How to get better at minesweeper
Minesweeper looks like a game of luck to anyone who has only ever clicked around in it. It is not. On most boards, nearly every cell can be worked out from the numbers already showing, and a good player guesses only a handful of times per game — sometimes not at all.
This page is about getting from "click and hope" to clearing boards reliably, and then to clearing them fast.
Start in the right place
The first click is always safe, and here it always opens an area to work from. After that, when you have nothing to go on, guess in the middle rather than on the edge: the middle cells have more neighbours, so a safe one is more likely to open a useful patch.
Corners are tempting because they have only three neighbours and feel safer. They are not safer, and when they turn out empty they open very little.
The two basic deductions
Everything in minesweeper is built from two moves.
All mines found → the rest is safe. If a 2 already has two flags round it, every other hidden cell touching it is safe. Open them all.
Only just enough cells → they are all mines. If a 3 has exactly three hidden cells round it, all three are mines. Flag them.
Go round the edge of the opened area applying these two rules again and again. On an easy board, that alone will clear most of the field.
Patterns worth knowing by sight
A few arrangements come up in almost every game. Recognising them instantly is most of the difference between a slow player and a fast one.
- 1-1 from the edge. A straight line of numbers along a wall of hidden cells that starts 1-1 at the edge of the board: the two 1s share one mine, so the cell beyond the second 1 is safe.
- 1-2-1 along a wall. The mines are under the two 1s; the cell opposite the 2 is safe.
- 1-2-2-1 along a wall. The mines are under the two 2s; the cells opposite the 1s are safe.
When you catch yourself working a pattern out cell by cell, stop and remember its shape. Next time you will just see it.
Subtract one number from another
When the simple rules run out, compare two neighbouring numbers. Their hidden neighbours usually overlap, and the difference tells you about the cells that only one of them can see.
Say a 1 and a 2 sit side by side above a row of hidden cells, and the 1's third hidden neighbour — on the far side from the 2 — is already known to be safe. Then the 1's one mine is somewhere in the two cells it shares with the 2. That accounts for only one of the 2's mines, so the other must be in the one cell only the 2 can reach. Flag it. This 1-2 is the most common deduction beyond the basics.
This subtraction is the tool that solves the positions that look like they need a guess.
Use the mine counter
The mines left figure is information too. Late in a game, if two mines remain and there is only one way to fit two mines into the cells still closed, you know where they are. Near the end, count before you guess.
When you really have to guess
Sometimes the numbers genuinely do not decide it — two cells, one mine, no way to tell. Then:
- Guess early rather than late. If a guess is unavoidable, take it before you have spent five minutes on the rest of the board.
- Pick the guess that tells you the most. A cell that, if safe, will open new numbers next to the stuck area is worth more than one in a corner that settles nothing.
- Prefer cells away from the numbers when every option is equally unclear: the average chance of a mine among untouched cells is often lower than next to a number that says one is close.
Getting faster
Once you clear boards reliably, speed comes from fewer clicks:
- Open around numbers at once. Click a number whose mines are all flagged, and every other cell round it opens. This is much quicker than opening them one by one — and only as safe as your flags.
- Flag only what you need. A flag is only useful if it lets you open around a number. Flagging every mine you find costs time.
- Work in one direction. Sweep along the edge of the open area instead of jumping around the board looking for something to do.
Practise, then race
Clear Easy until it is routine, then move to Medium, where the patterns above do most of the work. Hard is where the subtraction trick earns its keep. Then send a friend a link and race them across the same field — a lot of hurrying, and one careless click decides it.