The complete minesweeper guide
Updated July 2026
Minesweeper looks like a game about clicking squares. It is really a game about proof: every safe tile you open should be one you could justify out loud. This guide is the whole thing end to end — the rules, the first few moves, the patterns that decide most boards, the habits that make you fast, and what changes on a phone.
Start here, in order
1. The rules — what the numbers mean, what flags do, how you win. Five minutes.
2. How to play, step by step — a walked-through opening for a first board.
3. Patterns — the 1-2-1, the 1-2-2-1, and the subtraction rule they all come from. This is the single biggest jump in skill.
4. Tips and tricks — chording, flag-free play, and how to actually get faster.
5. On mobile — what to look for in a phone version, and why no-guess boards matter more on touch.
The thirty-second version
A grid hides mines. Open a tile and you either hit a mine and lose, or reveal a number: how many of the eight tiles touching it are mines. Blank tiles have no mines adjacent, so the game opens the whole neighbourhood for you. Flag the tiles you have proven are mines, open the ones you have proven are safe, and you win when every safe tile is uncovered. Flags are bookkeeping — the game does not check them.
The only two deductions that exist
Every technique in this guide, and every pattern with a nickname, is one of these two statements applied somewhere clever:
Satisfied. If a number already touches that many flagged mines, every other tile it touches is safe.
Exhausted. If a number's remaining unknown neighbours exactly equal its remaining mine count, every one of those neighbours is a mine.
That is the entire logical engine. Patterns are just shapes where those two rules fire in a recognisable arrangement, so you can skip the arithmetic.
Glossary
Chord — clicking a satisfied number to open all its remaining neighbours at once. The single biggest speed gain available.
Frontier — the border between revealed numbers and covered tiles. All deduction happens here.
NF (no-flag) — playing without placing flags at all. Faster for experts, because flagging costs clicks the game never rewards.
50/50 — a position where two tiles are equally likely and no logic separates them. A coin flip, and in classic minesweeper a genuine possibility.
No-guess — a board that a solver has proven is winnable by logic alone, so a 50/50 can never occur. More on that here.
3BV — a measure of the minimum clicks a board needs; speedrunners use it to compare boards fairly.
How long does it take to get good?
Beginner boards become reliable in an afternoon. The jump that matters is learning to see the 1-2-1 and the subtraction rule instead of recomputing every number, which is a week or two of casual play. Speed beyond that is mechanical: chording, not flagging, and moving without pausing.
Frequently asked
Is minesweeper luck or skill?
Mostly skill, with a luck tax. On classic boards you can play perfectly and still be handed an unavoidable 50/50 at the end. That tax is exactly what no-guess generation removes.
Is minesweeper always solvable?
Classic boards, no — mines are placed at random, so some positions cannot be resolved by logic. Certified no-guess boards, yes, always.
Do I have to use flags?
No. Flags are a note to yourself. Many of the fastest players never place one.
A minesweeper that never asks you to guess — free on iPhone.
