I'm amazed with myself...

[TracerBullet42]

Ok, so it's a REALLY slow time at work right now...and I've just been passing the time with some intense Minesweeper action.

I just beat the "Expert" level in 167 seconds, and I have to say that was DARN fast. I'm mildly impressed with that time. Anybody beat that?

(And yes...it is THAT slow at work today...)

 

[Tewligan]

My best time is 142 seconds. Pow!

 

[der_kluge]

I'm convinced that you are both robots.

I don't play minesweeper very much, but my best Expert time is 607 seconds. My beginner and intermediate are 10 and 88 seconds.

I would have thought that 142 seconds was impossible. How do you do that?

 

[hong]

Feh.

 

[Knight Otu]

My times on my home computer are 11/63/203. I think I beat 200 once at school during library service, but that was pretty long ago.

 

[RichCsigs]

Laptops suck for playing Minesweeper. My best time on the laptop is 343. On the family computer it's 198. I have done 6 on the begining level though.

 

[Zappo]

6 on beginner? I could do that, if I had an USB cable dangling out of my brain. I did less than 140 a long time ago, but I had a very lucky field.

 

[Heretic Apostate]

My best time for Expert was about 120 seconds. But that was a very, very fortunate placing of mines. That was probably a once-in-a-lifetime event.

My standard time for Expert is about 140 seconds, of the ones I manage to win. It's very easy to get the first 30 or 40 bombs flagged (in those cases where I don't manage to blow myself up in the "random click until you either blow up or you get a nice big starting position" way I play). I'm pretty good at identifying the most common patterns, but I all too frequently have to guess. I only win about one out of every hundred games, so it's no big deal.

I've also been playing Minesweeper for over 10 years, so I should be better at it than most people.

 

[Uzumaki]

Fastest time on my work computer for Beginner and Intermediate were 5 and 37 seconds. I think, anyway. At home it is 6 and 41. I've never had the patience to sit through an Expert level, but I suppose now I'll try it.

 

[Heretic Apostate]

You've just got to learn to recognize a few basic patterns, is all.

A "1 2 1" equals two mines at the edges.

A "1" at a corner is an obvious place to find a mine.

A "4" is often an L-shaped group of mines.

I still make mistakes, but it isn't hard to get to the end of a game of Expert. You just have to make about 30 guesses, each of which you have less than 50% chance of getting right. (Okay, maybe not that bad. Probably something like 10 to 15 guesses...)

You want an open area. If it's too big, you've got problems, because that means that the mines are packed tight someplace else. (More guessing.) If it's too small, you have to try for another clear area, because the mines are probably too tight in that area to expand outward.

Getting clear spaces on the edges--and especially the corners-- is ideal, since it lessens the range of where the mines could be.

But my best times were from starting in the middle with two or three small areas to expand out from.