Status: DRAFT
Prescriptive or descriptive: descriptive (this standard attempts to describe existing conventions)
This standard describes the basic moves for a 3x3x3 cube.
The move names in this standard originate from David Singmaster, around 1981 [1].
There are 18 basic moves:
| Layer | ||||||
| Clockwise | U | L | F | R | B | D |
| Counter-Clockwise | U' | L' | F' | R' | B' | D' |
| Double-Clockwise | U2 | L2 | F2 | R2 | B2 | D2 |
Each move corresponds to one unique way that an outer layer can be moved, while restoring the puzzle shape to a cube. Note that these moves keep each center in its original location (but possibly reoriented).
Note: This standard does not include double-counter-clockwise moves, since those can be written as double-clockwise moves for basic applications. This also matches the World Cube Association, which does not recognize double-counter-clockwise moves (e.g. for the Fewest Moves event) [2]. Extensions of this standard may include such moves.
There are 6 clockwise moves on a cube, corresponding to the 6 outer layers (standard 1.3.6): U, L, F, R, B, D.
Each face letter describes the following physical move:
Example: For a cube, U describes turning the U layer 90° clockwise. If we imagine the plane of the face as a clock face, this corresponds to moving the hour hand forward by 3 hours. Alternatively, this can be visualized as placing a screwdriver into the center of the layer, and turning it clockwise.
A counter-clockwise move is the inverse of a clockwise move. This is written as the corresponding layer letter with a ' symbol after it The ' symbol is pronounced “prime”.
There are 6 counter-clockwise moves: U', L', F', R', B', D'.
Example: U' is pronounced “U prime”.
A double clockwise move is the same as doing two clockwise moves consecutively. This is written as the corresponding layer letter with the number 2 written after it.
There are 6 double-clockwise moves: U2, L2, F2, R2, B2, D2.
Note: In the 1980’s, it was common to write 2 as a superscript ². A lot of modern cubing software only understands the regular number suffix 2, so it is recommended to avoid the superscript version.