Is there anywhere else I can go without guessing randomly?

Question

I’ve been looking at this board for a little while, and can’t seem to find any places to go where I don’t have to guess. Is guessing the only thing I can do here, or are there strategies that I’m missing?

Am I able to use the “1”s on the borders to help me?

Answer 1

Don't trust the (formerly) accepted answer. :-)

(It depends, in part, on a mistake you've made earlier: there's a third flag next to a couple of 2s along the left side. I added a green square to mark the bogus flag in the picture below.)

Despite that, you have several break-ins left to use:

• the flag that's next to the mistaken flag has a 1 next to it.
• the 1-3-1 corner is guaranteed to have the 1s' bombs in squares next to the 3, and a bomb in the square that's only next to the 3.
• an 1-2-1 along a straight edge always has a safe square under the 2
• at the top, there's a 1-1-1 (looks like 1-1-2, but the 2 already has a bomb) neighbouring only three squares, that can only work with a single bomb in the middle.
• At the bottom right, the 2 will have both its bombs next to the 4. Combining this with the logic propagating from the other break-ins, you can mark one more bomb next to the 4.

Here's a picture of the possible deductions.

Answer 2

You have a couple of 1s that are already adjacent to bombs that you can clear out, as well as a 2 at left adjacent to 2 bombs.

One strategy which is available to you is on the bottom: you see a 1-2-1 in a row? The center square, directly under the 2, cannot be a bomb. If it were, neither the square to its left or right could be a bomb, which would leave the 2 adjacent to just 1 bomb. Hence it is the left and right squares that are bombs.

Answer 3

Here are a some things I see:

I'll reference my red circled numbers with parenthesis like (1) and the numbers on the board with single quotes like '1'.

1. The '2' already has one bomb, so one of the two squares below '1' must have the other bomb. Because of this, the '1' above the two cannot have a bomb in position (1) and it can be cleared.
2. The '2' above (2) already has both bombs flagged so you can clear all three of the other squares it is touching.
3. When you see a '3' in a corner like this with two ones by it, the corner position must contain a bomb. For the '3' to have 3 bombs, the two squares above the red (2) can only have one bomb because of the '1' above the '3', and likewise the two squares right of the red (3) can only have one bomb due to the other '1', so the third bomb must be in (3) so you can flag it.
4. Similarly, when you see '1','2','1' along a horizontal or vertical line, the two bombs must be at the edges and the middle spot can be cleared. If the two bombs were both on the left or right here then the '1's would have too many bombs. So you can clear (4)
5. The '3' to the top-right of square (5) can only have one more bomb, and the '4' above it needs three more. Since they share two squares in common, the two squares above the '4' must contain bombs and only one of the other squares contains a bomb. This means the last bomb for the '3' must be in one of those two squares and you can clear (5)