How to play Minesweeper

Minesweeper looks like a game of luck and is mostly a game of deduction. A well-played board comes down to a small number of genuinely forced guesses, and knowing which situations are forced — and which only look like it — is the difference between a beginner and an expert.

Reading a number

A number counts the mines in the eight squares touching it, including diagonals. That is the entire information content of the board, and every deduction is built by comparing two numbers whose neighbourhoods overlap.

The two basic rules

*If a number equals the count of unopened squares around it, all of them are mines.* A 3 with exactly three unopened neighbours: flag all three. *If a number equals the count of flags already around it, every remaining unopened neighbour is safe.* A 2 with two flags beside it: open the rest. Almost all of an easy board falls to these two rules applied in alternation.

The 1-2-1 and 1-2-2-1 patterns

Along a wall or the edge of a cleared region, a row reading 1-2-1 means the squares under the 1s are mines and the square under the 2 is safe. A row reading 1-2-2-1 means the squares under the two 2s are mines. These come up constantly and recognising them on sight saves more time than any other single habit.

Subtracting overlapping numbers

The technique that unlocks hard boards: when two numbers share some unopened squares, subtract. If a 1 and a 2 sit beside each other and every unopened neighbour of the 1 is also a neighbour of the 2, then the 2's *extra* squares must contain 2 − 1 = 1 mine. When that leaves exactly one extra square, it is a mine; when the difference is zero, every extra square is safe. This is the whole of intermediate play.

Counting the mines you have left

Late in a board, the global count becomes a deduction of its own. If four mines remain and one region provably contains four, every square outside that region is safe — regardless of what the local numbers say. Players who never look at the counter leave whole boards unfinished.

When a guess is genuinely forced

Some positions are provably ambiguous: two arrangements both satisfy every number, and no amount of reasoning distinguishes them. When that happens, guess in the corner or along an edge, where each square has fewer neighbours and therefore fewer ways to be a mine, and guess as *early* as possible — a forced guess costs you less when you have less progress to lose.

Flags, and the daily board

Flags are bookkeeping, not a scoring mechanism, and expert players often skip them entirely on small boards for speed. The daily board is the same grid for everyone, with the opening safe square marked and the difficulty set by the date; free play gives unlimited boards across three sizes with a guaranteed-safe first click.