How to use the skewb solver
This skewb solver finds the shortest possible solution for your puzzle. Hold your skewb with white on top and green facing you, then paint the net: pick a color, tap each center square and corner triangle until the net matches your puzzle, and press Solve. The moves appear in WCA notation, and the two 3D views step through them one turn at a time, with the corner to turn circled.
Any grip works if your puzzle has another color scheme or you prefer another color on top: paint the faces exactly as you hold the puzzle, and keep that grip while you follow the moves. The solver tries all 24 ways a skewb can be held, so it does not matter which color ends up where.
Skewb notation (WCA)
A skewb turn moves half of the puzzle around one corner, a third of a full turn. The WCA Regulations (12h) name four corners, seen with white on top and green in front:
- R: the bottom-right-back corner (bottom of the right face, at the back).
- U: the top-left-back corner.
- L: the bottom-left-front corner.
- B: the bottom-left-back corner, the one you cannot see from the front.
A letter alone means clockwise as you look straight at that corner from outside the puzzle; a prime (R') means counter-clockwise. The top-front-right corner, the one pointing at you in the front view, is never named. Older guides use other letters, so check which notation a tutorial uses before mixing its moves with these.
How the solver works
A skewb has 3,149,280 positions. When the page opens, the solver works out, in the background, how many moves every one of them is from solved (a breadth-first search over all positions, which takes well under a second). To solve your puzzle it then picks, at each step, a move that brings the puzzle one move closer. That is why every solution is the shortest that exists: no position needs more than 11 moves, only 90 positions need all 11, and a random position needs about 8.4 on average.
Before solving, the solver checks that your colors can be a real skewb: six different centers, every corner a real corner with three different colors in the right order around it, no corner twisted in place, and no two centers or corners swapped. If something is wrong, the stickers involved are outlined and the message says what to look at.
Worked example
Start from a solved skewb and scramble it with R U' L B' R' U. Paint that position (or type the scramble under "Or type a scramble") and press Solve: the answer is U' R B L' U R', six moves, which is the scramble undone in reverse order. On a random position the solution will not look like anything you typed, because the solver searches all positions, not your history.
Tips
- Paint the centers first: they tell you which face is which once the puzzle is scrambled.
- If the solver reports a twisted corner, look at the three triangles of the outlined corner: one of them is usually painted from the wrong face.
- Turn slowly and recheck after each move; one wrong turn makes the rest of the moves meaningless. Use the back arrow to return to where you were.
Solver tested . Found a problem? Tell us.
Questions
How many moves does it take to solve a skewb?
Never more than 11 moves in WCA notation, counting R and R' as one move each. Most random positions need 8 or 9. This solver always gives the shortest solution, so the count it shows is the true minimum for your position.
What do R, U, L and B mean on a skewb?
Each letter turns half of the puzzle around one corner by a third of a turn. Held white on top and green in front: R is the bottom-right-back corner, U the top-left-back, L the bottom-left-front and B the bottom-left-back. No prime means clockwise looking at that corner; a prime means counter-clockwise.
Why does the solver say a corner is twisted?
Turns can never rotate a single corner in place, so a position with one twisted corner cannot come from scrambling. Usually one triangle of that corner was painted from the wrong face. If the colors are right, the corner was popped out and put back turned, and you need to turn it back by hand.
Do I have to hold the skewb with white on top?
No. Paint the net the way you hold the puzzle, with your own top color on the top face of the net, and keep the same grip while you follow the moves. The solver accepts any of the 24 ways to hold a skewb.
Can the solver handle a skewb with a different color scheme?
Yes, as long as opposite faces have the usual pairs (white and yellow, red and orange, green and blue). Pick the palette color closest to each of your stickers and paint consistently.
Is the skewb harder than a 2x2 cube?
By position count it is smaller: 3,149,280 positions for the skewb against 3,674,160 for the 2x2. Both need at most 11 moves with the shortest solution. The skewb feels harder at first because its turns move the centers too.