How to Read Rubik's Cube Notation (R, U, F, L, B, D Explained)
Cube notation in five minutes — what R, U, F, L, B and D mean, what the apostrophe and 2 do, and how to read your first scramble with confidence.
By Cubeathon Team
Every algorithm, every scramble, and every tutorial uses the same six letters. Learn them once and the entire speedcubing world opens up. This takes about five minutes.
The six faces
Hold your cube in front of you. Each face gets a letter based on where it is, not what colour it shows:
F— Front: the face looking at youB— Back: the face away from youU— Up: the top faceD— Down: the bottom faceR— Right: the face on your rightL— Left: the face on your left
That's the whole alphabet. Everything else is a modifier.
The three ways to turn a face
Every letter means: turn that face 90° clockwise — as if you were looking directly at that face.
R— turn the right face 90° clockwiseR'— the apostrophe (say "R prime") means counter-clockwise insteadR2— the 2 means a half turn, 180° (direction doesn't matter)
The "as if you were looking at it" part is the only tricky bit. When you turn B, imagine spinning the cube around and facing the back — clockwise from that view. It feels backwards from the front, and that's correct.
Reading your first scramble
A scramble is just a list of turns, performed left to right:
R U R' U' F2 L D' B2Read it out loud: right clockwise, up clockwise, right counter-clockwise, up counter-clockwise, front half-turn, left clockwise, down counter-clockwise, back half-turn. Do each one deliberately. Speed comes later; accuracy comes first.
Hold the cube the same way every time
Scrambles assume a standard grip: white face up, green face toward you. If you start from a different orientation, the same scramble produces a different result — which is why your cube sometimes "doesn't match" a preview. Pick the standard grip and keep it.
Bigger cubes: wide moves
On 4×4 and up you'll see a w:
Rw— turn the two rightmost layers together3Rw— turn three layers (6×6 and 7×7)
Everything else works exactly the same.
The fastest way to learn: watch it happen
Reading about notation is one thing — seeing it is another. In the Cubeathon timer, tap any scramble preview to open the interactive scramble guide: it replays the scramble move by move on a 3D cube, showing each turn as it happens, with plain-language explanations in beginner mode. Slow it down, step through one move at a time, and notation stops being abstract within a session or two.
Then check the full notation guide for slice moves and rotations when you're ready for algorithms.
Cheat sheet
- Letter = face.
Ffront,Bback,Uup,Ddown,Rright,Lleft - Nothing = 90° clockwise (facing that face)
'= counter-clockwise2= 180°w= two layers (big cubes)- Scrambles read left to right, white up, green front
That's genuinely all of it. Six letters, two modifiers, one grip.