The two Minesweeper patterns that solve most boards
Every Minesweeper number tells you how many mines touch it. Counting that out square by square works, and it is slow. Experienced players mostly do not count: they recognise shapes.
Two of those shapes cover most of what a board throws at you.
Play MinesweeperThe 1-1 pattern
Two 1s side by side, with a wall of unopened squares along one edge. The first 1 touches two unopened squares, and so does the second, and they share one of them.
That shared square accounts for both numbers, which means the square beyond the pair is safe. Open it. This one pattern unpicks long walls faster than anything else.
The 1-2 pattern
A 1 next to a 2, again along a wall of unopened squares. The 2 needs two mines among its neighbours and the 1 needs only one, and they overlap.
The square at the far end of the 2, the one the 1 does not touch, is a mine. Flag it, and the rest of the row usually falls out.
Play MinesweeperThe two moves everything else reduces to
- If a number already touches that many flags, every other neighbour is safe. Open them all.
- If a number touches exactly as many unopened squares as its value, all of them are mines. Flag them all.
- Alternate between those two until the board stops giving. Then look for a 1-1 or a 1-2.
When there is genuinely nothing
Some boards reach a point where no deduction is available and you have to pick. Before you do, count the mines left against the squares left: sometimes the global count rules out a possibility that the local numbers cannot.
If you still have to guess, guess in the corner or along an edge, where there are fewer neighbours and so fewer ways to be wrong.
The first click is always safe here, so there is no reason not to start another board immediately.
Play Minesweeper