How to Play Minesweeper
Minesweeper hides mines under a grid of covered squares - 10 on the Beginner board, 40 on Intermediate, and 99 on the huge Expert field. Left-click a square to reveal it. A revealed number tells you exactly how many of its eight neighbors hide a mine; a blank square has no adjacent mines and automatically clears its whole neighborhood. Right-click (or long-press on touch screens) to plant a flag on a square you believe is mined. Your first click is always safe, so dig in anywhere.
You win by revealing every square that isn't a mine - flags are just bookkeeping. Click a number whose flags are already accounted for and the game "chords", instantly revealing all its remaining neighbors. The counter on the left tracks mines minus flags, and the timer on the right records your solve. Win, and your time lands on the fastest-times leaderboard.
Strategy Tips
- A satisfied number is free real estate - if a "1" already touches one flag, every other covered square around it is safe. Chord it (click the number) to open them all at once.
- Learn the 1-2-1 pattern - three numbers reading 1-2-1 along a wall mean the mines sit under the squares beside the 1s, never under the middle. The 1-2-2-1 cousin puts mines under both middle squares.
- Count what a number can see - when a "2" touches exactly two covered squares, both are mines; flag them immediately. Matching a number to its remaining unknowns is 90% of the game.
- Work the edges of your opening - big blank cascades leave a clean border of numbers. Solve along that border instead of poking at isolated squares in unexplored territory.
- Chase time on chords, not clicks - fast players flag only when it enables a chord. Every chord replaces up to eight individual clicks, which is where leaderboard seconds are actually saved.
Read the full Minesweeper guide →
Playing Minesweeper on PlayVersusAI
The Windows classic, with three board sizes from beginner to expert. Left-click to reveal a square, right-click to flag a suspected mine, and each revealed number tells you how many mines touch that square. Clear every safe square to win.
Two quality-of-life rules that the original got right and many clones get wrong are implemented here. Your first click is always safe — the board is generated after you click, so you can never lose on move one. And chording works: once a numbered square has the right count of flags around it, clicking it reveals all remaining neighbours at once, which is where all the speed in competitive Minesweeper comes from.
What's on This Page
- High-score table — fastest times are ranked on the global leaderboard when you are signed in.
- No account required — the full game is playable as a guest, on desktop, tablet or phone.
Difficulty here means board size and mine density rather than an opponent. Beginner is a gentle introduction, intermediate is the standard practice board, and expert is the one the world records are set on.
Mistakes That Lose Games
- Not using chording. Revealing squares one at a time is several times slower and is the main thing separating a two-minute expert board from a forty-second one.
- Flagging everything. Flags are a tool for chording, not a scoring mechanism. Over-flagging wastes time and, when a flag is wrong, actively misleads you.
- Guessing before exhausting the logic. Most positions that look like a coin flip are solvable by comparing two adjacent numbers and the squares they share.
- Ignoring the mine counter. Late in the game, the number of mines left is often the single piece of information that resolves an otherwise ambiguous corner.
Minesweeper Questions
Can I lose on the first click?
No. The mines are placed after your first click, so the opening square is always safe and usually opens a useful area.
What is chording?
Clicking a revealed number that already has the correct number of flags adjacent to it, which reveals all its remaining unflagged neighbours in one action. It is the main speed technique in the game.
Do I ever have to guess?
Occasionally, yes. Some board configurations produce genuinely ambiguous positions with no logical resolution. They are rarer than people assume, though — most apparent guesses are solvable with a careful look at overlapping numbers.
For the complete rules, the deeper strategy and the history of the game, read the full Minesweeper guide, or browse guides for all 20 games.