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Bestever

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The Bestever was a ranking of the best minesweeper players created by Georgi Kermekchiev in 2002. It moved to Planet Minesweeper in 2004 but is now part of Authoritative Minesweeper.

History

The Bestever ranking started with a post by Georgi Kermekchiev (Bulgaria) on 15 Aug 2002 in Minesweeper Addicts:

NEW TOP 100 RANKING - updated weekly

Hi everyone,

I uploaded ranking of all players that have sub-100 total from the 3 boards. Please check it in 'Database' section.

I will try to keep it updated weekly. If anyone has new record, please let me know (kermekchiev@...) - no screenshots are needed - trust above all :-)

All the data are gathered from Damien's, Matt's GBs and from some personal sites - I've been keeping track of all records during the last 6 months and now I decided to publish it as the only one such ranking (Damien's) is not updated regularly ..

Best regards, Georgi Kermekchiev

Georgi started collecting scores months earlier. On 9 May 2002 he provided Matt McGinley (USA) with a ranking fo all Sub20 Intermediate players for his Intermediate Hall of Fame website. He then started a 'Top 100 Ranking' and uploaded it to Minesweeper Addicts, inspired by the ranking of the same name at Authoritative Minesweeper. As Georgi explained in his post, the AMS ranking was out of date and not updated frequently. This was partly due to the administrator, Damien Moore (Canada), being grounded from the internet by his parents. The new ranking used the same format to sort players by the sum of their times. It also listed total mines solved per second. Starting with the first ranking of 2004, mines per second was dropped.

Georgi did not intend to start a different world ranking; instead, he viewed himself as maintaining the ranking in place of Damien until the site was updated regularly again. He offered to maintain AMS on 18 Jul 2003, but this fell through for technical reasons. Scores for the BE were taken with permission from the Guestbook and occasional updates to the site, as well as from posts in Addicts and the guestbook at the Intermediate Hall of Fame.

The first ranking took place 12 Aug 2002 and was posted in the database section of Addicts. He planned to update weekly, then every ten days, but eventually settled into updating the Addicts database approximately every two weeks. Starting with Period 7 of 2003 the ranking could be accessed by a link on the Active Ranking site. Sometime during 2003 he began to mail the ranking to interested players after every update. The 12 Sep 2003 ranking included a Sub70 player list which was released with all future updates.

Under Georgi the ranking grew from about 120 names to 261 players and XP Beginner scores were made illegal. But after maintaining the ranking for almost two years, Georgi decided it was time for someone else to take charge. On 25 May 2004 he wrote the players on the mailing list saying, "By the way, I've been thinking of giving up of ranking updates. I'm looking for successor who will continue that noble activity". He also posted an advertisement for a new administrator on 29 May 2004 in Addicts and the Guestbook:

Hi Everyone,

I am accepting offers from those who are ready take care of Best Ever Ranking future updates. At this moment only Christoph Marx and Katy LaVallee offered their help. I intend after getting all volunteer names to make a poll where the Minesweeper brotherhood to choose someone. The Best Ever successor I think should be trusted personality with proven profile, dataprocessing/html/php skills and above all a lot of enthusiasm, energy and FREE TIME.

I expect he/she not only to make the regular updates, but to develope/automize it, make the necessary design changes, maybe reserve web address and promote it through the WEB. Please tell me if you can take that job seriously...

Planet Minesweeper

The ranking was transfered to Planet Minesweeper on 27 Jun 2004 with an announcement by Georgi in the Addicts and the Guestbook:

My fellow-sweepers,

As you may know, I will no longer update the Bestever ranking. I was looking for someone to substitute me in this noble activity. I believe I found the right person.

Let us welcome Gregoire Duffez (Detrusor) as my successor of the Bestever ranking and wish him good luck. He will continue to keep it alive ... moreover he will automate it as much as possible. He registered a new mail address for all record breaking announcements and proofs. Please start sending your new bests to bestever@planet-minesweeper.com

Grégoire Duffez (France) had previously run a French ranking at Planète Démineur. He now created an English version of the site, and added both the Best Ever list and the Active Ranking to the site. His main achievements with the Best Ever list were removing UPK scores from the list, seeing clone scores accepted to the ranking, linking videos to scores and making videos mandatory for acceptance to the ranking. He also introduced flags and graphics and allowed users to submit scores and videos via the Forum. The site saw the ranking grow from 261 to 428 players.

In the latter half of 2006, Grégoire began to lack the time needed to maintain the site. He announced his retirement and last update on 25 Nov 2006 and gave Andrew McCauley (Australia) the keys to his site. Andrew was able to make occasional updates to the ranking until 14 Mar 2007.

Final Resting Place

While the BE was originally seen as a more current version of the ranking at Authoritative Minesweeper, by Summer 2004 the original ranking was a year out of date and the BE was effectively a seperate ranking. The BE transferred to Planet Minesweeper and became the de facto official world ranking. However, in October 2004 Damien found time to clear the backlog of emails in a massive update. See World Ranking for more information. This created a situation for the next two years where AMS had a larger list but PM had more accurate rankings for the best players. By September 2007 there were 810 known world ranked players: 428 were listed at Planet and 550 at AMS. However, by this time Grégoire had retired and he soon gifted his rankings to Damien. The BE in effect came full circle. Technically the BE still lives on, but use of the term is slowly fading as it is generally only used to refer to the version that existed at Planet Minesweeper.

Changing Names

The BE has been known by various names throughout its career. It was originally introduced as either the 'Top 100 Ranking' or the 'Sub 100 Players List'. Often it is called 'The World Ranking'. Starting with his update on 17 Nov 2002, Georgi began calling it the 'Best Ever Players' list. Over the years this became the 'Best Ever' list, then the 'Bestever' list, and then simply the 'BE'.

Surviving Msgs on Rankings posted in Addicts (temporary section)

  • 2002 Aug 12 'The Top 100 Ranking'
  • 2002 Aug 19
  • 2002 Aug 24
  • 2002 Aug 29
  • 2002 Sep 12 'World Ranking' (Damien has paper copy)
  • 2002 Sep 21 - 127
  • 2002 Sep 30 - 130
  • 2002 Oct 05
  • 2002 Oct 18
  • 2002 Nov 17 - 136 'Best Ever Players'
  • 2002 Dec 12 - 157
  • 2002 Dec 26 - 158
  • 2003 Jan 26 - 164
  • 2003 Feb 06 - 168
  • 2003 Feb 25 - 170
  • 2003 Mar 06 - 175
  • 2003 Mar 28 - 177
  • Missing posts? It was being updated, see list below that Damien has copies of
  • 2003 Dec 05 - 200+

Rankings Damien has copies (temporary section)

  • 2003 Mar 28
  • Missing lots?
  • 2003 Jul 18
  • 2003 Aug 01 - 188
  • 2003 Aug 15
  • 2003 Aug 29
  • 2003 Sep 12
  • 2003 Sep 26
  • 2003 Oct 10
  • 2003 Oct 24
  • 2003 Nov 07
  • 2003 Nov 21
  • Missing Dec 05
  • 2003 Dec 19
  • 2004 Jan 05
  • Missing one?
  • 2004 Jan 31
  • 2004 Feb 14
  • 2004 Feb 27
  • 2004 Mar 14
  • 2004 Mar 28
  • 2004 Apr 11
  • 2004 Apr 25
  • 2004 May 10
  • 2004 May 24
  • 2004 Jun 15 - last one before PM