Authoritative Minesweeper

Kyle recently scored 40 NF on Expert and has been sending scores to the ranking for several years. When I watch the videos it seems something like Elmar's Technique is being used (opening squares pressing down and also when releasing the button). Is there another explanation? I would appreciate if you guys would look at the videos before he breaks any world records

Profile with videos: http://www.minesweeper.info/profile.htm ... tat=expert

The 40s video really looks unusual, the 45s looks almost 'normal' but you can see squares are depressed when the mouse moves over them (suggesting the button is down and is waiting to be released - if 'normal' it is unusual to press down that far in advance of where you plan to click). They also look strange when compared to other NF players like Gottlieb (http://www.minesweeper.info/profile.html?player=3701).

Ahh......I haven't thought his replays like this...Maybe I should raise this topic(Elmar's Technique) to my friends later. Gacord(Jin-Yang Guo) has doubt him cheating earlier but I think people is possible to think as fast as him do. A special fact I have noticed is Kyle always use two clicks as a bunch(see Wei-Hao Gao,Chinese players use three clicks a bunch), so Elmar's Technique is a possible explanation.

Edit: His exp 40s and int 4.93 bbbvs record are the same level of unusual. I can tell the difference between this two and his old replays, and I'm also sure it's the same guy.

I'm biased, so take everything I say with several grains of salt. I did notice he has his mouse button depressed for a long time before some clicks, but I don't think it's enough to necessarily say it's Elmar technique. The reason is, a while ago I posted an idea for a NF clicking technique where you would keep the button depressed and then let go and re-press (a sort of inverse click) to open a square, the idea being that you open the square on the first movement so you don't have to worry about pressing and releasing extremely fast. It's awkward and unusual, but it may be faster with enough time, so maybe he learned to use it in the year since the 46.

The 4.93 3bv/s and 39.32 time stand out from the other recent replays, with fast and accurate clicking and sometimes (especially in the 40) extremely fast mouse movement between squares. A 6+ second jump is very weird, and 142 3BV is very high for such a jump too (I would expect <115). Maybe he hasn't been posting records here, but the 40 is at a far higher skill level than the 46 and is probably easy to improve. He has a twitch.tv (video game streaming site) and youtube account where he mentions minesweeper, but I couldn't find any videos other than the ones here. It's unusual, but that's not very good evidence in either direction. Either way, I'm taking this as motivation to improve

@qqwref you mentioned a skill which is widely used among Chinese NF players…I don't/rarely use this because it's really tiring, but I know it. Wei-Jia applyed it all over the board for many years so his arm and finger don't work as a top player's now, and he turns to FL.
Your signature is still 1-10-43 and it's time to edit it. Why don't you take my score as motivation? You have better exp 3bvs than me and you can do better.

Before this case you need to ban WR.39 Stevan Gvozdenovic 's exp time record first.

Kyle Barkman's new videos show great progress and are far beyond any other nf-style players except Guo Wei Jia.
I would like to see more his plays~~

Yesterday i asked his stats.dat on irc
Then I find out a strange thing: before june 21st his best RQP was 45.91 on 158 and avg was 58.91 on 171
on day june 22nd he got 5 far better RQP in 2 hours
After this god day he returned to his normal status. Conclusion: All his good scores are made after June21st.
All these scores are far beyond any other his scores.

Perhaps you can improve a lot in the very same day but how can you get weak back the day after.

Ahh.........the move is too fast, obviously another level beyond any other day.

Looking at the game style of holding the left button down while looking where to click (which is not the same as Elmar Technique, where you change mouse settings), a new player joined (Joachim, #6511) and he uses this technique. He is slow enough you can understand what is happening.

To me this is unusual (I rarely play NF) but it is interesting the technique seems to become more and more popular. I would love to hear more from these NF players.

Example video:

Showing what I mean about different NF techniques. Screenshots from a Joachim game and Kyle 39 game.

White is mouse path with no buttons pressed. Blue path is left button down movement, blue dot is release. You can see Joachim starts pressing the left button down while moving to a new area and releases on the target, Kyle has many examples where a square seems to open at the start of a blue path (mouse down) and also end of blue path (mouse up). Is this a correct explanation?

Kyle definitely cheated using speed-up.
And the cheat is done poorly.

Joachim's video is just too weak to find out next safe place in a short time.
If you are trying to understand this technique just watching Guo Wei Jia's videos made in year 2014

It seems that Kyle's 39 is baned now.However I even doubt his 45 is also beyond his ability.