How to Play Minesweeper: Rules & Strategy (2026)

Minesweeper looks like a wall of gray squares hiding a secret, and it kind of is — but it is a logic puzzle wearing a poker face, not a guessing game. Once the numbers click into place, you stop tapping nervously and start deducing. Here is everything you need to read the board with confidence.

The goal

The board is a grid of hidden cells. A fixed number of them secretly contain mines; the rest are safe. Your job is simple to state and satisfying to pull off: reveal every cell that is not a mine. That is the entire win condition. You never have to uncover a mine, and you do not have to flag anything — clearing all the safe cells ends the game in your favor.

Reveal a cell and one of two things happens. If it is a mine, the game is over. If it is safe, it shows you a number — and that number is the whole game.

Reading the numbers

Every revealed cell touches up to eight neighbors: the squares above, below, left, right, and on each diagonal. The number printed on a cell tells you exactly how many of those neighboring cells hide a mine. A 3 means three of the surrounding squares are mined. A 1 means exactly one is.

A cell with no number at all is the gift of Minesweeper: it touches zero mines, so all of its neighbors are guaranteed safe. The game knows this, so it auto-clears those neighbors for you — and if any of them are also blank, the cascade keeps spreading. One lucky click can open a whole quiet region of the board at once.

That is why you start in the open, near the center. Your first click is always safe, and an opening click in the middle has the best chance of landing on a blank cell and cascading a large clearing to reason from.

Flagging mines

A flag is a note to yourself: "I am certain a mine is here." Right-click (or long-press on touch) a hidden cell to plant a flag on it. Flagging does not reveal anything and it is never required to win — but it is invaluable for tracking what you have already deduced so you do not accidentally click a square you have already condemned.

The two deductions that flags are built on:

• Forced mines. If a number's count of remaining hidden neighbors is equal to that number, every one of those hidden neighbors is a mine. A 1 touching exactly one hidden cell? That cell is a mine — flag it.
• Forced safes. If a number is already satisfied — it touches as many flagged mines as its value — then every other hidden neighbor is guaranteed safe and can be revealed freely.

Almost all of Minesweeper is these two moves applied over and over.

Solving patterns

Once you can read single numbers, you start recognizing shapes that resolve instantly. These appear constantly along walls and edges.

The 1-1 pattern. Two 1s sit side by side along a row of hidden cells. The first 1 sees, say, two hidden cells; the second 1 sees those same two plus one more out at the end. Whichever single mine satisfies the first 1 also satisfies the second — so that extra cell on the end is safe. Walking a 1-1 along an edge clears cells one after another.

The 1-2-1 pattern. Three numbers in a row reading 1 2 1 against a band of hidden cells. The math only works out one way: the two cells under the 1s are mines, and the cell under the 2 is safe. Memorize this one — it shows up everywhere and resolves three cells in a single read.

Subtraction (overlap) logic. When two numbers share some hidden neighbors, subtract. If a 2 and an adjacent 1 overlap, and the 1 is fully accounted for by the shared cells, then the 2's non-shared cell must carry the leftover mine. Comparing neighbors against each other unlocks positions a single number can't.

When you must guess

Sometimes pure logic stalls and every remaining hidden cell could go either way. Now you guess — but guess like a strategist, not a gambler.

Estimate the probability of each candidate. If a 1 is spread across three hidden cells, each carries roughly a 1-in-3 chance of being the mine — about 33%. Compare that against the board's overall mine density (remaining mines divided by remaining hidden cells). Click the cell with the lowest mine chance. Corners and edges, which have fewer neighbors, often present cleaner odds. And before you commit, double-check the rest of the board — a guess in one corner is frequently made unnecessary by a forced move you missed somewhere else.

Ready to deduce?

That is the whole game: read the numbers, flag what's forced, reveal what's safe, and guess smart only when you truly must. The fastest way to internalize it is to play a few boards and watch the patterns light up.

Jump in and play Minesweeper right now, or browse the rest of the shelf over on all games. See you on the board.