Expert lvl video done without flagging

[alex1st]

This one is done without marking mines, 3m05s. A good training exercise.

YouTube - Minesweeper Flags on XBL

YouTube - Minesweeper Flags on XBL

[OneSweetShannon]

Nice! Thank you for posting this.

[JonHu]

My best time on Expert is like 4:45. I have done the times for Easy and Intermediate. I flag and use X to clear.

Do you have any tips? Patterns to look out for? Strategy?

[Stuffgamer1]

Whoa, your best time is 48 seconds faster than that? I'd like to know how the heck you pulled THAT off!

This video would seem far more useful if I had any reason to believe that I could get that exact same board layout to show up. Impressive feat on your part making the darned thing, though.

[alex1st]

My best time is not done in this way, but I like playing without flagging coz that requires you to be more aware of where the mines are. As for strategies, some patterns that frequently show up are
x - x
1 2 1

~~~~~~~~
? ? x
1 2 2

~~~~~~~~
1 1 1
? 1 ?
- - -

~~~~~~~~~
x: mine, -: safe, ?:uncertain
Of course there's much more, the best way to improve is practice. Watching others play can sometimes help you discover some useful patterns that you might not know.

Opening layout is important in beginner and intermediate, but not quite in expert. Most of the time, if you have a large area opened up in the beginning, that means the mine/square ratio is much higher for the rest of the board, and that could make it harder to clear the board, or at least slow you down later. The ideal situation is that you start up with small or medium area, and as you move on larger areas keep showing up.

Another important tip for expert mode is to watch for the mine counts when it's close to the end. A lot of times you can solve a seemingly unsolvable situation by knowing how many mines left. A simple example:

1 2
? ? 2
? ? 1
This is a typical 50/50 situation where you can have 1, 2, or 3 mines in the 2x2 square, but if this is the last square left on the board, then you can tell the top right is mine if there's only 1 mine left, or the top right is not mine and the rest are all mines if there're 3 mines left. Unfortunately, if there're two mines left, you have to make a guess(either one of the diagonals are mines) . Another good use of the mine count in the end is to rule out non-mine squares. For example if you have 4 mines left and you have the following situation
? 4 x 3 ? 2 x
? ? ? ? ? ? ?
You know that out of the four ?s surrounding 4, three are mines, and out of the four ?s surrounding 2, only one is mine. then you are assured the one below 3 is not mine and you can probably proceed a little further.

Hope the tips can help those struggling to get 10 wins or to get into 200s in expert

[JonHu]

thanks for the tips!

[TSG Dwaggie]

OMG...I really wish I could do it that quick. I haven't even been able to do it at all, let alone that quick