The yellow cross

Only yellow matters

Two layers are solved; only the top is left. For now, forget every color except yellow. That's why the other stickers have gone gray. For the first time, you'll read the cube not as a collection of pieces but as a picture: recognize the pattern, and you know what to do. The goal of this step is a yellow cross on the top face: the yellow center plus the four edges around it, all yellow side up.

The top face will show you one of four patterns:

• dot — only the center is yellow;
• L-shape — the center and two neighboring edges, like a letter L;
• line — the center and two opposite edges, a stripe straight across the face;
• cross — all four. You're done.

Corners don't count in this step. A yellow corner on top means nothing, so look only at the edges, the pieces between the corners. Right now the cube shows an L-shape.

One algorithm for every pattern

F R U R' U' F'

Look closely and you'll spot an old friend in the middle: the sexy move. F and F' frame it. F turns the front face and slips the top front edge into the spot where the sexy move does its work; F' turns the face back. The lower layers come through unharmed, and the edges on top get flipped.

Here the top face shows a horizontal line, running left to right. A single pass of the algorithm turns it into a cross.

Here's an easy way to play it. F is a steering wheel turned to the right; next comes the sexy move in its usual rhythm; then F' straightens the wheel. Six moves, and you already know four of them by heart.

L-shape: back and left

Hold the L so its yellow edges sit at the back and on the left: at twelve and nine o'clock when you look down from above. The algorithm turns this L into a horizontal line and, as you've just seen, the line into a cross. That's two algorithms in a row.

If your L points another way, turn the top first: U, U′ or U2. The top edges ride along with the face, so the L simply swings around the center.

Here's a curious detail: the algorithm leaves the top left edge alone, neither moving it nor flipping it. It only reshuffles the other three: front, right and back. That's why both good positions, the line and the L, keep one yellow edge lounging on the left while the algorithm deals with the rest.

Dot: the long way around

From a dot, the algorithm makes an L, but one that faces the wrong way: its yellow edges land at the front and on the right. Spin it around with U2 so they sit at the back and on the left, and from there you're on familiar ground: L, line, cross.

The full route from a dot: F R U R' U' F', then U2, then the same algorithm twice more.

It looks long, but it's just one algorithm played three times with a single turn of the top in between. And the dot is rare: after the middle layer, you'll usually find a line or an L already waiting on top.

Why you never see three edges

There are exactly four patterns, and none of them has one or three yellow edges. That's no accident. Remember the law from chapter 1, that edges only flip in pairs? Every edge in the two finished layers already sits the right way around, so the number of flipped edges on top is always even: zero, two or four.

That's where the patterns come from: four flipped edges make a dot, two make an L or a line, and zero make a cross. If your top face really does show three yellow edges, someone once took the cube apart and put it back together wrong. No sequence of turns can produce that position.

Where people trip up

The classic mistake is holding the pattern the wrong way. Here the line runs vertically, from you toward the far side. Play the algorithm and you get a dot instead of a cross. Nothing's broken, but the cross is now three algorithms away instead of one.

A misaimed L gets you nowhere either: the algorithm just hands you back an L or a vertical line. So before every F R U R' U' F', check your grip: a line lies horizontal, an L sits back and left.

And don't drop the F' at the end. Without it, the frame stays open and the finished layers below stay broken.

Finally, be sure where "back and left" actually is. Look down at the top face with the edge nearest you at the bottom of the picture. "Back" is then the top of the picture, at twelve o'clock, and "left" is the left side, at nine.

Try it yourself: the L-shape

There's an L on top, but it's pointing the wrong way. Turn the top until its yellow edges sit at the back and on the left, then build the cross.

Try it yourself: the dot

The longest route of all starts from a dot: dot → L-shape → (turn the top) → line → cross. Check your grip before every algorithm.

Next: edges in place

The yellow cross is done, but look at the sides. The side stickers of the yellow edges don't match their centers: here only the front edge is in the right place, and the others are shuffled.

The next step puts the cross edges where they belong, just as you did with the white cross. Only this time you can't simply drop an edge down, because the finished layers are underneath. You'll need a new algorithm, and it comes with a famous name.

The good news: your yellow cross survives. The edges trade places but stay yellow side up.