EPT
I am here today to tell you about the benefits of continual play of minesweeper. Particularly, since this is a gamer community, how minesweeper can help your gaming skills. Yes, that is an eyebrow-raising claim to make, "minesweeper can help the competitive gamer?!?!" Indeed it can; I have witnessed the effects both on myself and on others. I will walk through some of the basics of the game as a starting point for playing and demonstrate how the game can be beneficial to you and your gamer skills.
Let me start by first saying that while I'm a master at the game I am by no means at the very top level. I only play expert now, and my average time for completing a game is 85-90 seconds, and my fastest time for completing expert is 72 seconds. To get an example of the speed of my average game watch this video
(This is not of me, just an example to illustrate how fast my average game goes). A quick youtube search will find you expert games being solved in under 40 seconds. Though I am not quite at that level, I've been playing for many years and have followed the competitive minesweeper community from time to time.
I started playing minesweeper because it is a game of logic. I enjoy solving puzzles and I'm a very logical thinker (I have a math degree and my graduate school work is in combinatorics and optimization). Thus it was only natural for me to find interest in the game. Do not be put off by this though; you do not need to be an expert in logic to solve minesweeper. As long as you have a brain that can think and a finger to click you can play minesweeper too!
Most people know of minesweeper but many do not know how it is played. Quite simply, each square either contains a number or a mine. Your goal is to uncover all the squares that are not mines. The numbers on each square correspond to the number of mines that are next to or touching that square (diagonals included).
Like the title implies, minesweeper is a game of precision clicking. A misclick on the wrong box is an immediate game over, and if you want a fast time you must learn to click fast without making a mistake. Does that sound familiar at all? Can you think of any other games that require fast and precise clicking where a single mistake can be the difference between a win and a loss? Starcraft of course!
Minesweeper teaches you how to be precise when clicking. It lets you realize your maximum potential to think while moving the mouse and clicking. It gains you insight into your limits on how fast and quickly you are able to move and click. Understanding these abilities is incredibly important for improving your play at games that require precision clicking (Starcraft, Counterstrike, Dota, HoN, LoL, etc).
When I was playing Starcraft years ago, I used to get frustrated at how many mistakes I would make with my mouse. My strong suit was always macro, because I was very good at spamming hotkeys. After I started playing Dota competitively I would get annoyed when I would misclick a creep to last hit, or accidentally click that fat Pitlord in a battle instead of the carry. It some cases it was that misclick that caused me to lose the game and few things are as frustrating as losing a game simply because you moved your hand too little or too far.
Once I started playing minesweeper regularly all these problems disappeared. I never fail to click that lone defiler in the midst of a tense battle (when I'm noob and forget to hotkey it). Even when creeps are bunched together I'm always able to click on the one that will give me the last hit. Overall it has led to an improvement in my gameplay. Not having to worry about my clicks allows my mind to focus where it needs to be, on strategy and decision making. Microing units no longer requires my full attention, and last hitting perfectly has become so routine I can do it half asleep. I am constantly outfarming the competition when it comes to creep score.
Take another look at the youtube video I linked at the start. During the 84 second solve, the player misclicked only twice, once at 51 seconds in (where he double flagged the box under the 5) and once at 1:21 where he flagged a box he shouldn't have. And the second mistake is an error on his brain and not on his hand. Keep in mind that minesweeper boxes are much much smaller than a creep or a marine. Thus perfectly clicking those little boxes will ensure you that you are prefectly clicking your units as well.
"But why should I play minesweeper to get better as opposed to just practicing my micro or last hitting?" you may ask. Again, mastering minesweeper will get rid of misclicks; it's this indirect way that minesweeper will help your gaming. Playing minesweeper will not make you better at last hitting. Playing minesweeper will make you better at not misclicking, which in turn will help your micro or last hitting. This is a powerful tool to solve a very common problem. If someone were to come up to you and say, "hey, I have a problem when I'm playing games in that I misclick things quite often, do you have any idea on how to fix that?" you would probably tell them to simply practice more. While practicing will help the problem of misclicking it doesn't directly address the issue. Minesweeper does.
It doesn't take much to get started with minesweeper, you could just open it up right now and start playing. Even though you're not going to be capable of doing a sub-100 expert run anytime soon, the journey getting there is just as beneficial to your skills. You will still misclick when you are solving slowly. And you don't need to be averaging sub-100 times in order to see an improvement in your skills.
At first it's going to be a little daunting; you've probably only played minesweeper a handful of times. It's going to take some practice to get to a point where you can click very fast. But hey, you've been playing Starcraft/Dota/whatever for a long while so you're used to dedicated practice right? Once you get the hang of minesweeper (it doesn't take that long if you put in the effort) you will be fast enough to show off to your friends.
Of course there's all that research out there being done on the effect that puzzles have on the brain, in particular preventing brain diseases. While not the purpose of this article, it is worth mentioning as an added bonus of playing the game.
Earlier I stated that minesweeper is a logic game, a puzzle. Once you have a good grasp of how to solve the puzzle it becomes much easier on your brain to solve it. Take your favorite starcraft matchup for example; for me it's zvt. I have a good grasp on how to solve the puzzle that is zvt and that allows me to win more often than not. I go 3 hatch muta so I can harass the terran and keep him occupied while I expand. I get a hydra den and start getting upgrades to defend from his initial push out. I climb the tech tree and get to defilers so I can fight head to head with him. If I wasn't aware of these things I would not win so many zvt games. And while I know these pieces, they don't mean I will always win. There is always randomness to account for: the terran may try an unusual build or go for a different timing attack. But knowing the pieces allow me to adapt to different situations. Same as minesweeper. The game is random when you start playing; you don't know where the mines are or where is best to start clicking. But once you know the pieces you have a distinct advantage, you can work towards your goal of winning, and you can adapt to unusual situations more easily.
So what are the pieces to minesweeper? Since minesweeper is a logic game, the pieces are just the small puzzles that commonly occur when you play. It's best to examine this from example, so take a look at the following puzzle:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/1HyA5.png)
At first glance you may think, "well there's not much I can do here...", but take a closer look. Remember this is just a logic puzzle. Let's experiment. Say we think there's a bomb under one of the 1's next to a 2:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/qbQel.png)
What does this mean? Well that 1 has a bomb next to it so we can clear both squares next to it. The rightmost 2 still needs that second bomb so it must be diagonally southwest of it. Thus we can place another bomb:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/JlRaB.png)
Now the 2 has the two necessary bombs touching it. Keep going now. Since the 1 on the left side of the leftmost 2 has a bomb touching it we can clear out both other spaces that 1 is touching. So we think the final result will be the following:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/RyeDi.png)
where the ? squares are squares there is not a mine. But wait, there's a problem here. The leftmost 2 only has one bomb touching it! Thus the above image is not a possible solution of where the bombs must be. Since everything followed from the assumption of our first bomb, we can be sure that that square is not actually a bomb. We can click it without fear:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/5IUST.png)
And you can see now that the rightmost 2 only has two remaining squares to place the necessary bombs. You can now complete the puzzle.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/CZ0a9.png)
How is that helpful? I have just proven that anytime you see a 1 2 2 1 you know with absolute certainty to place two bombs directly next to the 2's, as there are no other possible combination of bombs to satisfy the squares.
This is one of the pieces to solving minesweeper. As you play, you will notice recurring patterns of numbers like the one above. Once your brain has figured out what to do with these patterns you won't need to think about where the place the bombs. It will be automatic and your hand will do the work for you.
Take a look at another puzzle:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/kFsao.png)
This is the 1 2 1 pattern. Let's start experimenting. Say we think there is a bomb right above the 2:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/p7GOp.png)
Immediately you can see that this cannot be the case. The 2 needs a second bomb to be satisfied but there is no where else to put it! If you try to place another bomb on either side of the one we already flagged then we will have a contradiction. The 1 will have two bombs next to it, which is not allowed:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/Kh3qX.png)
Thus you can be sure that the square above the two never contains a bomb. Or to put it in a different light, there are always bombs next to the 1's in a 1 2 1 pattern:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/pCd6A.png)
And this also applies if the pattern is extended. For example, if you see a 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 you know right off the bat you can put flags next to all the 1's.
As you start playing more minesweeper, you will realize that the above two patterns hold a certain significance, in that a lot of other patterns "reduce" down to them. If you are given the following problem you may have to stop for a second to think about where to place the bombs:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/fkMN5.png)
However a wise person would notice that the 2 3 2 already have one bomb touching all of them. So in essence you are not observing a 2 3 2 but a 1 2 1 instead. Thus you place bombs adjacent to the 2's. Intuitive thinking such as this will help you realize the patterns faster and get your mind thinking properly.
The key to becoming fast at minesweeper is figuring out all the pieces like the examples I showed above. Once you have figured the majority of them out, minesweeper no longer requires your active thinking about where to place mines. Instead, your hand will just move on it's own, clicking away as it reveals more and more territory. The number patterns will emerge and your brain will access your stored memory to figure out what to do, as opposed to using your neocortex and frontal lobe (the areas of the brain that are responsible for logic and decision making).
In essence, once you get to a certain point minesweeper is almost mindless. I can play minesweeper while on the phone and give the recipient my full attention and still finish expert in under 90 seconds. My brain already knows all the pieces and how to solve the puzzle, it's just a matter of my hand executing it. Of course getting to this point takes time and practice just as it takes time to execute a 3 hatch muta build without thinking.
When you are at the point where you know most of the pieces of the puzzle, you can focus on improving your clicking. The game won't be about the logic but how fast you can move your mouse and click the right squares at the right time. This is what helps your gaming skills. When you are able to solve minesweeper relatively fast and without misclicking your hand will perform just as well in Starcraft/Dota/whatever. It does not take long to get to that point as long as you put in the effort, and the results are well worth it. And the journey to that point is just as beneficial in improving your clicking.
At the heart of all of this lies an innate physical problem that we all possess: our brain processes information faster than we can act on it. This is a very important concept that anyone who games competitively should be aware of. That is, there is lag time between when our brain wants us to do something and when we actually do it. This may seem really obvious, but understanding how it works is crucial to understanding your limits as a human, especially if you want to game competitively.
Let's take another look at the 84-second solve video I linked at the beginning. Watch carefully what happens in the interval from 50 seconds to 52 seconds (that's video time). You can see that there is a 5 on a corner, and a quick count will tell you that all the squares around that 5 must contain a mine. The player notices this and immediately tries to flag all the squares around the 5. But something goes wrong along the way. The player swoops down and flags the first three boxes, then he moves to the right and attempts to flag the other two but ends up misclicking.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/N4L08.png)
Let me explain in detail what happened. He flags the first 3 boxes. He then flags the fourth box (the one directly underneath the 5) but then right clicks again too fast so the flag is undone (note that the professionals play without question marks as they only slow you down should you misclick). He then moves his mouse up onto the 2 (directly right to the 5) and double clicks (left and right click at the same time). This is because he knows that that 2 has both bombs accounted for. But nothing happens as he misclicked, so he goes back and flags the boxes again and double clicks the 2, revealing the 3.
What happened here? Put simply, the player's brain thought faster than his hand could move. The player was thinking too far ahead that his hand couldn't keep up. He looked at the fourth box and flagged it, then looked at the fifth box and attempted to flag it but his hand was slower than his brain processing the information. This led to the outcome where his brain thinks that the mouse is over the fifth box so it tells him to right click. Except his hand hadn't quite gotten the mouse there so he right clicks early. And you'll notice that it took him a split second to realize that it all happened (that he made a mistake), as he moved to the 2 and double-clicked it in an attempt to progress forward.
In that mistake lies the problem that the brain thinks and processes information faster than we can act upon it. This shouldn't be news or a surprise to anyone. Electrical signals passing through our brain should be faster than physical muscle movents (which in turn require electrical signals passing through the body). And this is an issue that has no solution. You will never be able to act as fast as your brain and it's foolish to try.
Why is this important to you? While there may be nothing you can do about this lag time between brain thinking and muscle movements, understanding it is very important to your success as a gamer. Understanding your limits is key to knowing what you are capable of performing in a tense scenario. This is because it's impossible to break these limits, there will always be that lag time (even if you're in a heightened state it will still be there, just really small). What advice can you give to the player of that minesweeper game about that mistake he made? "Move faster?" "Don't click so fast?" It's not an error on his thought process, it's an error because he doesn't fully understand his own limits. Only once these limits are understood do those mistakes vanish completely.
And that's part where the beauty of minesweeper lies. Minesweeper can help you realize that limit within you, and that's not an easy thing to do. It's crucial to understand that limit as you learn what your brain and body can handle. Overexerting either and trying to surpass that limit (unless you're in that heightened state) will end up costing you, just as it cost that minesweeper player half a second. We've all seen and played enough Starcraft to know that that half second can be the difference between a win and a loss.
It won't be easy getting to the point where you understand your own limits. As with any mastering, it takes effort, willpower, and patience to achieve the highest level. The road to mastering minesweeper may be long, but you'll find that it's not as long as you might think. The game is simple enough and there are a multitude of patterns that exist within the game. You've probably played enough Starcraft that your hand is already fast on its own. In the end, minesweeper will become an effective tool at warming up your hand; I always play a game or two before I play Starcraft/Dota/LoL/whatever and I've noticed the difference.
Minesweeper is such that if you lose the game it will be because you either misclicked or you were in a situation where you were forced to guess. For me the games I lose are 99% because I guessed wrong and 1% from a misclick (and I might be overestimating that 1%). Frankly, getting a really fast score requires a lot of luck. In the youtube video the player was forced to guess at one point, at 0:59-1:00 where he revealed a 3. But we are not here to set world records, we are using minesweeper as a tool to better understanding ourselves and bettering our clicking hand. You will lose a lot of games because you misclicked. But you will also watch overtime as the percentage of games you lose to a misclick approaches zero.
So it is worth your while to go out and sweep some mines. You don't have to start right away with the big stuff, go tinker around on beginner and intermediate until you get a feel for things.
Happy sweeping!
Resources
Minesweeper X - What most players play minesweeper on. Keeps track of a lot of nice stats while you play
Minesweeper Strategy - Strategies for playing minesweeper. Good website overall for information about the game.
Minesweeper Strategies 2 - The "tips" section of this website has some good information for playing the game. Definitely worth browsing around.
Youtube - Sometimes just watching the pro's play helps you realize what to do in certain situations.
. I always kinda thought minesweeper was stupid, but i had only played it when I was like 10 and clueless. You got me to tinker around with it, and this game is fun! I remember Day9 recommending Minesweeper as well, using the same points as you; it improves mouse accuracy by a lot.
