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Skewb - Beginner's Solution Guide
Skewb - Beginner's Solution Guide
The Skewb, invented by Tony Durham is a corner-turning twisty puzzle (/twisty-puzzles/), consisting of 8 corner and 6
square center pieces. This puzzle is a Pyraminx shape-mod (/twisty-puzzles/3x3x3-rubiks-cube-shape-mods-variations/),
working on the same 4 axes mechanism and this is why it was first called the Pyraminx Cube. If you take it apart you realize
that it has the same inner cores and the four corners are actually centers and the other four pieces are edges.
At a first glance the corner-turning Skewb might seem to be unusual for those who are only familiar only with the Rubik's
Cube (/the-rubiks-cube/), but it's easy to get used to it and it's actually easier to solve than a 2x2x2 Pocket Cube (/twisty-
puzzles/2x2x2-rubiks-cube-pocket/). After the first face is done it can be solved in maximum 24 steps. It is very fun to play
with, no wonder why it became an official WCA (/the-rubiks-cube/rubiks-cube-competitions-wca/) event. The current World
Record (/the-rubiks-cube/history-of-the-world-record-evolution/) for the fastest solve is held by Jonatan Klosko with an
amazing 1.10 seconds.
There are many Skewb mods: Skewb Diamond (photo) where the corners become centers, the
Pillowed mod, the Ultimate Skewb where you have to orient every piece, but there are
dodecahedron shaped mods, and Siamese (/twisty-puzzles/siamese-twisty-puzzles/) Skewbs, and
the list goes on.
It's highly recommended to buy a Skewb because it's an easier WCA cube, they usually have a great
quality with clicking mechanism and it makes a great collection piece.
Solution Guide
In this solving method we are using the classic FRU Rubik's Cube notation (/the-rubiks-cube/notation/) but in this case the
letters mark the corners instead of the faces. We assign the letter F, R, L, B, U to the corners of the cube as seen on the
image. A letter by itself means a clockwise ↻ rotation and an apostrophe marks a anticlockwise ↺ turn. The Skewb being a
Pyraminx (/twisty-puzzles/pyraminx-triangle-rubiks-cube/) mod a turn of a corner means a 1/3 (120o) rotation.
Hold the puzzle in our hands with the corners facing you!
When three of the four corners are solved but the last one is oriented wrong use one of the algorithms below to rotate the
highlighted piece. This algorithm won't harm the solved pieces on the top of the cube, marked with arrows.
Hold the puzzle with the solved side facing up. If there are two bottom corners that have both the color of the bottom center
piece on the same lateral side of the cube (orange headlights on the image), then move that face to the front-right side and
do the algorithm below. If you can't find two such pieces then do the same algorithm until you can see one.
L' F L F' - L' F L F'
When you master this solution you might find interesting the page about solving the Skewb blindfolded
(https://ruwix.com/twisty-puzzles/skewb-pyraminx-mod-skewb-diamond/skewb-blindfolded-method/).
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