# Who's the fastest Minesweeper? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 7, 2000, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-the-fastest-minesweeper/44432 "2000-12-07T03:48:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![SouprChckn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5f9b8f/32.png) [@SouprChckn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SouprChckn)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2000, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-the-fastest-minesweeper/44432/1 "2000-12-07T03:48:19Z")
Well I was playing some stupid, quick games after getting tired of playing some real games and happened upon good ol minesweeper again. I remember when I used to play this game almost religiously trying to get the best times. I can’t remember the times I got on my older computer w/ the best times I ever got but here’s the ones I see now. What are your best times? Beginner: 8 secs Intermediate: 49 secs Expert: 144 secs ---
**Author:** ![Montfort](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Montfort](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Montfort)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2000, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-the-fastest-minesweeper/44432/2 "2000-12-07T04:38:58Z")
Beginner: 7 seconds Intermediate: 52 seconds Expert: Don’t remember (150something) ---
**Author:** ![tracer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tracer/32/20578_2.png) [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2000, 5:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-the-fastest-minesweeper/44432/3 "2000-12-07T05:59:29Z")
Forget speed. Go for size and difficulty. Set the game board to the biggest size it allows. (Just type in 9999 for the width and the height; it will automatically adjust itself down to the maximum size.) Then select **190** mines. And see if you can finish. It took me 7 years from the time I started doing 190 mines to the time I finally completed a board with this many mines on it. See if you can finish it in less than 7 years. 😉 Incidentally, I once wrote a hexagonal version of the minesweeper game for Windows. It was “shareware,” but I only made about 90 bucks in revenue off it. I’ll post a link to it if y’all show any interest. ---
**Author:** ![iampunha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/74df32/32.png) [@iampunha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iampunha)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2000, 6:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-the-fastest-minesweeper/44432/4 "2000-12-07T06:34:50Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by tracer \* > \*\*Incidentally, I once wrote a hexagonal version of the minesweeper game for Windows. It was “shareware,” but I only made about 90 bucks in revenue off it. I’ll post a link to it if y’all show any interest. \*\* I ain’t about to pay (poor college student etc) but I’d love to see it. ---
**Author:** ![Flymaster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c4cdca/32.png) [@Flymaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flymaster)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2000, 6:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-the-fastest-minesweeper/44432/5 "2000-12-07T06:46:19Z")
My roomate did expert in 129 yesterday, and claims that his record is 104. Having watched him in action, I don’t doubt him. ---
**Author:** ![dylan\_73](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecccb3/32.png) [@dylan\_73](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dylan_73)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2000, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-the-fastest-minesweeper/44432/6 "2000-12-07T12:54:43Z")
I remember a group of people in one office who were very competitive about Minesweeper. In particular, one guy who was very good at it. His record for Easy level was about 8 seconds. He was out while I was fixing a minor fault with the machine, and the others were trying to beat this 8 seconds… Not being very computer literate, these folks didn’t know that the high scores in Minesweeper are actually kept in a .ini file (plain text) and basically can be edited in notepad. So I put my name in with a time of 6 seconds, told the others I’d got that, and encouraged them to try to beat it. I don’t suppose they ever did… ---
**Author:** ![Phobos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Phobos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Phobos)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2000, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-the-fastest-minesweeper/44432/7 "2000-12-07T14:43:14Z")
try the “search” function for more on this topic (there have been at least a couple threads on this the past couple months) ---
**Author:** ![c\_goat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f4b2a3/32.png) [@c\_goat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/c_goat)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2000, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-the-fastest-minesweeper/44432/8 "2000-12-07T14:58:38Z")
My record for Expert is 114. I had another thread about it, and someone clamed to have gotten 93 for expert, but that sounds too hard. ---
**Author:** ![Motorgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e36b37/32.png) [@Motorgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Motorgirl)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2000, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-the-fastest-minesweeper/44432/9 "2000-12-07T21:25:08Z")
I once got 17 seconds on Expert, but I was COMPLETELEY CHEATING!!! Back in the mid 90s when I was in grad school I had a part time job where I would do some database management for a company a few hours a week. I would always play minesweeper while I was waiting for the system to finish things. I found that if I started up this particular program I had which had to gather data from several non-relational databases distributed between 4 different really really slow (this was the mid-90s after all) PCs, it would so tax the PC I was working on that if I were playing Minesweeper I had upwards of 60 seconds where I could mark bombs and clear spaces before the screen would refresh to show my work. In this 60 seconds, a mere 1 second would go by on the Minesweeper timer. My fulltime co-workers all tried to beat my scores, but they didn’t know my secret. When I quit that job I showed one other person how I did it, and she was able to get really good scores, too. Then the company upgraded their machines. Alas! There some are drawbacks to progress, if you ask me! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Melpomene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/0ea827/32.png) [@Melpomene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melpomene)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2000, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-the-fastest-minesweeper/44432/10 "2000-12-07T21:38:12Z")
I _love_ this game! I opened it up years ago and had no clue what I was doing. After some clicking around, I got the idea. I think my best times are as follows: Beginner: 7 secs Intermediate: 31 secs Expert: 136 secs Give or take a few seconds on Expert…that one took a lot of playing of it until I finally started beating it! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![tracer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tracer/32/20578_2.png) [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2000, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-the-fastest-minesweeper/44432/11 "2000-12-08T01:20:51Z")
Motorgirl wrote: > [@](#): > > I once got 17 seconds on Expert, but I was COMPLETELEY CHEATING!!! Was that using the cheat where you hit ctrl+alt+enter or some such combination, and then type in XYZZY, and this causes the upper-left pixel of your video display to change color depending on whether your mouse cursor is over a mined or un-mined square? (Darn it, what WAS the key sequence for that cheat?) ---
**Author:** ![lawoot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/35a633/32.png) [@lawoot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lawoot)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2000, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-the-fastest-minesweeper/44432/12 "2000-12-08T01:34:08Z")
6 on beginner 48 on Intermediate 140 on expert Of course, I’m still working on getting the expert down to a respectable level. Thank god for the double-click ‘cheat’! ---
**Author:** ![tracer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tracer/32/20578_2.png) [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2000, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-the-fastest-minesweeper/44432/13 "2000-12-08T01:37:27Z")
Darn it, what’s the double-click cheat? ---
**Author:** ![SouprChckn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5f9b8f/32.png) [@SouprChckn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SouprChckn)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2000, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-the-fastest-minesweeper/44432/14 "2000-12-08T04:24:11Z")
Well I was aware of the whole cheating aspect (i.e. slwoing down the puter and/or editing the .ini) but this thread isn’t who’s the fastest Minesweeper, not who’s the fastest Minesweeper cheater. The only games I cheat on are ones that are REALLY impossible. Well, the only games I openly admit to cheating are impossible anyway. ---
**Author:** ![AndYrAStar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8edcca/32.png) [@AndYrAStar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AndYrAStar)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2000, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-the-fastest-minesweeper/44432/15 "2000-12-08T05:00:10Z")
I’ve never beat it in expert, despite having been trying for over a year… ---
**Author:** ![Bill\_H](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a5b964/32.png) [@Bill\_H](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bill_H)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2000, 8:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-the-fastest-minesweeper/44432/16 "2000-12-08T08:36:50Z")
I like to play without using the flags. Anyone else? ---
**Author:** ![lawoot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/35a633/32.png) [@lawoot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lawoot)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2000, 11:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-the-fastest-minesweeper/44432/17 "2000-12-08T11:25:42Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by tracer \* > \*\*Darn it, what’s the double-click cheat? \*\* If you have a mine exposed FOR SURE, you click both left and right a tt he same time on one of the exposed numbers immediately adjacent to the mine. It will then clear all of the open spaces until it hits another mine. Mind you, if you click on a two and there is only one mine exposed, it will just flash the possible choices for the second mine. If both are marked, then it clears all the available clear space. Sorry if I’m rambling, but I just woke up. ---
**Author:** ![fierra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/58956e/32.png) [@fierra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fierra)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2000, 11:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-the-fastest-minesweeper/44432/18 "2000-12-08T11:50:14Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Bill H. \* > \*\*I like to play without using the flags. Anyone else? \*\* yep. me. I got bored at one point & decided to make it more challenging. There is a 3d minesweeper that is an [online java game](http://www.commission-junction.com/track/track.dll?AID=166044&PID=4535&URL=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Efreearcade%2Ecom%2F), (I think it’s off one of the puzzle page links, but there’s lots of other fun little free games here too) but I would like to try the hexagonal one, too, please. ---
**Author:** ![Kyberneticist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/dc4da7/32.png) [@Kyberneticist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kyberneticist)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2000, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-the-fastest-minesweeper/44432/19 "2000-12-08T14:39:40Z")
But do remember my best ever Beginner score… 1 second. Lucked out on first or second click. Granted, given how many times I had been playing again and again to shave a second off of 7 seconds, it was bound to happen eventually. ---
**Author:** ![Damhna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3bc359/32.png) [@Damhna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damhna)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2001, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-the-fastest-minesweeper/44432/20 "2001-01-18T14:59:33Z")
In the game minesweeper that comes with Windows, there is a way to stop the clock. First click somewhere to start the clock. Then hold down the left and right mouse buttons and you should see a 3x3 square imprint on the board. Next hit the ESC key while holding down both mouse buttons, and the timer is stopped! Better late than never eh? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-the-fastest-minesweeper/44432.md?page=2)