Beginner starts you on a 9×9 board with just 10 mines — small enough to read every number at a glance and reason out your first chord without pressure. This is where the game's actual mechanics click: what a number means, when a flag is worth placing, and how a satisfied number opens the rest of its neighbors in one move. Nine mines out of eighty-one cells is a light enough ratio that most of the board opens in one or two big cascades, which is exactly what makes it a good place to practice reading numbers before speed matters at all. New to the rules? See how minesweeper works.
Comfortable here? Intermediate is a step up.