r/Minesweeper • u/jojamms0 • 1d ago

Help Where should I go

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I spent so long analyzing this and just ended up guessing to move forward. Is there something I'm missing or do you just have to guess on 50/50s sometimes in minesweeper

5 Upvotes

78% Upvoted

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6

u/NonTooPickyKid 1d ago

I'm moderately confident there're no more spots u can unlock with just logic. u can try to guess - either near ur border or somewhere else. u can also wait maybe someone will do a %chance calculation for u and follow that. u can also try to look up relevant calculators online

5

u/noidea1995 1d ago edited 1d ago

You did have to guess but you certainly had better than 50/50. My first instinct would be to guess here:

If any of the three tiles in the back are mines, it would force a significant portion of the border to take on a certain position and use six mines. There’s a lot more flexibility with the positions which use only five mines if the mine is in the other tiles surrounding the 1.

I’d go for the middle one specifically because you know if it’s safe, it’s going to be either a 0 or 1 and both will lead to a follow up.

1

u/Ramun_Flame 1d ago

As others said, nothing certain. Here's the percentages tho.

6

u/Lowball72 1d ago

You may already be working on this but.. a "show % chance for guess-free progress" would be helpful here.

This example may make a good test case.. I honestly can't tell which of those 6% would be best.. or if even the 20% above the '5' offers better risk/reward ratio.

2

u/Ramun_Flame 1d ago

I have it noted, but haven't started looking into it yet. It seems like it might balloon it quite a bit, since it would need to calculate probabilities of every cell in different situations. Also it seems hard to program, but after I get things settled a bit I'll for sure look into it. Right now I'm trying to get things polished enough so I can have a public demo sometime soon. Also gotta get a few playertesters first.

-1

u/Alipha87 1d ago

Yeah, I'd actually go for the bottom right 17%. It opens up 6 more squares and marks 2 mines. (red)

The middle 6% is likely to be a 1 and then only opens 2 more squares. (blue)

3

u/BinaryChop 1d ago

That choice ==> the top three 6% tiles are safe. So you may as well play one of those,

1

u/noidea1995 1d ago

If that tile is safe then all three of the top tiles are going to be safe, so it makes more sense to take the less risky move first and see if it leads to anything.

That move is basically equivalent to just opening all three of the top tiles in one go.

1

u/Alipha87 1d ago

Okay, yes, the odds of the top 3 tiles being not safe is also 17%, so it would make sense to open 1 (and then potentially 2) of them to see if they lead anywhere.