Minesweeper Opening Strategy: Breaking 50/50s 

My alternative solution to the 50/50: take the shot as early as you possibly could. This is so you don't waste time waiting on the dreaded 50/50 at the end. If it fails, boohoo, move on, if it succeeds, then let's go.

In high school I was the weird kid for always playing minesweeper in class. Loved it for ages and discovered a lot of the patterns on my own thinking I was the only one who gave a shit about the game. Only learned this past few months that there is a community for it. Coming across this channel was a delightful surprise! Would love to see more!

the worst in 50/50 is that they often shows up by the end when you almost finish

never did i think i’d end up watching high quality mine sweeper content but here we are

I love it when RU-vid randomly recommends me a video that makes me aware of a whole subculture I never knew existed.

the only reason im here is because my crush is into minesweeper and i wanna impress them but ngl, this is actually a well made video

MINEBLOWING

Nice analysis! It would have been nice to throw in the variant two squares above the breaker. It can be a good choice too, just not when going for winrate, and I think it's a pretty nice example for maximizing winrate vs identifying forced guesses early (and maybe still dying to them), which is also fine for eg endurance.

Thanks for this! It randomly showed up in my recommended and i just clicked on it. I'm glad I did because this is such a nice video. You have good tips, nice music and production, and a super nice voice IMO.

I would have never thought that a minesweeper community existed, but this video opened my eyes.

This will revolutionize my minesweeper games 😈Thank you

I love your 2 newest videos!! Amazing direction for your work! Looking forward to whatever you do next

The last video got me hooked into playing minesweeper. And this one is just as good! Thanks for the great content.

Commented,liked, and subscribed! Never had interest in minesweeper, but this video is good and well made May the algorithm bless you, sweeping stranger

I really enjoy the probability-labeled tiles, thank you :) as a stranger to the community

i got really into minesweeper during lockdown and im still obsessed it’s just so fun!

I know this was about a 50/50 at the start, but when i encounter 50/50s at the end of the game I just use a binary search for the flag locations. Usually there aren't that many flags left, and an alternate win condition is to have flags placed over all the bombs. This strategy is slow as hell, but outside of speedrunning I'd guess it's probably well known

I started playing a few months ago and this is a great help.

what a splendid research you have done

I saw this on my recommended page, then i saw it again in the minesweeper online chat. Amazing video :)

So happy to see this new video, keep it up! (Great music)

I didn't expect that there was an interest in this. I remember reading a paper about the best approaches a few years ago. And at the end they said that sometimes is just luck involved

Kinda satisfying seeing some tuber explain strats i’ve been using for years

0:01 at the bottom left there’s a 1 that definitely can’t be there

Very helpful! Not only showing wha to do, but also showing how, and most importantly, why to do specific moves, thanks!

Just found your channel by the algorithm and subscribed. Looking forward to more opening videos ^_^

There is this game called Minesweeper: Collector, and it counts a round as completed if you flagged all the mines, so at a guessing spot you can just place the flag(s) in one way or another, until you found the one that works.

Just finished the video and started playing and the exact same scenario as the example happened, and I got lucky 😊

this video maked me complete my first game of minesweeper

Discovering that there's people who actually like the game and don't take as meme it's a big surprise. It's good to know there's a community that like minesweeper.

Well done! And great taste in music 😊

OOOhhh my man, you full fill me, its the first video of that i am watching, and i wanted so but to start using math in minesweeper you have just introduced me to applied math in minesweeper

Second strategy video, second time I'm called a newbie. Interesting approach. :)

Sounds interesting! 50/50 are the bane of my existence so it’s cool to find a way to make them more manageable.

You sound exactly how I'd expect a god minesweeper to sound. I love these videos, thank you.

Nice, sometimes when I played any kind of board got lots 50/50 guesses that I won or lost. Well, if everything was perfect, imagine. Good video 💯👍

great video! honestly, i've just been using my intuition for those, i just click on the one my mind thinks is more likely to be safe in that position lol good analysis!

thanks for this, i always lose on these guessing scenarios

I'm a big fan of these analyses of Minesweeper strategies. It is valuable to learn logical processes. I also really appreciate the recommendation in an earlier video of Chocolate Sweeper, which has taught me so many strategies for Minesweeper solving so I can more easily appreciate these videos

For a second in 0:52, the video quickly flashes, then returns to it's original state

I wonder if someone would be able to code up a variant that checks for these 3 most basic 50/50 patterns after generating the board, then moves one of their inside mines to a random other tile and checks again. Another idea I had was to make it let you start with a safe domino instead of just a safe click, which should drop the chance of dying with zero progress from around 19% on Expert to around 4-5% (I believe). In combination, this Breaker strategy would become a 100% safe (and thereby quite relevent) opening, both in the analyzed (01 24) case, but also in the (13) case that would become possible with the safe starting domino. I wonder what impact those two changes would have on the optimal winrates on Beginner, Intermediate, Expert, and some custom settings like 9x9/21 and 40x20/180.

Ladies and gentlemen, the minesweeper community.

I quite like 50 50, i tend to like probability a lot so when i have this scenarios i love to find my way around. Be it via "fake chances" like "aint no way its a line of 6 mines in a row" and trying to guess the result of algorithm the computer decided to get. Both really fun and rather effective

> never even touched minesweeper youtube video once > just replayed minesweeper again after a good while > this recommended ????how???? Though, it's a good video!

this mans voice is so calming to listen to, he sounds like G-Man explaining how to play minesweeper

Play this game a lot and I rarely started in the corner and went for the middle. Also if you have played this game a lot you will learn that there are patterns which are helpful.

Ah, Scar's old guide must have been a treasure trove for the beginning of this video!

iba a jugar una partida de apex pero el video me dejo enganchado

In that position, I like playing row 1 column 4 and row 4 column 1. Providing you don't blow up on either of those, there are only 3 unknown neighboring cells, so r1c4 is often a "1", and r4c1 is often a "2", both yielding progress. As an added benefit of r1c4 especially (but same is true of the other), you are likely to approach the troublesome breaker square (r3c4), and get information on it. Maybe a metric worth considering would be: # of neighboring squares without information / Probability of dying?

The best strategy is different depending on what you want out of the game. This one is for minimizing lost attempts. If you speedrun, you'll want to take high risks early, so you can get more attempts in a given amount of time. Or you play for mine density and just for fun: I Increase the amount of mines by one after every successful game. I make the best effort to finish every board, saving the guesses for last. (30x24 board, PB 195 mines, WR is 225)

I usually go for whichever would be more useful if it were a number, I either lose or I get better information vs lose or I get worse information

I accidentaly stumbled upon this video and by the looks of it by the time I do it again minesweeper will be an eSport

really nice video

I'm in love with Bach's WTC

Excelent video! I'm fairly new to these strategies but have been a fan of the game for a long time. If you create a patreon I will subscribe for sure!

why the F did I get a Minesweeper video in my recommendations and why did I watch it entirely

Actual correct solution: give the phone to a friend If they win: take credit If they lose: put the blame on them Profit

"Either one of these two things can happen: -you explode or -you survive" Oh, thanks. I was hoping those were the only TWO possible outcomes Great video on crunching the numbers of minesweeper though.

The best way to break a 50/50 is to say, "how tje hell have i gotten 4 of these bastards?" And click the cool dude in the top middle kf the acreen.

loved the video

Minesweeper is like a gambling card game, but the cards have a C4 attached that'll explode if you lose

thank you.

Well glad i been doing it right all these years.... Like just guess near by, so you at least have a chance to break the 50/50 sooner

Someone that still plays Minesweeper? Nice!

How does the corner just below the revealed bombs compare to the newbie strategy? On the first sight it looks the same, but it may be a bit better due to a possible combination with our 50/50.

Is there a version of minesweeper that adjusts/displays the probabilities on each square, as seen in this video?

I have considered the breaker approach in the past, and wasn't sure if it was ultimately better. Interesting to find out that the computer thinks yes! How "computer-like" do you have to play for win% to get above the newbie approach though? If you reveal a 2, then do the other two clicks, is it really feasible for a human to understand the best path forward?

it's only turning 50/50s into 60/40s. is there any time reverse technique for minesweeper? really need it a lot

Hey is there a minesweeper with the 50/50 thing on the phone? If so could I get the app name?

Wait, people start in the corner usually? I literally always do a few random clicks around the center to get some large blobs to start out with, since if I fail, I was only 5 seconds in anyways.

Order matters!

wow my childhood game

i'm surprise that the probability is less to die in this way :3

I didn’t even realize people start with the corners. I just choose some random slot in the middle and start from there.

Great video! Any strategies to get efficiency higher?

Allright, but what about the square 2 tiles above the breaker, or the 2 squares belowe the bombs under the 2 and 4? In my games I would have instinctively used them, through I don't know if the math adds up.

youtube be like "he'll watch anything at this point"

how did you get the probribility nummbers on your screen?

It’s easy to find them out.

tbh the thing i'm kinda missing is the actual extreme difficulty of skill like sure... no guessing exists, but you can't really generate a board that would extremely dense yet solvable on the website, even though composing one by hand would be doable, would be fun to have some actual challenge that's nothing but raw skill, that can turn out to be just something that needs 4 layers of thinking and a lot of ppl mostly expect the game of raw skill, not spending 2 minutes on clearing a board just to get wrecked by rng

Can I ask you what music you use in the background?

Just pointing out cause it caught my eye, at 7:12 on the left most side, that’s not in fact a 50/50 and can be solved by placing a mine above and below the current one and then removing the mine currently there

thanx

My strategy for avoiding this is to lose on my first click and I'm shockingly good at it

I’m confused. How come progress and bomb chance don’t add up to 100%? What other outcome is there?

As someone who has never seen a minesweeper strategy video before, why even start at the corner? Wouldnt it be better to start in the middle and take into account that the corners have higher odds of having a mine due to if the first guess is a mine it will be moved to the corner?

you're welcome

Another quality step checked! Big up Mine Buoy 😎

Oh. These f*ckers... I hate those personifications of RNG Tomfoolery a lot. Very curious to see your take with them!

Buckle up reference

3:50 I didn't get it, why is there forced 50/50 if there is a bomb?

great content and idea, however i still find the trusted approach of "eeny meeny miny mo" to be more effective.

Is there a strategy for ship placement?

Lore of Minesweeper Opening Strategy: Breaking 50/50s momentum 100

nice

here I am at 3 am watching some random minesweeper video

sorry if this is rude but what accent does he have? it sounds a lot like the 3 minute papers guy and it’s a pretty unique accent so ive always been a bit curious

I once won minesweeper in 1 second while looking away on easy mode

Honestly, I just stopped playing minesweeper entirely over the presence of 50/50s. Losing due to bad luck just takes all the fun out of a game - I fundamentally play to learn and improve, and if the reason I lost is luck, I've learned nothing.

why click a corner when you can just click a random tile somewhere in the center?