Trivia

From MinesweeperWiki

This page collects interesting Minesweeper trivia, facts for the truly addicted!

Contents 1 Best Family 2 Other Languages 3 Density 4 Webmaster Birthdays 5 3BV 5.1 Lowest Beginner 5.2 Lowest Intermediate 5.3 Lowest Expert 5.4 Highest Expert 6 Age 6.1 Sub50 6.2 Sub40 6.3 World Ranking 7 Longest Time to Break Record 7.1 Expert 7.2 Intermediate 7.3 Beginner 8 Milestones 8.1 10,000 Sub20 8.2 10,000 Sub60 8.3 1000 Sub50 9 Endurance 9.1 1000 Beginner 9.2 1000 Intermediate 9.3 100 Expert 9.4 Sub20 10 Foot Scores

[edit] Best Family

Ranking where 2 people in the same family have Sub100 Expert scores:

Player:	Scores:	Player:	Scores:	Relation:	Country:	Total:
Robert Farnik Philip Culp Lloyd Rhoads Jeff Gessert Ariel Fixler Cian O'Sheehan Christoph Nikolaus Emmanuel Brunelliere Arvo Leinsoo David Chan	1-12-55 2-16-59 1-15-62 3-18-59 2-17-56 3-20-67 2-14-54 1-12-53 1-15-61 3-24-71	Jan Farnik Peter Culp Edward Rhoads Jenna Gessert Seffi Fixler Cormac O'Sheehan Andreas Marx Laure Brunelliere German Leinsoo Jackson Chan	2-17-74 4-23-65 2-21-73 4-23-73 4-26-79 2-21-72 5-28-86 6-30-92 4-30-86 ?-??-83	Brothers Brothers Brothers Siblings Brothers Brothers Brothers Siblings Brothers Brothers	Czech Republic USA USA USA Israel Ireland Austria France Russia Canada	161 169 174 180 184 185 189 194 197 Unknown

[edit] Other Languages

• Aknakereso - Hungary
• Buscaminas - Mexico, Spain
• Campo Minado - Brazil, Portugal
• Campo Minato - Italy (original title)
• Démineur - France
• Hledání min - Czech Republik
• Miinaharava - Finland
• Mijnenveger - Netherlands
• Minestryger - Denmark
• Minesveiper - Norway
• Minesweeper - Canada, USA, UK
• MineSweeper - Germany
• MS Röj - Sweden (original title)
• Prato Fiorito - Italy (XP version)
• Röj - Sweden (XP version)
• Saolei - China
• Saper - Poland, Russia

[edit] Density

The most mines you can fit on a board is (x-1)(y-1).

[edit] Webmaster Birthdays

Damien Moore (Authoritative Minesweeper) and Gregoire Duffez (Planet Minesweeper) share the same birthday, 7th March. Gregoire is two years older.

[edit] 3BV

[edit] Lowest Beginner

Many players have won Beginner games in 1 click, but these games are not allowed on the world ranking. Before Microsoft released XP with a 9x9 grid, the One Click Bug often meant the timer did not stop. In 2002, Tim Kostka analysed the original 8x8 Beginner and discovered that there are no naturally occuring 1 click games; instead, 5 of the 48624 can become 1 click games because starting a game by clicking on a mine shifts it to the top corner.

Early versions of Minesweeper Clone sometimes generated 1 click games, but since Clone2006 the program has 3BV limits. The minimum natural board is 3BV=3, in the hope that a mine shift will only lower the game to 3BV=2. Arbiter, Viennasweeper, and Minesweeper X do not have 3BV limits.

[edit] Lowest Intermediate

The lowest Winmine board noticed was 3BV=23. Below is a picture from Tom Bradbury (England) made on 03 January 2005. James Lange (Canada) also played a 3BV=23 board on 1 Mar 2003, as did Andreas Fuchs (Switzerland) in August 2005. Due to Board Cycles, this was probably the same board.

The lowest Clone game was 3BV=20 played by Christoph Nikolaus (Austria) on 29 Jan 2005. Clone2006 now only creates boards needing at least 30 clicks.

[edit] Lowest Expert

The lowest Expert board was 3BV=87, played by Sorin Manea (Romania) in 2002. He lost. Versions of the Clone since Clone2006 do not generate games easier than 3BV=100. The easiest Clone97 game was 3BV=88, lost on the last click by Oliver Scheer (Germany) 08 October 2007 on what would have been a world record of 36 seconds.

[edit] Highest Expert

The highest Expert board was 3BV=291, played on Clone by Andrey Deviatkin (Russia) in 2010. He lost (the picture below is played in UPK mode).

[edit] Age

[edit] Sub50

As of 10 Feb 2009, there were 50 players who made an accepted sub50 on Expert. The age is known for 26 players.

The youngest: Thomas Kolar (Austria), age 15 and 334 days.

The oldest: Tian Yi Fang (China), age 30 and 31 days.

[edit] Sub40

As of 20 Nov 2011, there were 8 players who made an accepted sub40 on Expert.

• Youngest: Dion Tiu (Australia), age 17 and 113 days.
• Kamil Muranski (Poland), age 18 and 91 days.
• Ian Fraser (England), age 18 and 299 days.
• Oliver Scheer (Germany), age 19 and 89 days.
• Fritz Löhr (Germany), age 19 and 185 days.
• Zhang Shen Jia (China), age 21 and about 1 month.
• Manuel Heider (Germany), age 21 and 298 days.
• Oldest: Damien Moore (Canada), age 27 and 108 days.

(If accepted, Jake Warner USA age 25 and 68 days.)

[edit] World Ranking

The youngest ever player to join the current World Ranking is Matthew Rendo of the USA aged 11 years and 8 months. He joined with 2-20-77 on 18 July 2007.

[edit] Longest Time to Break Record

Some people just need more time. Here are some examples of the longest time between new records:

[edit] Expert

• Thomas MacKellar (Canada) - 88 on 2006-03-07 to 87 (86.66) on 2011-08-21. 5 years 167 days
• Damien Moore (Canada) - 40 (39.34) on 2005-04-23 to 39 (38.79) on 2010-06-23. 5 years 61 days

Honourable mention: Ping-Liang Lin (Taiwan) joined the minesweeper community in February 2010 and made 67 on 08 Aug 2011. He said his unofficial record had been a 68 on Winmine since 1995 or 1996! (He retired in the 1990's with 3-18-68 using Windows 3.1 on a 486 Computer). He can not prove the date, but 15 years would be the record for any level!

[edit] Intermediate

• Tyson Wepperich (USA) - 19 on 2003-07-06 to 18 (17.78) on 2010-06-27. 6 years 356 days
• Andrew Washburn (USA) - 17 on 2003-11-07 to 16 (15.68) on 2009-04-03. 6 years 94 days

[edit] Beginner

• Jonathan Ho (Australia) - 2 on 2004-05-24 to 1 (0.95) on 2010-07-20. 6 years 57 days

[edit] Milestones

[edit] 10,000 Sub20

• Manuel Heider (Germany) on 2007-11-23: 11x5, 12x46, 13x112, 14x366, 15x803, 16x1434, 17x2106, 18x2536, 19x2653.
• Damien Moore (Canada) on 2008-04-03: 11x5, 12x21, 13x91, 14x300, 15x633, 16x1167, 17x2031, 18x2660, 19x3092.

[edit] 10,000 Sub60

• Lasse Nyholm (Denmark) on 2002-11-11.
• Fritz Löhr (Germany) on 2011-12-30.

[edit] 1000 Sub50

• Lasse Nyholm (Denmark) on 2003-03-11. By this date he actually had 1008 Sub50 games.
• Dion Tiu (Australia) sometime before January 2008.
• Manuel Heider (Germany) on 2010-02-04
• Fritz Löhr (Germany) on 2010-03-09: 40x1, 41x3, 42x8, 43x14, 44x39, 45x77, 46x107, 47x186, 48x234, 49x331.
• Kamil Murański (Poland) on 2011-09-18: 32x2, 33x1, 34x2, 35x2, 36x6, 37x9, 38x25, 39x47, 40x70, 41x90, 42x119, 43x118, 44x119, 45x113, 46x87, 47x81, 48x65, 49x44.

[edit] Endurance

[edit] 1000 Beginner

• Fritz Löhr (Germany) on 2010-08-03: 1000 games won in 2h 15m 22s.
  
• Kamil Murański (Poland) on 2011-03-02: 1000 games won in 1h 58m 43s.

Best non-record times:

• Fritz Löhr (Germany) on 2011-11-08: 1000 games in 2h 02m 26s.

[edit] 1000 Intermediate

• Manuel Heider (Germany) on 2007-03-01: 1000 games won in 11h 11m.
• Kamil Murański (Poland) on 2011-10-05: 1000 games won in 9h 26m.

[edit] 100 Expert

• Fritz Löhr (Germany) on 2009-08-06 and 2009-08-07: 100 games won in 25h 2m 15s.

[edit] Sub20

• Damien Moore (Canada) on 2003-03-22: 204 Sub20 games in exactly 7 hours.
• Manuel Heider (Germany) on 2007-02-28: 239 Sub20 games in one day.
• Kamil Murański (Poland) on 2011-10-05: 794 Sub20 games in 9h 26m.

[edit] Foot Scores

In April 2005, Damien Moore (Canada) and Dennis Lütken (Denmark) had a competition to see who could play minesweeper fastest using their feet. Damien managed 6-70-359 on the 12th, but Dennis made a 58 on Intermediate, followed on the 13th with a 53 then a 42 second game. He even made a webcam video of his foot scoring 61 on Intermediate. Dennis also scored a 4 on Beginner, but he did not manage to win a game on Expert

In 2009 Fritz Löhr (Germany), who had heard of Damien's and Dennis' competition took up the challenge and scored a 69 on Intermediate, followed by 8 on Beginner and 191 on Expert in 2010. He made a video of him solving an Expert game in 308 seconds.

Damien's technique was to hold the mouse with his right foot over a book on the floor, and to use the left foot as a lever to move the right foot. Dennis played with his mouse and feet on his desk. Fritz played with the mouse and mousepad on the floor and used the same mouse-sensitivity he uses for normal sweeping. He played with both feet, using the left foot for the left mouse button, the right foot for the right mouse button and both feet to move the mouse.