The Minh Thai beginner method imprinted into my brain

(tags Rubik's Cube, algorithm, book)

I remember when I was a kid, I went down to the San Diego Downtown Public Library to check out published solutions or guides to solving the Rubik's Cube. I probably picked up The Winning Solution book by Minh Thai, who was the first placed winner at the Rubik's Cube World Championship in Budapest (1982).

Searching the net and clicking on lists of dead sites, I finally found the explanation of the method I know. Let's call it the "Minh Thai beginner method", even though I cannot confirm the attribution. I can confirm that it is the same as the Tsukuda method, however. Unfortunately that page does not use the now de facto cube ("Singmaster") notation. Let me attempt to describe it (incompletely) here without pictures:

1. Solve one layer (omitted)

2. Work on the opposite layer, not the middle layer! :

2a. Rotate the cube so that the solved layer is D (Down face). The opposite layer will be on U (Up face).

2b. Correctly position the remaining (top) four corners.
The only move I remember for this involves multiple applications of swapping the UR (Up-Right) and BR (Back-Right) corners:

(R U R') (U' F' U' F)
(2-cycle corner swap with side effects)

2c. Correctly orient the remaining (top) four corners.
I only know the one move and its mirror which also requires multiple applications. It operates on three corners which all change orientation in the same way, while the last cubie does not change orientation. Assuming this last cubie is at the BL corner, it is:

R U2 R' U' R U' R'
(3-cycle corner rotate with side effects)

The mirror move is when the last cubie is at the BR corner:

L' U2 L U L' U L
(3-cycle corner rotate with side effects)

You might be required to apply this 3 times.

3 Correctly place and orient the edge pieces on the top layer. The middle layer might be filled with edge pieces that belong on U (Up face). Select a middle layer edge cubie that matches the color of U. Make a note of the color of the partner facelet on that cubie. Do either 3a or 3a-mirror:

3a1. Rotate the cube on the Y axis so that this cubie's U color is on R.

3a2. Rotate face U so that partner facelet color is on F, then do this move:

B (L R') U2 (L' R) B
(3-cycle edge swap)

3a-mirror1. Rotate the cube on the Y axis so that this cubie's U color is on L.

3a-mirror2. Rotate face U so that partner facelet color is on F, then do this move:

B' (L R') U2 (L' R) B'
(3-cycle edge swap)

If a U edge piece is in top layer but is oriented incorrectly or in the wrong place, you can push it out using the above moves. You might probably have to apply this up to 8 (?) times in the worse case.

4. Correctly position the middle layer edge pieces.

4a Find a middle layer edge piece that is already in the correctly position and place it at FL-edge, then do this move:

R2 (U' D) B2 (U D')
(3-cycle edge swap)

If no piece is in the correct place, run this move randomly once, then reevaluate.

5. Correctly orient the middle layer edge pieces.

5a Either 0, 2 or 4 of the edge pieces will have incorrect orientation. Select 1 pair and rotate the cube so that the pare ar at UF-edge and UB-edge, then run this manuever:

((L' R) B (L' R) D (L' R) F (L' R)) U'
((L' R) B' (L' R) D' (L' R) F' (L' R)) U
(2-cycle edge rotate)

Repeat this again if there is another pair.

6. Correctly rotate the center face cubes. (optional)

6a. Only 4 of the 6 centers will have orientation problems. The other two do not contribute. Let us assume that the non-contributors are on the Z axis, in other words, U and D. The following move will work on two centers at the same time. Rotate the cube along the Z axis until two centers are at F and R. Make a note of the face rotation needed to fix center R. Call it rotate1. It will be necessary to do a "undo" move called rotate2. The move is as follows:

(U' D) (F B') rotate1 (F' B) (U D') (L R') rotate2 (L' R)
(center rotate)

where:

if rotate1 == R then rotate2 == F' or
if rotate1 == R2 then rotate2 == F2 or
if rotate1 == R' then rotate2 == F

The effect of this move is to rotate the center at F automatically in the opposite direction. It may be necessary to combine this move multiple times to fix the other centers. Furthermore, it may be necessary to rotate the cube so that one of the non-contributors is at F at the start of the move.

7. Finished! ;-)

I can't believe that's all I know about solving the Cube. Faster algorithms require learning a lot more moves.

Next time I'll write up on how I hold the cube and how that changes the moves I explained above.