PLL Algorithms

Pro usage counts how often an algorithm appears in reconstructed solves by the world's fastest cubers, drawn from reco.nz and CubeRoot. Alongside it sits each algorithm's community vote count from SpeedCubeDB, so you can see where the crowd and the pros disagree.

A history graph traces each algorithm's popularity over time - the share of that year's solves that used it, rising as it catches on or fading as cubers move to something faster.

A method bar splits those uses by how people solve: CFOP is the grey baseline, and a fat coloured slice means ZB, ZZ or one-handed solvers favour the algorithm more than mainstream CFOP does.

Alg lists repeat themselves: the same turns show up reordered, behind a different alignment, or just spelled a different way - a slice M written as r'R , a wide l written as x'R . Those all move the cube through exactly the same states, so we fold them into one row and add up their votes.

Mirrors are the exception: a left-handed version keeps its own row, because doing an algorithm on the other side is a genuinely different thing to learn.

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Grouping gives an algorithm a shape you can picture instead of a string you have to spell, and it exposes the family resemblances: algorithms built from the same trigger carry the same colour, so the one you already know gives you a head start on the next. The Rightie RUR'U' gets one colour, the sledgehammer R'FRF' another. Hover any box for its name.

Cubers have always marked triggers by hand, in parentheses: F (R U R' U') (R U R' U') F'. The boxes are that convention drawn instead of typed, and they are worked out from the moves themselves rather than stored per algorithm - so every algorithm in the database has them, including the ones nobody ever bracketed.

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