What chording is
A chord is a click on a number whose flag count already equals its value. The game knows there's no way for any of the remaining unrevealed neighbours to be a mine — the number is satisfied — so it reveals them all in one move.
Visually: a 3 with three flags around it has up to five unrevealed neighbours. Click the 3 and the five non-flagged neighbours flip open simultaneously. Without chording you'd need five separate clicks. With it, you need one.
Why it's worth practising
Minesweeper times come down to clicks per second times useful clicks per board. Chording lifts the "useful clicks per board" side of the equation by an order of magnitude in some regions.
- Beginner (9×9, 10 mines) — a single chord can clear 4-7 cells. The whole board has maybe 70 safe cells; one well-placed chord shaves 10-15% of total clicks.
- Intermediate (16×16, 40 mines) — chords compound. A flood-fill spawns a wall of numbers, and every satisfied number is a chord candidate. Top players average 8-12 chords per board.
- Expert (30×16, 99 mines) — chording is mandatory for sub-100-second clears. Without it, even with perfect deductions, you'll be stuck around 150 seconds purely from click count.
How to chord on each device
Desktop
On Minesweeper Battle, just left-click a satisfied number. The chord fires immediately. (Older clients sometimes require middle-click or simultaneous left+right click; we removed that ceremony — one button does the job.)
Mobile / touch
Tap a satisfied number. Same single tap that opens unrevealed cells doubles as chord on revealed numbers. There's no double-tap, no extra button — the gesture is identical to a normal reveal, which makes the rhythm clean once you're used to it.
Keyboard
Keyboard chording isn't bound on this client — most players prefer mouse for speed. If you want a keyboard-driven workflow, let us know via support@minesweeperbattle.com; if there's demand we'll add it.
When to flag, when to skip
Chording requires flags, and flags cost time. The trade-off is almost always worth it — but only for numbers you'll actually chord later.
- Flag mines that satisfy a 3 or higher. High-count numbers usually have many unrevealed neighbours, so a chord pays off massively.
- Flag mines that satisfy a 2 if the 2's region is contested by another constraint. The flag does double duty — clears one number now and might unblock another later.
- Skip flagging on 1s in dead corners. A 1 alone in a corner with one unrevealed neighbour means that neighbour is a mine, but you can simply avoid it rather than flag it. Save the click.
- On small boards (6×6, beginner) skip flagging entirely. Often the click count saved by skipping flags beats the click count saved by chording.
Cascade chording — the speedrunner's superpower
Chording cascades. When a chord reveals a 0, the board flood-fills again. When the flood-fill stops at a new boundary of numbers, several of them might be instantly satisfied by already-placed flags. Each of those is another chord candidate.
Top players ride this cascade aggressively. The rhythm goes: flag, chord, scan new boundary, flag again, chord again. A well-planned cascade can clear half an expert board in 15 seconds.
The trick is anticipation. Before you chord a 3, look at its neighbours. If the chord will expose a 1 that's adjacent to a cell already touched by another satisfied 1, you have a chain ready to fire. Plan two moves ahead and the cascade flows.
The chord-detonation trap
Chording will detonate a mine if your flags are wrong. The rule is brutal: if you flagged the wrong cell, the chord reveals the right one, which contains the actual mine — and the board ends.
Three common ways to set this trap for yourself:
- Late-game miscount. You added a flag during a flurry of chords without double-checking it. The flag is on a cell that "felt right" but wasn't proven. Now you chord based on that bad flag.
- Off-by-one on a high count. A 4 with three flags around it isn't satisfied; chording exposes the fourth mine. The eye sometimes reads "looks full" when it's actually one short.
- Flag drift from another player. In multiplayer races this doesn't happen — each player has their own board. But in solo, if you stepped away mid-game and forgot what you'd flagged, re-verify before chording the area.
Antidote: before chording any number with three or more flags nearby, glance once at each flag and confirm. It costs less than a second; it saves the entire board.
Drilling chord rhythm
The path to clean chording is rhythm — flag, click, reveal, scan, repeat. Practise in three stages:
- Stage 1 — conscious chording. Play beginner boards and chord every satisfied number you spot, even when an individual click would be faster. You're training the recognition, not the speed.
- Stage 2 — flag economy. Move to intermediate. Now ask before every flag: "will I chord this number later?" If the answer is no, skip the flag.
- Stage 3 — cascade chaining. On expert, deliberately look two moves ahead. Pre-flag a region knowing you'll chord through it. The cascade should feel like one move, not five.
Top mobile players on Minesweeper Battle run 4-6 chords per second on a hot region. That sounds extreme until you realise each chord is just a tap, and the visual feedback is instantaneous — you barely think between them.
Put it to work
Open a fresh intermediate board and play with one rule: every time a number is satisfied, you must chord it before doing anything else. After ten boards your click rhythm will feel different — fewer clicks for the same result, less mental load per cell, faster recovery from flood-fills.
Then take it to the multiplayer lobby. Races reward the chord cascade more than any other single technique — your opponent is doing the same deductions, but if you chord 30% more than they do, you'll usually win.