The
board
Minesweeper has three
standard boards to choose from, each progressively more difficult.
·
Beginner: 9 x 9 grid, 81 tiles,
10 mines
·
Intermediate: 16 x 16 grid, 256
tiles, 40 mines
·
Expert: 16 x 30, 480 tiles,
99 mines
·
Custom: up to 24 x 30,
720 tiles, 667 mines
First click
Tim
Kostka used his knowledge of Board Cycles to find the actual chance of finding openings on Windows Minesweeper. The first click is always safe
because any mine is moved to the top left corner or nearest empty squares to
its right. This means the top left corner gives fewer openings than the other
corners. It also means fewer openings result from the edge and middle squares
touching the top left corner.
|
Beginner
|
Intermediate
|
Expert
|
|
|
Corner
|
50 - 60 %
|
50 - 60 %
|
40 - 50 %
|
|
Edge
|
34 - 42 %
|
36 - 43 %
|
25 - 32 %
|
|
Middle
|
19 - 24 %
|
21 - 26 %
|
12 - 16 %
|
Your best chance of getting a large opening
is in the middle, then on an edge, then in a corner. So far no one has
calculated the theoretical advantage, but Tim collected actual results from
Windows Minesweeper. The biggest openings occur in the very center of the board
and decrease as you approach edges. The biggest openings from clicking on an
edge are in the middle and decrease as you approach corners.
This chart shows the variations in the average number of squares for each
opening:
|
Beginner
|
Intermediate
|
Expert
|
|
|
Corner
|
18%
|
27%
|
16%
|
|
Edge
|
20 – 24%
|
31 – 42%
|
19 – 26%
|
|
Middle
|
23 – 32%
|
35 – 66%
|
23 – 41%
|
Second click
With
Minesweeper, no matter where you click first, it won't be a mine. The second click,
though, could be a safe square or a mine. To figure out what the chance of
clicking on a mine with the second click, I just divided the number of
remaining safe squares by the total number of squares
|
|
Beg.
|
Int.
|
Exp.
|
Custom
(Max.) |
|
Total (HxW)
|
81
|
256
|
480
|
720
|
|
#/Mines
|
10
|
40
|
99
|
667
|
|
#/Safe Squares
|
70
|
215
|
380
|
52
|
|
Chance of clicking a safe square
|
88%
|
84%
|
79%
|
7%
|
|
Chance of clicking a mine
|
12%
|
16%
|
21%
|
93%
|
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