Four-Look Last Layer

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  • Two-Look OLL and PLL split each of the two steps of Fridrich last layer into two, corners and edges. As this greatly reduces the number of algorithms required, these serve as perfect stepping stones before advancing to full PLL and OLL.

    Two-Look OLL

    These algorithms are all taken straight from my full OLL. One of three algorithms (OLL 1, 44, 45) corrects the edge orientation, and then corner orientation is corrected while preserving the edge orientation using one of seven algorithms (OLL 21-27). For edge orientation, any algorithm with the same effect on the edges can be used; 1, 44, and 45 are just particularly easy to perform.

    Edge Orientation

    CodesPatternAlgorithmHow It's Done
    a (1) RU2'-R2'FRF'U2'-R'FRF'
    b (44) FwRUR'U'F'w
    c (45) FRUR'U'F'

    Corner Orientation

    CodesPatternAlgorithmHow It's Done
    21 RU-R'URU'R'UR-U2'R'
    22 RU2'-R2'U'R2U'R2'-U2R
    23 R2DR'U2RD'R'U2'R'
    24 RwUR'U'R'wFRF'
    25 Lw'U'L'U-RU'LUx'
    26 R'U'RU'R'U2R
    27 RUR'URU2'R'

    Two-Look PLL

    Corner Permutation

    If the corner permutation is not solved, we can always AUF (Adjust U Face) to correctly place exactly two corners. We therefore only have two distinct cases: adjacent swap and diagonal swap. If there are two adjacent corners sharing the same color on the same side, we are in the adjacent swap case. Bring these to the back and rotate the bottom two layers until the UFL corner is matched. We recognize this as a 3-cycle:

    CodesPatternAlgorithmHow It's Done
    n4
    Acw
    xR'UR'DDRU'R'DDR2x'

    We never need the other direction.

    If the corners do not share a color on any side, we are in the diagonal swap case. You can use any of the several diagonal-swap PLL algorithms. I recommend the Y-perm:

    CodesPatternAlgorithmHow It's Done
    n15
    Y
    FRU'R'U'RUR'F'-RUR'U'R'FRF'

    Edge Permutation

    With the corners matched, there are only four possible edge permutation cases.

    CodesPatternAlgorithmHow It's Done
    n1a
    U
    R'UR'U'-R'U'-R'URUR2
    n2a
    U
    R2U'R'U'RURURU'R
    n5
    Z
    UR'U'RU'RURU'R'URUR2U'R'U
    n6
    H
    M2'UM2'U2M2'UM2'