Easy minesweeper
The level to start on: a 9×9 field, ten mines and room to learn the two rules that solve most of it.
Leaderboard
Keyboard
- Arrows or WASD — move
- Enter or Space — uncover the field
- F — place or remove a flag (right click with a mouse, hold on a touch screen)
- Enter on a number with all its mines flagged uncovers the remaining fields
- One mine ends the game — but no board here ever requires a guess
Latest posts
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The 1-2-1 pattern in minesweeper: read the board instead of guessing
Three adjacent numbers reading 1-2-1 along the edge of the opened area settle the position of two mines with zero risk. Together with 1-2-2 and the mine counter, that is the whole toolkit.
What "easy" means on this level
The classic beginner field: 9×9 with 10 mines, which is a mine on roughly every eighth square. It is the level where the two basic rules are enough from the first field to the last, and where you can learn them without ever paying for a mistake you could not have avoided.
Like every field on this site, it is guaranteed solvable without guessing — and the server opens the starting area before the clock has anything to measure.
How to solve it, step by step
- Start at the edge of the opened area. Every number there is a complete piece of information: it says how many of its neighbours are mines.
- Use the two rules. A number with as many flags around it as its value has no other mines — the rest of its neighbours are safe. A number whose remaining covered neighbours are exactly as many as it still needs is surrounded by mines only.
- Flag, then chord. Once a number has all its mines flagged, click the number itself: everything else around it opens in one move.
- Finish with the counter. When the mine counter hits zero, every field still covered is safe.
How long it takes
A first field ever: two or three minutes. After a few days: 20–40 seconds. Players who have done this for years finish a 9×9 in under ten seconds, mostly by chording instead of clicking single squares.
The habit that saves the most time here is boring: flag first, open second. Flags are what make chording possible, and chording is what makes speed possible.
When to move up
Move up when you finish easy fields without stopping to think and without ever hitting a mine. Medium minesweeper gives you a 12×12 field with 22 mines — the first level where counting genuinely beats clicking on instinct.