 10 podiums, with 2 gold medals, 4 silver medals and 4 bronze medals.
