Notation · Pyraminx

Pyraminx notation explained

The Pyraminx turns on 4 axes instead of 3, and each turn is 120° instead of 90° — but the idea is the same as on the cube: one letter per axis, an apostrophe to reverse it.

🔺Yellow on the bottom, green in front — the official WCA orientation.

Try it yourself

Turn the Pyraminx with your finger, press the moves or type your own formula.

Try the blocks that come up most

↔ Drag to turn the Pyraminx

Moves:—

What you need to know

U L R B

Uppercase = the whole blockU, L, R, B turn that vertex's corner and centre together, plus the three edges around it: 5 pieces.

u l r b

Lowercase = the corner onlyu, l, r, b turn just the loose corner, moving nothing else. It's scramble notation: it almost never shows up inside an algorithm.

There is no double turnWith 120° turns, the double turn is the inverse: instead of U2 you write U'.

y z

y, z = turn the whole PyraminxThey change nothing, only how you're holding it — but they do change what the moves after them mean. Plenty of guides use them inside their formulas.

Vertex lettersShows or hides the letters U, L, R and B floating over each vertex. Every move is named after the vertex it turns around.

+ −

ZoomZoom the Pyraminx in or out with the + / − buttons.

ResetGo back to a solved Pyraminx at any point.

Mezclar

ScrambleGenerate a random scramble and practise reading the pattern before you solve.

The Pyraminx has 933,120 combinations (not counting the corners): small enough to analyse exhaustively by computer, and every formula on this site is verified against all of them.

How to hold it

The Pyraminx is held with both hands by two of its vertices: your thumbs and index fingers stay free to turn the corners without repositioning it between moves. It's a steadier grip than the cube's —two tips instead of six faces— and it's what lets you chain turns so fast: the world record is under a second.

Both hands holding a solved green Pyraminx by its two bottom vertices, thumbs resting on the front face

The same Pyraminx seen from above, thumbs and index fingers on the top vertex, ready to turn it

The Pyraminx pieces

14 pieces in all, of three types — and not one of them behaves like the pieces of a cube. Each drawing highlights every piece of its type.

4 corners

Corner

The loose tip of each vertex. It turns on its own (with the lowercase letter) and a misoriented corner affects nothing else: that's why it's the first step of every method.

6 edges

Edge

Like on the cube: two stickers, one for each face it touches. It can't just change places — only be positioned and flipped.

4 centres

Centre

The piece sitting under each corner. It can't be moved anywhere else: the four centres define the Pyraminx's orientation, just like the centres of a 3×3.

💡Almost half as many as a 3×3 cube, which has 20 moving pieces — one of the reasons the Pyraminx is learned so quickly.

The colour scheme

With yellow on the bottom and green in front there are still two possible Pyraminxes, and they're mirror images. Ours has red on the left (L) and blue on the right (R), the one most of them are sold with. It's no small detail: in the mirror, every formula looks like it turns the other way.

🔄That scheme never changes, but where you look at it from does: the y and z buttons turn the whole Pyraminx and the drawing turns with you.

So what now?

With the notation clear, the next step is solving it. The Pyraminx has the fastest learning curve on the site: sub-30 seconds in about an hour.

⚡All three methods are published: Beginners (layer by layer), Intermediate (Keyhole) and Advanced (L4E). Start at Learn to solve the Pyraminx.