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How to Play Beginner Minesweeper

Beginner Minesweeper is played on a 9×9 grid — 81 squares — with 10 mines hidden at random. You reveal squares one at a time; a revealed square shows a number counting the mines in the eight squares that touch it, or opens as a blank that cascades through its mine-free neighbours. You win by revealing all 71 safe squares without ever opening a mine. This page covers the full rules, flagging, the chording shortcut and the logic that turns guessing into deduction.

Step by step

  1. Open your first square. Click or tap any square to start. Your first click is always safe and clears an opening area with numbers around its edge.
  2. Read the numbers. A number is exactly how many of the eight squares around it hide a mine. A blank (zero) square has no mines nearby, so its neighbours are safe and open automatically.
  3. Flag the mines. When a number proves a square must be a mine, flag it — right-click on desktop, or long-press (or turn on flag mode) on touch — so you never open it by mistake.
  4. Clear every safe square. Keep opening squares you can prove are safe until only the 10 mines are left unopened. Do it without hitting one and you win — the timer stops and your best time is saved.

Strategy

Start in the middle, not the edges — a central first click usually opens a bigger area and gives you more numbers to read. Learn to trust a satisfied number: once you have flagged as many mines as a number shows, every other square it touches is safe to open, and you can click the number itself to open them all at once (that is called chording). Flag a mine the moment you are certain of it so you do not click it by accident, and work the corners of opened areas where the numbers are smallest.

Frequently asked questions

How big is the Beginner board and how many mines?
It is a 9×9 grid of 81 squares with 10 mines, the classic Windows Beginner size. That density — about one mine in eight squares — is loose enough to learn on while still needing real deductions.
What exactly does a number mean?
A number on a square is the count of mines among the up-to-eight squares immediately around it (including diagonals). A 1 means exactly one of those neighbours is a mine; a 3 means three of them are. A square with no number (blank) touches zero mines.
What is chording?
If a number already has the right count of flags around it, you can click the number itself to open all its remaining neighbours in one action. It is the fastest way to clear an area — but only safe once your flags are correct, since a wrong flag will open a real mine.
Do I have to flag every mine to win?
No. You win by opening every safe square; the mines can be left untouched and unflagged. Flags are just a memory aid to stop you clicking a square you know is dangerous. When you clear the last safe square the remaining mines are flagged for you.
Why do I sometimes still have to guess?
On a random board the final squares can genuinely be a 50/50 with no logical answer. That is exactly what the no-guess option removes: Minesweeper.Free generates Beginner boards that a logical solver has confirmed are fully solvable, so a stuck position always has an answer.

Play Beginner Minesweeper →