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Advanced Minesweeper

datagenetics.com

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Re: Advanced Minesweeper

#11

Post by pessimizer »

powrtoch wrote: post #10
breadbox wrote: post #5

Speaking as someone who has spent WAY too much time playing minesweeper -- Early on I came to a similar conclusion (though without doing the actual math) and started clicking on corners initially. I soon discovered, as most people do, that corners are much more likely to expand out into a tiny opening that you can only follow for a short time before you're forced to make a "coin toss" move. If the goal is to make a _…

Speaking as the same sort of person (96 secs on expert :-) ), I agree that the most useful strategy is to click in the middle. This is because the cost of restarting is practically nothing for your first few clicks (no sunk time costs), so what you should really be optimizing is trying to get the most information about the board as soon as possible. All the more so because optimally your whole game will proceed logic…

Wouldn't bigger cascades be more likely to deadend, due to the average density of what's leftover increasing?

Re: Advanced Minesweeper

#12

Post by powrtoch »

pessimizer wrote: post #11
powrtoch wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking as the same sort of person (96 secs on expert :-) ), I agree that the most useful strategy is to click in the middle. This is because the cost of restarting is practically nothing for your first few clicks (no sunk time costs), so what you should really be optimizing is trying to get the most information about the board as soon as possible. All the more so because optimally your whole game will proceed logic…

Wouldn't bigger cascades be more likely to deadend, due to the average density of what's leftover increasing?

My fault for being ambiguous about the word "bigger", thanks for pointing this out. It's true that you're not looking for a large area per se. What you want is a large perimeter. The best starting click would be a whole lot of thin tentacles stretching out across the board, not a giant square-ish clump.

That is, you're trying to maximize information. A large rectangular area doesn't give you nearly as much information about the board as a tentacle-y one, because most of the squares don't tell you anything but their own value.

Re: Advanced Minesweeper

#13

Post by twelvechairs »

breadbox wrote: post #5

Speaking as someone who has spent WAY too much time playing minesweeper -- Early on I came to a similar conclusion (though without doing the actual math) and started clicking on corners initially. I soon discovered, as most people do, that corners are much more likely to expand out into a tiny opening that you can only follow for a short time before you're forced to make a "coin toss" move. If the goal is to make a _…

Yeah. On 'advanced' I got to the point where I'd click all four corners (and if that didn't work I'd try again) because it massively reduced the chances of coming to a '50/50 guess', which was the biggest difficulty of the game and most often happened near the corners...

Re: Advanced Minesweeper

#14

Post by eCa »

pcopley wrote: post #6
breadbox wrote: post #5

Speaking as someone who has spent WAY too much time playing minesweeper -- Early on I came to a similar conclusion (though without doing the actual math) and started clicking on corners initially. I soon discovered, as most people do, that corners are much more likely to expand out into a tiny opening that you can only follow for a short time before you're forced to make a "coin toss" move. If the goal is to make a _…

Do you think this is because the blob found in the middle is likely to have more perimeter squares than edge or corner selections?

A corner may be more likely to expand at least one square, but a middle click is more likely to have an immediately actionable open square. This is somewhat related though to the type of play one uses.

I started out as a flagging user (the usual right-click to mark known mines), and then I always started in the lower right corner. Then (after a few years break) I started playing non-flagging (that is no right click allowed) and I find that a middle click is much more likely to give an "easy" opening.

My usual opening consists of several middle clicks spread out until I get an opening (or failure).

For every serious minesweeper I recommend the Minesweeper Clone: http://www.minesweeper.info/downloads/MinesweeperClone.html

(On one sad night I got 79 seconds on expert..)

Added: The cost (in seconds) of clicking corners until an opening is too high compared to the risk of getting a coin toss in a corner. Prudence isn't fast enough :)

Re: Advanced Minesweeper

#15

Post by randomdrake »

Zimahl wrote: post #8

Although I have no idea since I have never seen the code, I'm pretty sure there's no way to hit a bomb on your first click. I'm played enough (MS Windows) Minesweeper and have never, ever hit a bomb on the first click. As a side note, Minesweeper the first game I ever programmed was for my intro C class in college using SRGP[1] as the graphics library. Thinking back, it was a tough project. The Minesweeper logic wasn…

As far as I can recall, hitting a bomb on the first click is possible. But, if the source code proves my memory wrong, it certainly wouldn't be the first time.

Re: Advanced Minesweeper

#16

Post by Zimahl »

pessimizer wrote: post #11
powrtoch wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking as the same sort of person (96 secs on expert :-) ), I agree that the most useful strategy is to click in the middle. This is because the cost of restarting is practically nothing for your first few clicks (no sunk time costs), so what you should really be optimizing is trying to get the most information about the board as soon as possible. All the more so because optimally your whole game will proceed logic…

Wouldn't bigger cascades be more likely to deadend, due to the average density of what's leftover increasing?

This is a definite problem on expert. I had a few female friends in college who were insanely good at Minesweeper, able to clear expert more often than not and insanely fast (under 100 seconds). When I was trying to get better and would get excited to get a big cascade, they'd just chuckle knowing that it was just going to make my chances that much more slim.

Re: Advanced Minesweeper

#17

Post by stanzyamith »

slig wrote: post #7

There're some gems on DataGenetics' blog. Highly recommended.

Yes, especially:

Benford's Law http://www.datagenetics.com/blog/march52012/index.html

Hangman http://www.datagenetics.com/blog/april12012/index.html

Yahtzee http://www.datagenetics.com/blog/january42012/index.html

Risk http://www.datagenetics.com/blog/november22011/index.html

Plus others ...

Re: Advanced Minesweeper

#18

Post by thesteamboat »

Zimahl wrote: post #8

Although I have no idea since I have never seen the code, I'm pretty sure there's no way to hit a bomb on your first click. I'm played enough (MS Windows) Minesweeper and have never, ever hit a bomb on the first click. As a side note, Minesweeper the first game I ever programmed was for my intro C class in college using SRGP[1] as the graphics library. Thinking back, it was a tough project. The Minesweeper logic wasn…

Microsoft uses a bad algorithm. The clever algorithm to prevent dying on the first click: Generate one extra mine during the random generation phase. After the first click, remove any mine the player clicks on, or, if they click on none, remove one randomly.

Re: Advanced Minesweeper

#19

Post by archangel_one »

randomdrake wrote: post #15
Zimahl wrote: post #8

Although I have no idea since I have never seen the code, I'm pretty sure there's no way to hit a bomb on your first click. I'm played enough (MS Windows) Minesweeper and have never, ever hit a bomb on the first click. As a side note, Minesweeper the first game I ever programmed was for my intro C class in college using SRGP[1] as the graphics library. Thinking back, it was a tough project. The Minesweeper logic wasn…

As far as I can recall, hitting a bomb on the first click is possible. But, if the source code proves my memory wrong, it certainly wouldn't be the first time.

I wonder if this is an enhancement in Vista Minesweeper? I'm almost certain that it used to be possible to land on a mine with your first click in older versions.

Re: Advanced Minesweeper

#20

Post by webjprgm »

This seems totally wrong to me. Of course the probability of surrounding squares being all safe is higher in the corner simply because there are fewer surrounding squares!

To make it more fair, calculate the probability that 3+ adjacent squares would be safe, since that's how many you get in the corner. Then the math shows that center is better because there are more neighboring squares that could be potentially blank.

More useful would be the probability of having a cascade continue on past adjacent squares to squares adjacent to those, with the "winner" being whichever location is most likely to make the largest exposed bubble.

My strategy is generally click a few places in the center quickly. If I die, I don't have much invested and just start over. If I find a large bubble, then I can play.

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