Tournament comments and suggestions here please! ;)

I'd like people to recommend configurations that they'd like to see for the tournament games, because it's quite time-consuming for me to think of and test them all.
Any ideas? As many as possible, please!!

1. Is it possible to make boards that don't have a rectangle area? Would be fun to solve ellipses or triangles or something like that, I think.

2. As a second suggestion for tournaments, I propose to have only boards that require a minimum playing time of ~10 seconds. T6 had a shared second place with 4 seconds. So, if one doesn't upload a very good time on the first or at least second day of the session time, it's nearly hopeless to get a good position (Luca's 3 is the single exception)!

3. As a third proposal, what about pictures similar to those in World of CryptoPics? Could be easier for you, and it's juster as everyone has to play the same board.

I've tried playing custom games with 995 mines on a 25*40 board. I don't know if that would be a good idea for a tournament, but a large board with some extreme mine density might work.  It's just a suggestion. I'm still just playing the original levels (beg, int, exp and genius), so you might want to listen closer to those who actually compete in the tournaments.

Thanks Jon, that's a really good idea!
Keep them coming people, I need lots more!

Stephan: suggestions 1 & 3 are interesting - although they would both need rewrites of the program, of course. For no.1, are you thinking of different shaped grid blocks, or square blocks but in a different pattern? (if the latter, I guess it's just a matter of setting some squares to blanks before starting.)
No.3 would be nice, but of course having the same pattern each time means that you could solve it slowly and then restart to get a good time. Plus I'd have to make lots of picture-puzzles!

As for no.2, I'll try to keep the <10sec puzzles to a minimum but I'll put them in occasionally for variety! In any case, I can't always tell how low the times will go until you experts play it!
;)

Jon, I checked out. It's very easy to solve indeed, but surprisingly, I wasn't really fast. My best (out of 5 attempts) was 6 seconds. So, maybe we should have 1% free squares (10 on 40x25, for example).

Yariv, concerning my idea 1: I thought of boards where the area to solve is not rectangular or square-like. This could be quite easily handled by pre-opened squares in each game:

O	O	S	O	O
O	S	S	S	O
S	S	S	S	S

The example aboves would be a triangular board (every S symbolizes a square to solve). Every O is a free square that is already uncovered. That means that nothing has to be changed at the game itself (generally rectangular board, two types of squares [mines, free ones]), but only at the number of uncovered squares in the beginning.

Concerning No.2: I know that. But then, we would see who is really the fastest one as no one can get a board with a better distribution of mines than another.

Hey Stephan,your time of 5 seconds is really amazing! 8)
Good job,I think that's the frontier of the human possibilties for this level :o :),what do ya think?
So,will u agree 2 share how much amount of luck ;) (the configuration of the board) you've got ???
Keep it up man,I'm sure you are one of the sweepers who might achieve 0 on begginer 8) 8) !!

@Kire: I wouldn't bet on winning the tournament with 5 seconds. I'm afraid of Luca, Roli or Xpert getting a 4.

It's very easy: I need about 1 second per click in tournament 10. So, some squares to open must be directly besides eachother or at least lie in the same region of the board. This isn't very rare, so you just have to be fast. I got ~20 6s and >35 7s before finally achieving that 5, so a practicing effect is there indeed...

I can provide the screenshot tomorrow if anyone is interested.

I still can't undestand how you've made these scores in t3,which prevents me of making good time in t12  ???

Yariv, was this the last tournament of this "season"?

p.s. Stephan 5 in T11 impressed me too

> Yariv, was this the last tournament of this "season"?

Yes, almost certainly!  :o
As long as I can fix the database and code before it finishes!

@Luca:

Thanks, but it impressed me more that you didn't make a 4 or at least tie my 5.

And concerning the seasons: Theoretically, it doesn't really matter whether T11 is the last tournament of season 1 or there will be a T12. You'll win either way...

And Luca, the most impressive thing in the tournaments is that you nearly always overtake me in the last night. I hate that.

Don't you think it's quite risky not to upload your personal bests as fast as possible? If my best in T11 would have been 90, you would finally have been in #2 only due to later upload. That's the reason why I rarely hesitate to upload my best times immediately.

it is a risk but with a little luck it works

Hey, Yariv, you stole the tournament statistics of my private homepage, didn't you? But my rank distribution is still unique  ;)

Actually, the points ranking was there all along, I just changed the button yesterday  ;D

But I love your tournament stats page and I have no intention of implementing any more of it, so keep up the good work!

Really? Seems that my brain is twisted due to too much consumption of nonosweeper ;)

I've updated things, so the new season will start this weekend!

I haven't been able to fully test the "start new season" script, so there may be some teething problems on the first day. I'll fix these as soon as possible when they occur. (I mean if!) ::)

Except for when I enter the information by hand, the tournaments will be chosen randomly from a pool (max once per season for each grid), or sometimes (25% probability) the grid will be randomly generated.

Let me know any suggestions for grids for the pool, or for changes to the grid selection/generation algorithm.
Good luck for season 2! ;)

Hey Yariv I,m very glad you've made that "today" list,but isn't it possible to content "tournament" also? ;)

Yup, I will add that soon! :)

The season thing was a VERY good idea. Seems that new sweepers took the chance to participate at the tournaments! :) Welcome to Dan and Elmar! Hopefully, Jon and hexx will join as well so that the whole Top10 out of all levels participates at the tournaments!

Sorry, Gero, that I forgot you in my list of Top10 players who should participate in the tournaments!

@ Stephan: It's OK. No problem. :)

Nice time Stephan  :)
Congrats!

@Kire: Thanks. I played more than 2 hours in one session until I finally got that 17. Before, I achieved 19 and 20 more than 10 times each...

As Stephan has pointed out to me, the number of players in the tournaments has increased a lot and it would probably be a good idea to change the points system to give players outside the top 10 more incentive to improve their scores.
I can think of four possible solutions:

1) Keep the current system but have points for more people - maybe something like 12, 11, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 5, 4, 4, 3, 3, 2, 2, 2, 1, 1, 1, 1 or something... in any case I think the 2 point gaps at the top are probably unnecessary, what do people think?

2) Give points to ALL competitors (except possibly the last 1!) with one extra point per place (so the winner will get a different number of points depending on the number of competitors).

3) As 2) but with a fixed score for first place and the other placings somehow (??!!) given points going down to 1 for last place based on some formula.

4) The most difficult to implement, but in my opinion the most interesting: different divisions with a fixed number (maybe 10?) of players in each, with promotion and relegation at the end of each season. This way everyone will be playing against players of a similar skill level and players at the bottom of the table will have something to aim for.

about 1) I don't think that giving the same points for many players is the best option. The incentive to increase one's time in order to get from #15 to #13 is too low.

The 2-points-gap can be abolished in my eyes (even as long as the current upload system is valid - see suggestion below for details).

about 2) That's the way we acted in Minesweeper's Active Ranking. It's very easy to understand. Of course, it gives some incentive to participate in EVERY tournament, as otherwise, you waste quite a lot of points.

about 3) Would be an idea as well. Why not setting up 20-19-18-17-...-4-3-2-1 for the Top-20? This is not exactly the same than Yariv suggested, but maybe, there should be a limit rank below of which you don't get points. At least, that is an incentive for practising  ;)

about 4) Kind of interesting, but I think there would be too much discussion of the starting configuration (as I know already more than 10 persons who would qualify for the Top league).
And - even worse - what about players who detect Nonosweeper freshly? Should they start in the bottom-most "league" and climb up snail-like even if they improve their times very quickly (e.g. like Gero)

And I suggest a no. 5: Counting points in a scheme like those of no. 1-3, but changing an important thing: Players with the same time always get the same final rank and therefore the same number of points. I suggest this as we often have tournaments where one loses points only due to the fact that one has less time to play or something like that. For example, if you play a new tournament not earlier than sunday evening (European time), there might be a top time which can just be equalled as it already touches the "invisible" time limit of a board. As it is counted now, you lose several points. And in my opinion, it can't be the idea of a tournament (whose sessions are one week!) that the one is most likely to win who plays earliest!

Thanks for the detailed reply!

By the way, does anyone object to updating the points system in the middle of a season? How about going back and updating the points scores from season 2 tournament 1?

To respond to Stephan's points:
1) I agree, and I also find it frustrating to move up the table and still have the same points. But on the plus side, it does stop the scores for top players from getting too high.

2) and 3) would both work well, I think. The score totals would get pretty big but I guess that's not a major problem.

4) I think it may be only me that likes this sort of system (I love league tables and suchlike for some reason!), but I'll explain in a bit more detail anyway:
Starting configuration would be decided by me probably based on rankings. Two promotions/relegations each season so the best of division 2 should be able to go up quickly anyway - seasons could be shorter too. But perhaps 10 players per division is too few. Maybe 12 or 15.

New players would start at the bottom. Again, I really like the idea of having to work up from the bottom, but I think the frustration at having to start low would be countered by the fact that the player can lead and win the competition in their own division!
I would rather win division 2 than come 8th in division 1.. ;D

5) is a separate thing, I think, not related to the above, but I could either do that or perhaps upload more accurate times for the tournaments. Which do you prefer?
Accurate times will be fairer, but will they be more fun/competitive?

I don't really subscribe to the idea of a fixed "invisible" limit for a board unless it can be done in about 3 seconds or less... but your point about tied scores is valid. Obviously anyone can play as early as they like, but being in different time zones makes it a bit unfair.

;D ;D ;D

Anyway, for the points system, please cast your votes:
A) One league - 20, 19, 18, ... 3, 2, 1, 0, 0, 0, ...
B) One league - points for all, one point per place
C) Various divisions, promotion & relegation

;D ;D ;D

I don't like A) because the top players get too many points. If you want that more people get points I would prefer to give them the same number of points with a maximum of 12 points for 1st place (as it is now). And maximally 2-4 times the same points for different places, because otherwise Stephan is right (no incentive to increase the time to get from rank #15 to #13).

I think, the possibility B) isn't a good idea, too, because if you are lucky and you win a tournament, where many people played the winner gets too many points. So this system isn't very fair.

I also like the idea of leagues (C) very much. I think it's the most interesting possibility for tournaments and a great idea. So in my opinion it's the best solution.

As Stephan, I think that the same times should be on the same rank because of the "time problem".

Okay, I vote for C), just due to the fact that it's proably worth an attempt...

And I wouldn't have anything against changing the scores system back to T01 of season 2.

(C)
I think we will make it easy,interesting and fair with our common efforts(mental)  :)

(C) for me too.
By the way, I like the current point system.. I think is ok to have two points between the first and the second player, exc..

i also think that c) is a good idea as it would be good to compete with those of the same level as me, as i don't always have the opportunity to spend a lot of time playing the tournaments

Also would all the different leagues be playing the same boards as some of the lower leagues may not be able to complete the boards that the higher leagues do also it would be good to test the top players with some really hard boards

About the difficulty of tournaments: Yariv, I think the current tournament (T03) is not the best grid, as it's very difficult to complete (in my eyes more difficult than a genius board). In my opinion, tournaments boards' difficulty should lie somewhere between beginner and expert. Concerning the various types of board shape (quadratic, extreme rectangle, ...), there still remain lots of possibilities so that there is no real need for "genius boards" within the tournament seasons.

About Colin's idea: My opinion is expressed above. I think it's sufficient to have expert and genius mode for "real" ambition. If the leagues come, I would prefer the same boards for all players regardless their league.

No kidding about tournament 3 difficulty.  I played off and on all day today and only once did I come close to finishing.

Only seven listed people after one whole day show seriously that finishing the board is not only skill, but needs lot of luck as well, as otherwise it's very likely to have a wrong guess somewhere...

Stop moaning, you lot! I like this board! ;)

I've just completed it twice in my first hour (without guessing), and could have done more!

Many of the grids are almost impossible to complete, but there are plenty of possible ones. This tournament is hard, but that's deliberate - most of the boards will continue to be ones which just need fast clicking, but I want some to require fast thinking as well! It might give a welcome shake-up to the league tables as well.
:P

I don't like this tournament too
But I think that Yariv is right, it's nice to have different tables (quick ones, "lucky ones"...)
I think that this tornament is 40% luck and 30% speed and 30% intuition

P.S. in one hour i could finish 5 tables

Board 3 is great!

And its challenging enough that I actually had 8 points for a fair while :-).

I think the divisions (C) is a good idea, but it could have a bit of a problem with how quickly people can improve lots at this. It might have to have a fairly short time between promotion points.

Rather than shorter seasons, what about the possibility of promotion at any point, and rather than division winners theres an overall table of points covering all divisions? Also, division 1 could have a slightly higher points spread, to avoid it being a disadvantage to play too well and get promoted.

this is the 4th tournament that finish in less than 30 sec... (the 3rd in less than 20)
what do you think about it?

I always preferred the boards that take more time to finish (but are easy enough that one has the chance to finish several boards). So, I hope, the next tournaments will be boards in the style of T02, T04 or T07 of season 1.

The current tournament is not the best, I think, as it's almost the same than normal Intermediate (okay, 6 additional mines, but no difference else...)

I like this board because it is possible to use atactic that in intermediate doesn't work perfectly
but i would like to see also tabes which need more time to solve

This week's tournament was randomly generated  :P
But I think it's quite interesting to have slight variations on the main boards occasionally.

Anyway, if you want more bigger grids (or whatever) please suggest the sizes and number of mines and I'll put them in the pool! ;)

bah.... do you really have to give us a 40x25 board with 990 mines?  You are going to end up with ten people with the same time, yet one person will get 10 points while another person will get 1 point.  I just improved my time from 9 to 8 seconds and I actually fell one spot in the ranking.  I suggest you leave the 7 or 8 second boards out.

I agree with Dan. Those big easy-to-clean boards should have at least 20 mines so that the finishing time lies somewhere between 15 and 20 which gives at least some possible gap between #1 and #10. Or, alternatively, for the tournaments, the exact times could be uploaded and displayed. In my eyes, it's more just to be in top with 7.40 compared with a 7.42 on the second place than being first just due to earlier upload.

Some final words on the previous tournament: It looked quite similar to the "normal" intermediate board, but due to the bigger mine density, I developed some tactics to play nf (non-flagging) which was a very nice strategy for this board. So, I change my opinion that that tournament board was boring.

I hope to implement the exact time uploading (for tournaments only) at the start of the next season.

I don't completely agree with the criticisms about the current board because firstly I think that if 4 people can get 7 seconds in the first day, then 6 seconds (and possibly five) is definitely possible in a week, and in that case the race to be the first to get it should be interesting. In this case the order of uploading is relevant.

More to the point, though, I've had hardly any suggestions from users for possible tournament grids (except for a few from Stephan), so if you don't like the ones I've come up with, I recommend you suggest some good ones! ;)

Yariv, due to personal involvement, I have to reply to your aspect of "an interesting race to the 6". This week's board is a typical one which punishes extremely if you don't have the chance to play several games (maybe some hour...).

For my special case, I was staying at my parents' home, and despite of the crappy mouse of my father, I could get a 7. Today, I spent six hours on board of German trains, and finally, after only eight minutes of playing at my own computer at home, I got "my" 6 - which is only the third place at the moment as hexx and Gero used the day to overtake. Okay, you could say there's still lot of time to beat them by scoring a 5, but you must have kind of well-ordered free squares to hit all 10 of them in 5 seconds...

So, I'm looking forward to season 3 with exact times :)

Btw, hexx and Gero: What have your 6's been? Mine was a 6.76!

Yeah, I'm also looking forward to exact times.

What about the league system? Will it be introduced for tournament? ???

To your question Stephan: Mine was 6,92s. So worse than yours. And I needed more than 8 minutes to get it. Perhaps one hour or a bit more. :P

I did 6.96

Argh. Bad luck for me that I was too late and that the exact times aren't yet valid for the tournament classification...

Even worse that I wasn't 0.04 seconds faster...

http://www.statistik.uni-hohenheim.de/alt/special/t06_6.03.png

6,97 ;)

At least, you caught the fourth place. We're directly approaching Dan's vision of many persons being in the top ranks with the same time...

I played another session, but even if I've been playing for three hours (in total) now, I couldn't finish in 5 seconds. "Only" 13x6, 84x7 and 132x8 until now.  :(

My 6s are: 6.03, 6.37, 6.42, 6.45, 6.46, 6.60, 6.62, 6.68, 6.70, 6.76, 6.81, 6.82, and 6.95.  >:(

Yesterday, i did 7 more 6s. :)

6.62
6.63
6.66
6.81
6.82
6.83
6.91

So, I'm still far away of Stephan's 6.03s. I must keep practicing.

Yessssssssssssssss  8)

5.93  ;)

Everyting went perfectly! ;D


http://hexx.250free.com/nonosweeper/x/s02t6_593t.png

5,83

I havent' learnt how to send screenshot yet...
Could someone tell me by mail please?
Luca

Screenshots: As far as I found out, you can link to an image which is saved on a webspace server.

Congratulations to your improvements. I probably won't find the time to play so much that I'll score a 5 as well.

@Stephan: I really hope that you won't find the time to get a 5. ;)
In general I don't spend much time on tournament boards because it's more important for me to be good in World Rankings.

Congrats to Luca with new Genius WR and second 18 (Argh, again only rank #2. >:().  And of course to all others.

Thank you for all the congratulations,
I think I almost reached my limit
even if I missed an expert 65 (wrong click). Probably I could go under 200 in genius, but sometimes it is so boring..

The only thing that make me not so happy is the fact that I am 1st in the rank but I don't have intermediate nor expert record..

Instead, I will like play tournament



p.s.: Stephan, I didn't understand what you wrote about screenshots

About screenshots: When you add a post, in the "Add YABBC tags" icon bar, you find a Insert-Image-icon. But this button adds only a img-tag. Within the brackets, you have to write an URL where your screenshot is located. So, before you can include it in a post, you have to save the file on a webserver.

The current tournament is the same of T11 of the first season.

I won it with 90 sec.

now it is harder! :o

Yariv,

Season 3 is approaching.  :)

Is or will exact time uploading be ready for season 3?

P.S. I'm waiting a YES as a reply. ;)

8.06 and 8.01 in the current T10...
I think it is the better time I could do
I hope in season three with exact time in hundreds because actually tournaments last two or three days maximum (I mean that usually the personal best score arrives in 2 or 3 days)

With this kind of points I think that the season winner will known only in the last tournament

Another thing: with hundreds everybody will upload their scores only in the last hours.
what do you think about?

As I don't want to risk forgetting to upload my bests, I won't wait until the final tournament day before I upload my bests. So, I don't really see a problem :-)

Why should anybody upload only so late? I don't see a reason for it.

I like the new point system. As you said, the winner will be known very late (in one of the last tournaments), so it gets more exciting.

Dividing into divisions: I think 10 people are too much for one division. It should be perhaps 5 or 6 I think. Otherwise there are, as you posted, only 2 divisions. With only two divisions there isn't really competition. With 5 people in one division, there are more divisions, it's harder to get in the higher divisions and to stay there. So it gets more exciting. I think, 5 people for one division would be better.
What does the others think about it?

Hi. As you might have noticed, I have started participating in the tournaments.

Is the tournament info stored in the ini-file?

I also think that it's a little problematic with the biggest tounament boards for people with the smallest resolution (I think I use 640*480 or something like that). Sometimes the squares and the numbers don't fit on the screen.

As Luca posted before, there are some people (or only one?) who upload their scores very late, in the last hours of the period. I now see the reason why somebody should do that. As long as you have a better time you don't upload than all the others who uploaded their scores, the others don't have a reason to improve their scores as long as they are satiesfied with their rank.
For example the last tournament (Season 3, Tournament 7):
I didn't play anymore the tournament, because rank 2 was ok for me and I think it was the same with hexx. Luca had a few hours, before the tournament ended 70,4s I think. Today in the morning I saw that Luca won the tournament with 50s. I don't know wheather he really played this score so late, or he just kept the URL for this fast time a few days and I don't want to specualte about that (Sorry Luca for this concrete example, but I just saw it this morning and I thought I use this example for the post. I don't want to accuse you or raise up the question wheather you did that or not, I just want to show the problem). But I think it is very unfair for the others, who upload their scores, if there are some people, who keep their URL until to the end of the tournament to get a advantage out of it.

So my message is: Be so fair and upload your score immediately when you get it. Otherwise you abuse the "stupidness" of those, who upload their score immediately. And that's really not the fine way to be in front of your competitors.

That's of course only my sight of this "problem". If you think in another way, tell me.

Hi,
I wrote about this "problem" before the tournament began. (see 4-5 posts before).
I think this is a legal strategy. Yariv, is there written in nonosweeper rules that I can't do this?

Yes, maybe it is a little bit unfair, but it is correct.

And... I always do my best score in the first or second day. Maybe I could improve them but I'm too lazy to do it.
You could do the same. I think that the time you can finish a T is an absolute thing, you can't comparate to my or other people time.
If you know that you could improve, why don't do this?
What all others think about?

I remember to everyone that I paid a big price with this strategy: on T5 I couldn't upload my 6,54 score for a technical problem...

p.s. Hexx, did you use this tactic in T1 and others?

I'm very interested to know other people opinions
and I'm very sorry to be the cause of this "problem"

2Luca: I think it's OK, because everyone can do the same...

@Gero: Luca's tactics isn't new at all. He plays in such a way since the beginning of the tournaments (season 1). Then, it was often the case that I was leading the ranking until Saturday evening, but when I checked on Sunday morning, Luca had regularly uploaded his own best so that he got on #1. I don't really like this strategy, as it was always a matter of competition for me whether I concentrated on T boards or on the "normal" levels.

But, as Luca said himself, it is legit to upload one's scores whenever you want as long as the deadline hasn't passed. And the risk of server problems is a good reason not to wait. But everyone is free to decide that by himself...

Luca plays tournaments to win so, late uploading is anything but a surprise, it is part of his strategy.
Personaly, i have never used it because i play just to have fun, usually 1 hour on Sunday and Saturday. Last week i played for 15 minutes!!!!!!
I once played to win too on T6, T7 and T8 of season 2 when i swept 6/7 hours a week, too much time in my opinion.
Since then i'm committed with levels rater than tournaments.

Luca, tell me one thing: How many hours have you been playing tournaments by week on season 3?

Maybe you will not believe me, but this season I generally played not more than 2 hours (except T6)
I was lucky to have a very nice time in the first or at least second day.

Well, it seems that I'm the only one, who really doesn't like the strategy. Of course I know that it is absolutly correct and that there don't exist rules for Nonosweeper tournaments. So I accept the decision of the others (Maruda, Stephan and hexx). I just wanted to know your opinions, before Season 4 is starting.

@Gero: I quote myself: "I don't really like this strategy", so you definitively not the only one who really doesn't like the strategy... ;D

Generally speaking, there is a way to keep #1 until the end of a T session: You have to upload times that are so fast that his times aren't fast enough for #1 ;)

From my point of view, it is not a matter of like or dislike late uploading.
I have no doubts, i will use it in the future, maybe on season 5 or 6, because i pretend to win 1 tournament season. ;)

That's funny: Just got the same score Stephan has: 8,87s ;D
Of course I hope I'll beat that score. ;)

That's the reason why I will never hold back my records, but upload them as immediately as possible ;). By the way, you have to beat a 8.60 now to pass me ;D

And, finally: It's very likely that Luca has a 7.85 (just a guess) still to upload...

Who knows?  ;)

Probably you know ;)

I appreciate the exact times so that even for fast boards, a ranking without ties is possible!

But, of course, I hate the current result of hexx being #1 with 7.88 and my being "only" #2 with 7.89, which is a tiny gap of 0.01 >:(. So, I'll do my very best to improve to a 7.87 ;D

Stephan, feel free to overtake me, my 7.88 is final result for this tournament. :)
Anyway, Luca has 7.53 ??, so if you want 1st place don't forget him. ;)

P.S. Today i missed a 55s on last click, DAMN IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :-/

@hexx, unfortunately, you were really close with your prediction.

I played a lot to get that 7.67, but as usual, when I was in front of the tournament ranking on saturday evening, today, it's the regular disappointment with Luca having finally uploaded a 7.59 (crappy gap of 0.08 seconds)...
@Gero, just for you: You're not only one who hates those late uploads!!!!!

@Luca: Doesn't you have to do anything else than sitting at home on saturday evening or sunday early morning and uploading tournament scores as late as possible?? Maybe, my tactics of having a life besides nonosweeper isn't good for winning any tournament... Sorry for my sarkasm!

Maruda, i'm so sorry.

47.94s  ;D

What did You say Hexx? ;D ;D ;D

And now i say, congratulations my friend. ;)
By the way, i hope you have the screenshot of that game, cause i would like to see it. :D

thank you Stephan. Usually I upload my times when I come back home (by the way, last T I upload it in the afternoon)

everybody doesn't like this strategy, expecially who is temporary winning. will this tournament happen to Maruda? (but I think t's very hard for me to beat a 43)..
everybody hates me :-(

@Luca: When I uploaded my 7.67, I was in #1, so I tended to be happy...

@Maruda/hexx: 43 and 47 are VERY good times for that board. Yesterday, I managed to do a 66, which is a personal best for me :-/. How long did you play? Hopefully, you got some lucky mine distribution to finish such quickly... And Maruda, I would be interested, too, to see your screenshot!

@all: I really hate the current tournament board, and even worse that I don't like the board is the fact that this tournament came up again after only 2 other boards in between. What do you think about the 12x12 with 45 mines? Do you like it? Don't you think the factor luck is too big there?

And a final suggestion: Yariv, maybe, in the random tournament board generator, you can install a break for each board of at least 5 weeks or something like that after it was chosen?

@Luca: NO, not everybody is hating you. We just don't like your strategy for tournament. That's all, it's not a personal dislike against you(in my opinion). But perhaps we all are just envious, because we don't get those scores, you get. ;)

@Stephan: I also really hate this board. I mailed Yariv and told him that this board appeared in all seasons. Btw, he likes this board, but he said, it was only luck that it appeared again.

@all: Yariv also said that there exist only 25 boards for tournament. And only because I made 9 suggestions. So why don't you sit down and think of some boards for tournament. I did it and you could also do it so the following season will be more varied.

Well, i enjoy a lot this board because it is challenging  8), but its constant appearence is annoying. :P

I played 3 sessoins and managed:
61s in the first one (15 minutes);
47s in the 2nd (5 minutes);
48s in the 3rd (30 minutes and after Maruda's 43s).


http://hexx.250free.com/nonosweeper/x/ss04t1_4794.png

Well...in fact, I was so surprised or shocked, that I forgot to take a screenshot :'( Sorry guys...
I only remember 6 3 on the left side :-/ It was nothing but luck. But I think, that this board is ONLY about luck...and patience...

2Stephan: it was the first board after Hexx's 47,94, so I missed one or two secs in the begining ;)

2Luca: we love You, but hate Your times ;)

I kinda like this board.  I have finished several boards and I just got a nice 53.

Does someone go on holiday and would not partecipate to tournaments?

for example I think I will not partecipate at T4, T7  and I have only one or two days to partecipate to T5 and T6 T8

:-/

if you go on holiday too could we do Tournament from September?
sorry for bad english

please reply to the upper post

very nice results in current tourny!

@Luca: Maybe, Yariv could wide out a tournament session to two weeks during the summer. Then, if anyone isn't able to play during the whole two weeks, it's bad luck. Usually, most players will find an hour to play then.

Generally, I agree that holidays are a problem for weekly tournaments. But I could live as well with the status quo. For example, last week, I had 2x2 hours for playing...

Hi there.

just like to point out that for some of us who are maybe a little older, holidays are in fact a blessing. When you have a job etc... finding the time for any tournament becomes somewhat tricky.

When you take a break for a couple of weeks, it gives people like me hope that i can claw back a tiny fraction of the distance between us.

I believe that the system of a weekly tournament is the best one, but i may be alone in this thought.

Once again, i look forward to weekly battle with Yariv, who seems to be on a very similar level to me.

Hi,

I agree with Foster. Weekly tournament system is perfect.

Ok no problem, I will try to have much more points as possible..
Or maybe I will go in division 2    :-/


Hexx, Gero, Roland, Maruda... what do you say?

I'll be on a few vacations, too, I guess. So 2 weeks is fine by me. But first I have to absolve my first diploma-exam next week. That leaves few time to catch up to you guys...

2 weeks for one tournament: That's boring. I also think that weekly tournys are the best. Otherwise you have to wait sooooooooooooooo long. Ok, perhaps I only say this, because I have time enough currently, but I hope not. :P

Sorry Luca, but I have to agree with Foster, Nikolaj and Gero. Two weeks are too long. I think, that most of us play the best times in first two or three days and then only wait...

The new tournaments league, namely drop division, is a big problem to those who have less time to play during summer season. :P
So, i vote for 2 weeks tournament on T5, 6, 7 and 8.
Those who summer means more time to play, have now a big opportunity to improve level and rankings scores. ;)

P.S. Luca, surprisingly, or maybe not, you won last tournament!!!!!!!!!!!! :o
How many hours did you play? 4, 5, 6 or more?
Mail me the screenshot if you please.

Just a side note: It looks like nonosweeper (particularly the current divisions 1+2) is mostly a European game (13 Europeans, 3 US guys).

But generally speaking, it's quite unfair for guys in Australia or South Africa when we set up a summer break during European summer, but didn't set up a summer break during Australian summer.

So, I vote for weekly tournaments (seems as 2-week-tournaments won't find a majority) without summer break. Maybe, this will cause a very challenging season 4 :D

yes, waiting for the end of the tournament is boring
but if you are on holiday you don't have to wait

and what about a mini summer season between T3 and T4?

Luca: and what about those, who have a lot of time for sweeping during the summer and have a chance to spend more time playing tournaments? ;)

Hello! Remember me?! Just thought I'd pop by!
I must say that, as someone outside the top division, I'm enjoying this season a lot more now that I can get some points! ;D

The tournaments will stay at one per week, as that seems to be about the median of what people want, and also because they've been like that for ages and that's what people are used to now.

I do sympathise with people who may go on holiday or miss some tournaments and so risk being relegated, but a good player (for their division) would have to miss a lot of games to go down. But as people have said, one person's holiday is another's busiest time, so the fairest thing is to be consistent throughout the year. It's also the easiest to code ;)

I'm very happy that so many people are enjoying the tournaments these days! Look out for Mallet Mania tournaments starting soon too...

Foster: I'm ready for you!

Finally!

22x 3.00
3x 2.99
1x 2.96
2x 2.94
1x 2.9

and now I equalled Gero  with 2.78 ;D

Hope Jon and Dan are not using Luca´s tactics and his times  ;)

Hm, it seems I have to play the board a bit more. >:(
And I hoped my time would no one beat. I see, it is always false to think in that way. Hope, I'll find time to get a better time! :)

Nice fight guys  ;D

I really like the new system. I was rather worried about being in division 1, but I'm surprising myself. Even for a relative beginner stuck in D1, it is better that every position now counts (at least for the top 25 positions). It sometimes put me off in other seasons when I would do a good improvement to go from 0 to 0 points, or 1 to 1, so I think I'm trying harder with this system :)

I know I'm entering the conversation a bit late, but busy times and holidays will vary between people so it really doesnt make sense (to me) to change the 1 week system for anyone other than Yariv ;). I think though I am one of the only southern hemisphere players. Maybe I am the only one at all?

It looks like the MM seasons (which I expect to see you all in) will start and end halfway through each NS one. I really like the sunday afternoon (for me) deadline, since I often set better times with only a few minutes to go, but maybe it would be an idea to skew the week starts as well so the two tounaments start on different days of the week? What do you all think?

Sorry, Qetuth, for counting you into the European group within my post some days ago. Don't know which profile I watched instead of yours ;).

About the sessions: I'm quite satisfied with the current status of Sunday morning (my time) ending one session. And due to reasons of continuity and remembering more easily, I'd prefer keeping the current system of the deadline always being at the same point of the week.

Good point from Qetuth - I'd like to stagger MM and Nonosweeper tournaments too, now I think about it. Nonosweeper ones will stay where they so I expect MM tournaments will start/end in the middle of the week.

Incidentally the number of divisions is dependent on the number of players the previous season so there will never be large group with no points for more than 1 season. At the start of a new season, the lowest division will always contain between 8 and 15 players.

And nobody will be "stuck" in the wrong division for long as two players go up and two down each season - this should make the battle for 6th as interesting as that for first! ;D

For anyone who follows the Premier League, I support West Bromwich Albion so I know all about the joy of surviving a relegation battle! ;)

Gero: I really like this week's board, good suggestion!

@Yariv: Thanks, I hope that you like the other boards I suggested as good as this one.
I hope the others also like this board, instead of Stephan perhaps, who likes the larger ones more, right?

About MM: I also hope that the Nonosweepers will play the MM tournaments. As they wanted Minesweeper people to play Nono tournys, the few MM players would like the Nono players now to join MM tournys. With more people playing it'll be more fun for all.
And I also think that it would be pretty good to start MM tournys on Wendsday or a day around it.

It is funny! ;D

I was bored, so i decided to play current tounament and in just five minutes i did : :o


http://hexx.250free.com/nonosweeper/x/s04t4_1212.png

Wow, what an easy board. I already wondered how you can get a 12  ???. But now, I see. Maybe, even I would have finished that in 13 or 14.

Hey sweepers!!!

Qetuth and I told you some time ago that Mallet Mania tournaments have begun. 3 days are left for the first tournament, but no one of you has tried until now, to compete with the few people, who uploaded their scores. It would be really nice, if you would join the MM tournaments. I know that some of you have already a MM account, so you can download the newest version of MM to play the tournaments. And for those who don't have an account yet, contact Yariv, he might give you one.

So please, try it out so the game might get more popular. And I bet, MM tournaments will make as much fun as the Nono tournaments.

Hope to see some of you playing MM in future!!! :)

Gero, hopefully, you'll spend too much time playing MM tournaments, so I can catch up to you in Nonosweeper. Btw, I won't compete, as I don't find MM as fascinating as Nonosweeper and as I decided to play less as I'm a 28-aged guy with a life besides computer games ;)

Ahh, I understand. The life besides computer games you mentioned must be the work. ;D

Well, lets calculate a bit:
8 hours sleeping =>16 hours left
8 hours working  =>  8 hours left
3 hours for other things like going to work, cleaning your home, eating or talking to other people (e.g. Nono forum :)) => 5 hours left

You see? You should have 5 hours for free time. I must say, I'm happy you don't use this time to practise Nono and beat my scores. But your life besides computer games doesn't take you so much time away that you aren't able to play games at least some hours.
This is argumentation!!! ;) ;D


Oops, I forgot why I posted here:
It's bad that you don't like to play MM tournaments, but you aren't the only one who has an account and could try out this game. What's up with the others? Come on, try this game. It's really nice!!! And those who don't have an account, contact Yariv. 2 days are left, until the first tournament in MM ends. And currently only 6 people uploaded their scores. Some more would be really nice.

These days, it's more like:
- sleeping: 7 hours
- getting up in the morning: 1 hour
- work (including way to work, way home, lunch break): 13 hours :(
- household: 1 hour
-> So, normally, the time between 10 p.m. and 0 o'clock is remaining - and then I'm tired...

Btw, have your forum name always been only "Gero" (and not "Gero Waelz")? I ask because the Gero-Guru combination in the left forum column looks very funny.

P.S. Good luck for writing 100 posts before anyone else. You're on a good way ;)

That's not i nice day. Why do you work so much ???

Yes, my forum name was always Gero. I never changed it.

That's my next forum aim: To get 100 posts! :)
After I passed you (and you were active from the beginning on I think) I needed a new aim. I think we should intorduce a new rating system. Because now its getting boring to make posts, you won't rise up anymore than Guru. :D
I want to become something like "Notbeatablesuperhypergigamasterultrachief"! ;D

7...

@Gero: Viel Arbeit halt. Urlaubsvertretungen, viele Projekte, alles Termingeschichten etc. - da muss man halt zu Überstunden bereit sein.

Last week, I was at work about 50 hours... So, I didn't have the chance to practice nonosweeper.
Hopefully, I'l get my train to Vienna just in time upcoming friday ;)

Oh boy, my best board for tournament 7.

@Dan: With getting a sub-17, it must have been a really nice board. Do you have a screenshot?

No, I have never taken screens of Nono boards.  It was a nice board, but I almost had a 15 on another board and just got a 17.25.  This is the same board we tied at 17 on in season 2.  For whatever reason, my brain just loves this type of board.  There are other boards where I don't come within 20 seconds of you and the other top guys.

I got an even better sub17 game a little while ago and this time I grabbed a screenshot.

http://www.geocities.com/kaminwx/images/Dan_Nono_16.25.gif

I like this type of tournament board very much either. Seems that this is the only board where I'm able to compete with the very bests (good luck for me, Dan, that you're stuck in division 2 for this season...).

And today, I got to know how important it is to play nonosweeper when being not tired at all: On sunday night, I couldn't go sub-20.95, and today, within 5 minutes and after 6 record games in a row, I'm down to 17.76 which means I tied my personal best of season 2, T02.

Stephan, I have only had a few games that were not sub20.  Yesterday I just barely missed a 14.

I play very risky, so I miss lots of games. But if I didn't play in the evening, my times could be mostly sub-20 as well.

Hey, guys.

Finally i got a sub-16s, 15.75s.
Unfortunately, and after zillions attempts, i still can't upload this score. :P

Is there any tournament uploading problem?

Here is the screenshot:

http://hexx.250free.com/nonosweeper/x/s04t7_1575.png

All right! ;D

15.75s uploaded successfully. ;)

OK, back from vacation, starting tournament.

Dan: Are you mad? :o You just want to be bored as #1 without any thrill  ;D. I won´t even get close to you  ;).

Jon: Should your time and flight to Vienna mean, you gave up D1 fight ???? Hope you will upload better one :). I really enjoy the race.

Well, first modification, 17.70 is not that bad :) It makes me 3rd overall beating Maruda  ;D.

Nik: It's nice to see your happiness ;D But this tournament is boring... My rivals have no time, so I have no motivation ;)

What the hell...?!? Are you mad, Nikolaj?  :o

Yes I am CRAZY  ;)

Well, in fact I got a dreamboard...

But it is sad to see it won´t be enough to beat hexx (and probably Luca)  :'(

I hoped it could mean half of the points necessary for staying in the division 1 for next season, but I don´t care, I will win another tournament  ;D

Nicolaj, nice game, did you jump from 17 straight to 13?  I have to beat you this season if I want any chance to stay in division 1.

Dan: you have no chance to stay up ;) ;D

Dan: Yes, It was direct jump. But with board like this...
http://sweb.cz/FarnikR/nonosweeper/13_70.png

I clicked like hell, only once I had to think (bottom row) and hexx is just 0,6 s behind... He must be from different galaxy :)

And I hope you won´t manage to beat me and I remain in D1  ;)

Maruda: Shut up, he will probably be better than me and I want to stay  ;)

Nikolaj: you're absolutely right ;D

Dan: But if you ask to know, whether it was only pure luck, the answer is no. I have another 10 sub 17, 3 sub 16 and 1 sub 15 better than hexx  ;)

@Nikolaj:

Hey, Nik, my galaxy coordinates are 13,64s. ;)
Btw, don't forget Vienna Champion, he has a word to say this season. :D

@Vienna Champion.

Are you sick ? or you are Human, so can't play 25 hours per day anymore!!! ::)

hexx: grats  ;) mail me the screenshot please. But I won´t give up! My main playing day this week will be saturday, so be prepared  ;)!

hexx: seems you were much better prepared for my main playing day than me ;). This 1 second gap between you and Maruda is unbelieavable  :o!

Hexx: Nikolaj's right, it's something like 2 minute gap between me and him in the last tournament ;D

@ Czech brothers:

I guess you guys want to see the screenshot. :)
I needed 16 clicks to finish this grid!!! :o

http://hexx.250free.com/nonosweeper/x/s05t1_1089.png

Yahoo, sub-80!!! ;D

And... I played it NF-style. Here is the screenshot.

http://img286.imageshack.us/img286/7015/season4t30du.png

It works!! :D

I should have told you afterwards. >:(

Hi guys,
Maruda just sent me this  ;D
http://sweb.cz/FarnikR/nonosweeper/1click.jpg

And here is the screenshot

http://sweb.cz/FarnikR/nonosweeper/1clickscr.jpg

Nonosweeping will be even more fun now  ;)

I love this game ;D

http://sweb.cz/farnikr/nonosweeper/39,47stat.jpg
I really love this game  ;D

Are you slooooooooooooooow!!!!!!!!!

If I wouldn't have any click, I would need only 0.01s. But YOU need 39,47s. You are really slow. ;)

12x12 with 45 mines is the tournament grid I hate most. Nonetheless, I improved my personal best on that board to 59.01 which is a good 6-second improvement, but worth nothing as nearly all other division1 players achieved unbelievably fast times... So, that board stays in my personal ranking of joy at the very bottom ;D >:(

@ Vladimir: Wow, what a time. Congrats!!! :D
Did you make a screenshot of this board? I really would like to see it. Or can you describe what it looked like?

Here is pattern:
- - - - - -
- - 1 - - -
- - 1 1 - -
- - 1 1 1 -
- - 1 1 - 1
- - 1 - - -

I didn't get 2,51.... :(

I knew that with 97.61s :o i had a good chance to win last tournament.
But i wasn't expecting a 12s and 16s gap to Luca and Maruda respectively.  ???
You guys were too lazy last week!!! ;)

Yes, I must confess that this week I didn't play much, and maybe the next weeks too. This is because I gave up playing levels and because I am using a laptop with the 24 hours connection in which I don't have mouse and nonosweeper. I'm too lazy to get them.

p.s. But Hexx, didn't you tell me that you would not have played in theese weeks, did you?

hexx: yes, i was too lazy ;D but my max. was around 105s, not better...

@Luca: Gave up playing levels? Again?  ??? Hope it is only temporary... 9s on intermediate is waiting for you ;)

@Luca:

Not exactly.
I'm not going to play LEVELS this month!  :P
Of course i will keep playing tournaments, i can't imagine myself without  some Nono. :D

P.S. Perhaps i can play some Int. ;)

@Vladimir: 5.81 is incredible! Must have been a VERY nice board...

Hey, guys! I'm happy  :D ! Don't beat me, I wanna win one tournament too! I can send screenshot.

@Vladimir: Nice present to your birthday  ;D. I would say this time is 99,99% tournament winner, congratulations  :o!

Btw how can you play with grey blank squares  :o? Have you tried white  ;)?

Very nice time!
Congratulations Vladimir.
I  promise that I will not beat your time, I will be 1 sec behind.
Can you send me screenshot please?
Thanks

PS. no more news from this web-site?

sorry Vladimir... ;)

Very very congratulations to you, Hexx!!
60 points in 8 tournaments are a big big number.
You are king of tournaments

Congrats also to you Maruda, many many second places and extraordinary times. I still wonder why don't you obtain 1x5 in beginner level

And you, Gero, why couldn't you have nice torunaments? Don't you like them, do you play low time? I don't explain it

And me?  :(

What others think about? Will be next tournaments the fight for the second place?

@Luca: Since October I have to do military service. So during Sunday evening and Friday afternoon I'm not at home, but in barracks. And at Friday I'm very tired. This friday I went to bed at around 16.00 o'clock. I went up next day at 06.00 o'clock. So I only have Saturday and parts of Sunday to play.
2nd is that I like more playing the levels than the tournys. So I just play to stay in Division 1 and to get a certain rank.
3rd: Currently I really like playing Minesweeper again. So I spent most time on MS than on Nono. Currently I only play Nono tournys, hardly the levels.

@Luca: This season will be fight for 5th and 6th place   ;D. This season could be interesting even as fight for 1st place if only Maruda wasn´t too lazy to play tournaments when his time is #1 ::)... And if you had more time to play (suppose your exams are near).

I think that this season I will fight for the third place.
Honestly, I consider Hexx and Maruda faster than me. Gero faster but he has less time
Stephan faster on little board


Maruda could win, but I think he should upload his times later

Hexx, which intentions do you have?

Luca, it makes me proud that you believe that I'm faster on little board. Everyone who knows my beginner level performances will be surprised about that.

But generally, I think that season 7 will be a very competitive one for the relegation ranks, with Roland and Dan being back, Gero having too little time, and Nikolaj and me stealing points each other. We'll see ;)

Yeah: With 100 posts, I'm still #2 of the most frequent posters :-)

@Luca: I´ve never seen person with such low self-confidence :o Man you´re #1 in rankings with unbelieavable gap of 5 points between you and hexx :o!!! With full respect to Stephan he has beaten you ONCE at small board tournament ;)

@Stephan: I think you underestimate Gero even with 2 playing days for tournaments  :P

@Nikolaj: You're right, of course, but in the last Ts of S6, Gero mostly wasn't far away. And as some boards need lucky punches or some practising, I see a little advantage for us as we have (theoretically) a whole week to play while Gero must concentrate on 2 days.

@Stephan: OK, explanation accepted  ;D.

Btw yesterday I got dreamboard with 5 bottom row and 5 left column  :o Time 2.00 - it was the very first game after running nonosweeper...  Why couldn´t it be 2nd game  :'(? Looks like I shouldn´t close nonosweeper at all ;-)

@Luca:

1) At this time of the year it's difficult to find time to play and improve my level scores. >:(
So, my goal is to win as many tournaments as i can and, of course, fight for 1st place in season 7. :D

2) Feel free to be the second player to break sub-50s barrier or even to break Gero's 47s. Why not?! ;)

3) Could you mail me your sub-54s screenys and stats. Thanks.


A few minutes after i post here, i got this grid.
The funniest i have ever seen. :)

http://hexx.250free.com/nonosweeper/x/ss07t1_165.png

Hmm, I got 0.70s at actual tournaments and saved the url as well, but it is always counted at 0s Place 2?! Also all my scores under 0,9s don't count anymore. Anybody an idea? Roland

Okay, after Restart it seems to work again. But for Division 1, the actual score should be 0.70s. Just to know what you'll have to break...

GL guys...

Respect Maruda, I'm out. My scores don't get accepted below .84.  ??? Have fun this week.

it is my maximum. i can't be faster. now i have time to play classic levels :)

Hm, another 0.69s, but still not working. I switch to classics as well... Nice tournament board for classics.  ;)

T1: as I predicted

T2: I bet on Hexx, Maruda, Stephan ;)

mmm, after playing a little bit i changed my mind
0,51 is too fast!!

@Luca: Nice prediction for T1. I didn't believe until now that I can compete well with you on these small boards with low density, but obviously, it's possible. - For T2, I doubt that I will finish in Top3. With a huge amount of luck, #4 is possible (behind M, h and R).

@hexx: Just curious: In T1, did you have any score not uploaded? As bad luck for me, I could play only for a short time. I'm sure that I could have beaten that 1.46.

@Roland: It seems that the database is updated internally, but not displayed correctly. With your 0.70/0.69 being saved, my 0.76 would have been in position 3 when I uploaded it. And that's exactly what the displayed message said and is in accordance with the displayed number of points as well.

@all: It seems to me that neither the database (see above) nor the program itself (see example below) can handle those 0.xx times correctly: I just got some new URLs even if my times were slower than my current best of 0.76. This is not usual, as in Ts, you get in general only a URL when you beat your best time.
Hopefully, Yariv can fix it.

Stupid question... but how do you join tournaments.  Yes, I have pro.

-Daniel

5-47-317

@Daniel

To play a tournament, either choose tournament from the Game menu or press f8. This brings up a window with tournament info and a "Get current tournament info" button. Press that and then okay and you'll be playing this weeks tournament. The weeks go from sunday to saturday (depending on time zones a bit).

Each new week, you'll have to get the new info or you'll be playing an old board which no longer counts. Also, with tournaments only your best time will offer an upload url. If for some reason you lose that url, pressing get current tournament info again will reset your best as if you had just started this tournament.

It's also a good idea to use the most recent version of Nonosweeper if you're playing tournaments, in case some bugs have been fixed or features added (like exact times)

@Maruda: Wow, amazing time!

@Yariv: Something odd happening with the tournament points this season...Also, did you get my email about some bugs and stuff? I've been having email problems....

@Stephan:

Only played for about 4 hours:
On Wednesday i did 1.51x2 and on Saturday i got the winner time, 1.46  :D.

My best times were;
1.46, 1.51x2, 1.54, 1.56x3, 1.57 and 1.59.

@Luca:

Can you predict the winner time for T2?

Thanks, hexx. As I expected, you've been much more constantly fast than I was. My times besides my best of 1.48 were 1.59, 1.64, 1.67 and 1.69... So, of course, you deserve the victory in T1 (even if I would look forward to winning one more T ;))

And even if I'm not Luca, I try to predict the winner time of T2 with 0.51 - that time looks incredibly fast to me :o

@stephan: i bet on hexx. he's a maniac :)

@all: Catch me if you can  :P ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

and now...i bet on Nikolaj ;D

Nikolaj! How did you get it? If you have screenshot send it to me please (orlov@uventann.ru)

@Nikolaj:

catch you ???

What if i overtake you! ;)

Sorry............ >:(

P.S. 1- Hey, Maruda, i'm more maniac than you think! ;D
P.S. 2- Strangely, i don't know if i'm going to win T2. :P

Well, Nikolaj... Now we know your little secret  ;)

aagh not another "it's over before it begins" game size!   ;D

vesele vanoce
merry christmas
joyeux noël
chestita koleda
fröhliche weihnachten
nollaig shona dhuit
kellemes karácsonyi ünnepeket
boas festas
feliz navidad
wesolych swiat
god jul
glædelig jul
buon natale
hauskaa joulua
nadolig llawen
and of course...
kurisumasu omedeto
:) :) :)

Merry christmas to all nonosweepers! Wish you many personal records  :D

http://sweb.cz/FarnikR/nonosweeper/merryxmas.gif

Wow, next season will have 4 divisions  ;D.

@Rincewind, Asen BG, Morgan, BoBo: If you upgrade your Pro versions, your xx.99 times will be generated only exceptionally i.e. when you REALLY finish board in xx.99 time  ;)

Hmm... This blue board seems to be a strength of mine.

@Daniel: A 4-second lead is really good (considering the short playing time of T4). And those 8 points would bring you up in the total points ranking. But to get up into division 2, you have to play constantly fast on nearly every T board. Good luck :D

@Nikolaj: With division 4 coming up, some honourable regular T participants like BoBo, Morgan, Asen BG, or Spot will have to fight hard to stay in division 3. Will be interesting!

Finally! A board of my taste on the tournament schedule! :D It's much more expert-like than the others, so for the seventh finished board I got a time which is way ahead of my division ;D Way to go for me!
Oh yes, and come to Budapest! :-)

yahoooo ;D
http://sweb.cz/FarnikR/nonosweeper/9%2C85scr.jpg

1,57! gooooooooogle !!!!  :)

Hey, why can´t I guess correctly when I´m forced to  :'(? http://sweb.cz/FarnikR/nonosweeper/forced_guess.png

gimme a dang easy tourney again!  

I liked the one from 3 weeks ago; the really dense vertical board that I nailed NF.  The one from 2 weeks ago was just a pain in the eyes.  Last week I put in 10 min effort, couldn't even come close to 15% completion, and was like "screw this, I'm playing MS".  This week's isn't too bad but I am only winning like 20% of the games.  

I think there is a rule I am not familiar with.

let's just say I have a newfound appreciation for the surgical profession.  I managed to not screw up for 16 minutes and 48 seconds, and nearly lost my mind.

http://www.fun-with-money.com/ms/nono998.png

Hexx, your 8,82 in T6 demonstrate that you will get 9 on intermediate soon!
Don't you think so?

@Levente: "only" 16 minutes 38 seconds  :P. And you are also really efficient sweeper :D. That game had to be really tedious. Btw my personal best was 351 and yesterday I blasted 2.9 squares per second at 100 seconds (that means estimate of 172, I think it could very well be between 200-210, current top time for this T is 233).

@hexx: You are sick  ;)

@Luca: hexx is sick  ;D and WHEN (not if) he gets 9 on int, it will be another proof of his sickness. Well... You are not far from being sick too  ;D

No offence guys I´m just in good mood today :P

@Levente: Good thing to finish in time better than 999. But maybe, you should try to solve without marking the numbers solved. Is more risky (as you have to count well), but saves some time...

@Nikolaj: Good thing (for me) that you didn't solve in 210. I don't need a 8-2 points situation in T7 - my lead would be away :-(
And you're right - hexx is crazy ;D

@hexx: I still wait for a tournament to beat you - don't know which board could help me in that "mission" ;)

@ Luca:

T - 8.82s was a..... BAD score because it was a very easy board, i was warming up my hands when i got it. Saturday T session last only 20sec  :o. Sometimes even i get surprised with my NONO achievements. 8)

INT - 9s on Int is not fast enough for me, i'm more ambitious. My Int goal is : 7s
Goals for standart levels:
Beg - 0.98s;
Exp - 35s;
Gen - 99s;
Exp NF - 55s :D

What do you think? (please don't say i'm crazy!) ;)

@Stephan:

There are 2 grids where you used to be good at:
Little board and BIG board with only a few blanks(you beat me on this one last august).
Unfortunately for you these grids have not been appearing lately.
I can see you are still waiting for that moment, but to beat me you need to play at least 4 hours. :D

Crazy, but cool! Keep going...  8)

Here is a proposal for a brand new way to play T :)

What about Big board with few mines? e.g:

15x15 grid, 20 mines or 20x20, 20 mines.

At first sight it seems difficult to finish the game, but if you clean all "zeros", it's easy to complet the remaining field .;)

Try :D, maybe you like it! 8)

15x15, 20 mines screenys:
http://hexx.250free.com/nonosweeper/x/TP25.png
http://hexx.250free.com/nonosweeper/x/TP27.png

20x20, 20 mines screenshot:
http://hexx.250free.com/nonosweeper/x/TP44.png

wrote on Mar 23^rd, 2006 at 11:46am:

@ Luca: INT - 9s on Int is not fast enough for me, i'm more ambitious. My Int goal is : 7s Goals for standart levels: Beg - 0.98s; Exp - 35s; Gen - 99s; Exp NF - 55s :D What do you think? (please don't say i'm crazy!) ;)

In my opinion:
0s Beg won´t happen;
Int could be 8;
Best exp 37;
Genius 110 can happen (not for me though ;))
Exp NF 55 is easiest among all scores above.

Could you make nf expert vid and link it somewhere please?

Hey hexx,

I like your tournament proposal. I've just finished a 15x15 20 mines board. Only managed 35 s, but kinda new way to play. And I agree with Nikolaj...

@ Robert Farnik:

0s will happen!

Lets make a bet:

1) If i don't succeed, i offer you a bottle of the finest Portuguese wine. If by some sort of miracle :o, i fulfill my objective you offer me a bottle of the finest Czech alcoholic drink (anything but beer :P).

2) Proposal valid thru May 2008.

Do you accept my challenge? ;D

@hexx: I agree, I have one condition and one plea. Condition: Prize for the winner of this bet will be delivered personally (best way is at some sweeping live tourny).
Plea: Making vid of this achievement (if Yariv won´t implement in-game videos of course) - it will be unbeatable world record so it should be recorded for next generations.

Do you agree? Oh and May 1st or 31st?  ;)

@ Nikolaj:

Agreed! ::)
Deadline is May 31st but i'm pretty sure i can do it this year. ;D

P.S. Prepare your wallet. ;)

Hi, every sweeper got mail with this text:

"The pool of boards has been expanded, and put into five categories: Big boards, small boards, long rectangles, low mine density, and other. Each season will contain 1 board from each category (=5 boards), 1 board from a random category and 2 randomly generated boards, so we should get a better mix of boards from now on!
Thanks to Nikolaj and Maruda for adding new boards and sorting out the categories!"

This information is not 100% correct. The idea of cathegories comes from Stephan. The last sentence of text above should be:
"Thanks to Nikolaj and Maruda for adding new boards and many thanks to Stephan for sorting out the cathegories!"

Hi tournament players,

the last finished tournament was 15x20 with 170 mines. This was a new one, but in season 6, we had T4, a 15x20 grid with 168 mines.

Funnily, all eight current division 1 players achieved the slower time on the grid with more mines:
Gero 9% slower, Hexx 11%, Luca 13%, Maruda 12%, Nikolaj 5%, Qetuth 21%, Roland 26%, Stephan 6%.
It's valid for other divisions' players as well: BoBo 10%, kaa 11%, piman 12%, Yariv 9%.

Can anybody explain that? As it's the same grid shape as genius level, only differing by the number of mines, I would have assumed that the grid becomes easier the more mines are located on it.

Well Stephan, i can easily explain!
You mistyped the number of mines in T4 (season 6), the correct number is 186 (you problably never suspected about this :P), so it's not surprising to see slower times for last T board because it has less mines than T4(s6)!

Hey hexx, you have brilliant eye! I didn´t notice the number of mines is mistyped either  :D, I was as surprised as Stephan ;)

Okay, hexx, this IS a great explanation. Thanks.

I don't know if that was discussed earlier, but I'd like to know how it is decided who is ranked first, if two players share a score in a tourney?
Right now it's Gene and me shareing 3.09 and Gene leading me. I don't know what will happen next week and for the rest of this week, but it might happen that this ranking system decides who's going to play in first division next season.

@Christoph: who uploads tourny time first is ranked higher (unlike level times).  If 2 players have equal total points, then sum of times decides (the lower the better)

YAHOOOOO!!! First won tournament  8). My long term goal is achieved!!! My next goal is: to win tournament season  ;D

Congratulations, even if this is the first time I can't be happy with the second place. But you deserve it to win a - at least one - tournament!

@Stephan: Your disappointment with previous tournament didn´t last too long, did it?  ;) Well done!

I'm really surprised that I won this T with a time of 1.07s. But as I had 1.14s twice, I think now that I deserve it as well as you last week. And, I'm VERY happy that I won a tournament against hexx, Luca, Maruda, and you simultaneously!

And after I saw the grid of the T, I'm very happy that I have already 14 points. Everything but last rank in T3 would be another surprise...

So that should be the end of my hopes to ever join first division  :'(
My right hand hurts more and more, today I even had to give up writing with it. And the doctor ??? has still no idea what's wrong - he only suspects that the problem is related to the elbow.
I hope that I'll be ok for the vienna tourney but I'm afraid...
Well, so additional reason to show up: If I should really have to play lefthanded you'll all have good chances to beat me also in the minesweeper section ;D

@Christoph: Don´t give up! Hopefully the pain will be eased soon.

But maybe your doctor should check whether you don´t suffer by Carpal Tunnel Syndrome  :-/? Check Damien´s site http://www.metanoodle.com/minesweeper/carpal.html
Unfortunately this would probably mean end of your sweeping carreer  :'(

WOW!!!!!

What a game! :D
34.26s for current T in only 52 (21+31) clicks.
I think it is a great score, at least it's better than my best (35.28s) on 12x12, 45mines grid.
I just played 20 minutes ;D

http://hexx.250free.com/nonosweeper/x/s10t3_3426.png

@hexx: I have only 26 clicks for finishing this tourny  ;D Match it! I tried this tourny by flagging only, just for fun, but after I finished it in 48 seconds, then got 34 with 1 wrong flag ::) I thought I´ll try this tactics more and decent 36:42 appeared  ;D

http://sweb.cz/FarnikR/nonosweeper/36_42.png

A good massage, a couple of painkillers, half an hour of righthanded playing and bang: 56 and back on track!
Unfortunately that wont work for minesweeper since clicking appears a little difficult.

Oh my god! Where did that come from ??? 0.34
It was a 4 in the 4th col and I happend to start with cursor on it.

Yay!
I thought when I saw your 0.34 that I didnt have a chance, and couldn't get under 0.95. A little talk about the best approach, and suddenly I have almost the same time as Christoph on the exact same board :)
0.32! Sorry...well, not really :P

Oh, and a handy hint to all, thanks to Maruda: Install your mouse manufacturers drivers ;)
It really does seem to make a difference in this case, I installed them last night and today posted 4 great times, including a last minute pass in the last tournament and a time I didnt think possible (for me) in this one. Although the reaction to telling people I was using the generic windows drivers was almost as good as the ones to telling them I still play int and similar tourneys with flagging ;D

What is the function of mouse drivers?

I think for me is quite impossible to reach a time lower than 0,80 sec in this Tournament right now

Luca

Well, wow. First I didn't think anyone would come close to this 0.34, but when I did a 0.36 just short after Qetuth overtook me, I realized that there's a lot more possible.
I think one might be able to score a 0.17. But I'll settle for 0.26 since I would have to take more medication to continue today  ;D

@Luca: The main thing with the manufacturers drivers I suppose is it allows you to mess with things like report rate and precision to a greater extent than the generic drivers do. In my case though, it really seemed to affect my clicking: it was really noticable that when I release button now it takes affect sooner, and I think the same for pressing the button too but not as noticable. This was hard to get used to at first but once I did was a huge help already.

@Christoph: You dont have to improve again for me, 0.32 was definately my best. Congratz. Hope your hand improves, it's great having someone in tourney who is so consistently so close to me in performance.

@Everyone: The two big threads are kinda getting long. Maybe we should make Tournaments part II and a Personal Records part II threads?

Thank you Quetuth,
do you know where I can find Logitech UV55a drivers?

The logitech.com site has a download section which includes pictures of the mice so you can pick yours to install. Then it just takes a bit of looking through the new settings page to get them how you like, and getting used to those 8) Hope they work as well for you as they did for me

Hm.. strange board. I did a 2.5 nonflagging and a 2.45 flagging only (of course that won't be my best scores).
Which way do you play it?

Christoph, T playing strategies are usually top secret! But you can see MY strategy on friday ;)

Aaaaaarrrrrrrggggghhhhhh!!!!!!

I just got an easy board, scored a 1.96 on it. Two boards later I got the same board again, recognized it immediately..... and messed it up  >:( :( :'(

I'll post about the tourny results in a few days (I'm still quite busy) but I may announce the winner: Stephan Bechtel

Wow a 9 in the 10x15 board!

http://img95.imageshack.us/img95/4448/wowie4.png

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr :'( :'( :'( :'(

For God sake, Nonosweeper can be a very cruel game.

I was forced to guess on this grid. :P

http://hexx.250free.com/nonosweeper/x/ss11t04_223.png

Oops, I hate these situations  :-/

I hate these situations as well, but I hate such T grids even more... I needed five days to complete even a single board (okay, I must admit that risky playing doesn't have to be the best choice on S11/T4 board - I lost two games in the end at a low 200 time).

But if I watch the current rankings, without any single player out of div 4 having finished the current board, I don't think that boards which are more difficult than genius level, should be integrated into T pool.

@Stephan: I hoped you won´t finish a board and I´ll take decent 2 points lead  ;D. Yes you´re right, this board IS difficult. On the other hand I finished it twice on Sunday (after 30 minutes 270 and after another 40 my current 231) and didn´t play it more, because I don´t like genius-like boards much  ;)

I think if every sweeper taking part in the tournaments tried to finish this grid and guessed only when necessary, it certainly improved his skills even if he didn´t  succeed. I don´t know if it is satisfactory answer for the frustration of not finishing a board, but this tournament could be useful for all those who were scared of large boards.

@Nikolaj: With my fifth rank, I'm more than satisfied. Despite of a horrible performance, I stay in front of you and hexx, funnily :).

What happened?? Was saturday the last tournament day, wasn't it?
Is it changed?
I had my T6 score to upload (109s).
Now I will surely go in division 2 and I will give up playing.
Ok maybe it is the right moment to give up..
Luca

A few days ago, the sites went down for a while and some scores disappeared that were posted right before they went down. Afterwards, the server time for both MM and NS seemed to be set to a different time zone, putting tournament finishes about 13 hours earlier. Not sure why or exactly what went on...

It confused me for a while, now the tournaments actually end at midnight for me, instead of early afternoon....

@Luca: It mixed me up as well, but hey, second division is not that bad  ;)
Would be nice to see you fight back to first division next season (and perhaps to meet you at one of next years tournys - vienna and budapest are not that far from Italy)

I really like this T7 board, just did a 5.26 on it!
I can see me scoreing a low 4 but I'm afraid someone in 1.Div will come along with a 3.  :(

Heh, after struggling for a few days with beating my record of 11:26 on the tournament board I got 10:57, 10:80, 10:81, 10:64 and 10:20 all in a row...

Now I want a sub-10 before the end of the tournament

9:18!!!!!!!!!

Easy board didn't even really try... I love it when there are two blanks in a column (only a column with two numbers and on a board with the top and bottom row being 19) because it makes it so that you can make one click and slide to the next square and decrease about 0,75 secs from your time that you would have spent in another column looking for the square to click on... (sorry if that didn't make any sense)

http://img153.imageshack.us/img153/5734/918at0.png

5x5, 8mines
IMHO this is one of the most evel boards I've ever seen!
I like the path best with 3 mines down and 5 up - my best try was 0.37.  But unfortuneately the brute force probability is a litte beyond 1:1000000.  I'm afraid that board wont come along.
Additonally this week uni starts in Austria and I'm really really busy so I can only play a little. I'm very disappointed, I might have done really well on that bord :(

wrote on Oct 3^rd, 2006 at 9:35pm:

But unfortuneately the brute force probability is a litte beyond 1:1000000.  I'm afraid that board wont come along.

Unfortunately :o :o :o? I´d say fortunately, because you have to show real skills (accuracy and fast reaction) to achieve good time (great mine distribution is necessary of course).

Of course you're right from this point of view. But I'm a good bruteforcer. So at 1:120000 I could go it and would have a very very good chance to finish way better than in 5th place.
So for me it's unfortuneately because the small board - and I have best chances on small boards - is not of my favorit kind of small boards.

I understand you really want to win a tournament, but believe me, your hand is fast enough even for winning in "normal" way. At least your hand is faster than my I have only bit faster reaction  ;)

Of course I want to win a tourny, but at the moment I think more about the points to ensure to stay in 1.Div

Argh, there really needs to be a button for ending the game instead of clicking the blue smiley... I had an easy game and I went to click the smiley but I missed it and ended up getting a 2,09 instead of a sub 2...

Welcome to the club  ;D I have the same problem, but I´d take it as a feature forcing you to show your mouse skills  ;)

Yeeeeeeeeeeesssssssssssssss!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And it wasn't even the board I was hoping for!

Well, one could beat it easyly bruteforceing - I guess a 0.40 is realistic. But is there enough time left to play for one in more than a million boards?

Woooooooohhhhhooooo!
And right after this 0.79 I lost a 0.76 on only one missflag.

To this simley thing: I like, that you need to click the smiley. But perhaps that's because I'm to lazy to coordinate for a third button  ;D

well, congratulations Christoph  :o  I don´t think anybody will even try to play this T by bruteforcing  ;)

@Christoph: congratulations ;D
@Nik: i know one guy...he´s from portugal, i think ;)

After I improved my best time on this board compared to last time (S6 T6 - see below), I hoped for Top3. By now, it's likely to finish in #5. Terrible.

Good job, Christoph!

Division 1
1 hexx 1.32 sec 2005-11-26 8 pts
2 Stephan Bechtel 1.39 sec 2005-11-23 6 pts
3 Maruda 1.42 sec 2005-11-20 5 pts
4 Gero Waelz 1.43 sec 2005-11-26 4 pts
5 Luca Vezzoni 1.46 sec 2005-11-26 3 pts
6 Nikolaj 1.55 sec 2005-11-20 2 pts
7 Vladimir Orlov 1.82 sec 2005-11-25 1 pt
8 piman 2.34 sec 2005-11-20 -

@Christoph:
Hey, well done ;)

@Maruda:
You are right, tomorrow I will try to play the way Christoph did, but I don't promise nothing, I'm happy with my 1.01s achieved by the "normal way" ;D

So it's going from my dream- to my nightmare-board. I hope I'll score on it at all.
However, it feels fantastic to have won a tourny and to have already more points than have ever been neccessarry to stay in 1. Div.

I like T5 board, 20x20 20 mines, it's very hard but you can eventually get very easy board

Aaaaarrrrrrrggggghhhhh!
I just messed up a 9 on the T5 board. It contained a 5 and a 6 but was left right symmetrically. I chose the wrong way round and died on the smiley on 9.81.

hmm, that would´ve beaten my current 9,88 with highest number being 2  ;D. Most probably I won´t play this T anymore, I´m hunting for 4th and 5th sub 60 expert  ;)

Hmmm, maybe sub 4 board for hexx, but I´m ok with 4,45 :P 2nd tourny win, here I come ;D ;D ;D! I warn you hexx, don´t even try to upload something faster :-*

http://sweb.cz/FarnikR/nonosweeper/4%2C45.png  

Congrats Nikolaj. I hoped I could come a little bit closer in the season ranking, but now, you're far away :(. Great board, by the way...

@Stephan: Next season you´ll beat me again, I lack time for sweeping  :'( my main playing day will be Saturday... And yes, I can imagine only a few boards more suitable for playing  ;D

Here is the 10.68s vid of my last T victory ::)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfMsf77Z7KA

WOW!!!!! WOW!!!!!

Almost sub-3s  :o  in just 3 clicks ;)

http://hexx.250free.com/nonosweeper/x/s13t2_307.PNG

Grats, but... You are by far the fastest nonosweeper and you have to play those baby boards to win a tournament? Shame on you  ;D that´s just sick http://sweb.cz/FarnikR/icon_gerbe.gif (I know I had really easy board in T7 of S12) :P

Fu*************************
:-[ :-[ :'( :'( arrrrgggghhhhh!!!!!!
aaaaahhhh!!!
rrrrrrr
.....
.....

I just messed up winning the T2! I got THE dream board:
right side:

33

33

2

2

bottom:

2	2	2		2	2	2
					2	2

I happend to put an extra mine and died at 1.65

*that should have said one wrong mine (of course)

@Christoph: that´s really bad luck  :'(
@all: just tried current tourny for ~1 hour and didn´t make it past 10%... And even for the 10% I had to guess twice... I won´t waste my energy for something like this. If anybody manages to solve this grid, he deserves the 8 points. Stephan, great opportunity to make 8 points gap between us ;)

Hi Nikolaj,

I was already afraid of the new T board, when I got the new grid data. I know that large boards with low mine density are horrible. And this is even worse than 12x12/45.

But as
1) you played already for an hour without coming past 10% (!) and
2) no one has uploaded a score after 1/2 a day, I suggest the following:
Yariv, please change the current board to another one!

Thanks in advance in the name of most players, I think,
Stephan

well it was 10% mines to be honest. Of course I could use empty rows/columns as easy % gain. But I would vote for board change too.

Well, I don't exactly get, why we should change the board. It's hard - true - but why not having such a challenge once? I played now almost 2 hours and twice came down to a 50/50 guess. So I think it's doable.

Ok, I downloaded the board so late that I didn't saw the original one - so forget about what I claimed about the doability - but still I don't know what I should think about that it was changed.

SON OF A BEE STING! This board is hard...
I like it!!!

;D

118 is quite nice time  ;D ;D ;D once I had identified top right 2 (thanks to the single 2 in the column it was impossible to place 3 there) the rest was a piece of cake, I triplechecked the single mines though, otherwise it would have been sub 100 :D

http://sweb.cz/FarnikR/nonosweeper/118%2C46.png

Wow, that was in the very last second - the very last game this evening, now I've to run to catch my train. And it cannot be closer 7.2 against 7.21. I think that point should have secured me the 1. Div for next season (well, if it stands of course - but I don't think something more will happen in T5)

@Christoph: I can imagine you were quite happy. 0.01 s gap is nice (if you are not the one behind) ;)

Hi guys and girls, merry Christmas and happy sweeping during the Christmas days from Stephan Bechtel!  :) :)

Argh! I've hit the 2.57 now for a tenth time!
However, have a marvellous new year, but prepare to be overtaken by me :)

Damn!!!!!!!!
That was actually the most stupid thing that could happen!!
Gabi's just moving and has no internet at home, so she played a bit at my place and got this 48.something. She uploaded it and of course the computer remembered her account.
I just came home played a game, got this 29.85 clicked Upload as usual and then I wondered why I still had this 30.5. Only then I recognised what happened.

So Yariv, could you please correct the scores?
Gabi: 48.something (I think something=64 but I'm not sure)
Christoph: 29.85

I'm so sorry! It will not happen again. Today Gabi got her Inet cables and from tomorrow on she should also have Inet access.

@Christoph: I´m not sure whether Yariv checks this topic, perhaps try to contact him via email. It´s really stupid situation  ;) By the way you are outstanding scout of new talents. Gabi is quite good sweeper  :)

Tournament 8 of season 13 was very special for me and Maruda, we managed to achieve "double". Ok, maybe hexx didn´t play with 100% and maybe if Stephan had enough time to play or respond to our improvement it would be much harder, but it´s still very nice feeling  ;)

Congrats nonotheless >:(

Hexx, your 6.03 in S14_T01 is unbelievable! Can you show us the screenshot, please?
I'm very curious as I doubt that I would beat this time even if I knew the position of the mines.

I even doubt I can break 8 seconds ;) Could I see your screenshot too please, Stephan? For me both times are awesome.

Well, I managed to get 6.98s ans 6.03s. ;)

6.03s grid does not seem to be particularly easy because it has no conjoined blanks, but they are very close together.
Unlike usual, I strarted on the top left and the path was in essence a Z.

6.03s screeny: http://hexx.250free.com/nonosweeper/x/s14t1_603.PNG
6.98s screeny: http://hexx.250free.com/nonosweeper/x/s14t1_698.PNG

way to miss a chance to get to the 2nd place ;D... Blasted at 6:50, but that´s no t my final word  ;)

http://sweb.cz/FarnikR/nonosweeper/miss.png

edit:25 minutes later 7,85  ;)

@Nikolaj: You beated 8, so please do not beat 7.43 ;).

@Hexx: Nice ones, thanks. Five full rows at both top and bottom are really a good board, even if the mines are spread horizontally. Even 6.98 is awesome for me!

So, I've just created my own 250free account now to show you my screenshot.
Here is the link: http://stephanbechtel.250free.com/nono/s14_t01_743.png

I just messed up what I'd consider to have been the opportunity to win this tourny. I got a wonderful board with an 8 and a 4 and the rest easy. I got confused, put the 4 in the wrong col, replaced it, flagged the 8 one flag short and ended up searching the last flag for 5 secs: and still I got an 11!
Sometimes I could hate myself  >:(

I just messed up what I'd consider to have been the opportunity to win this tourny. I got a wonderful board with an 8 and a 4 and the rest easy. I got confused, put the 4 in the wrong col, replaced it, flagged the 8 one flag short and ended up searching the last flag for 5 secs: and still I got an 11!
Sometimes I could hate myself  >:(

There seems to be a bug with the 2. Div points.
The points beside the scores read 14 - 12 - 10 - 8 - 6 - 2 to me instead of 8 - 6 - 5 - ... Reads it the same for you?

I noticed that too, though it seems to have gone away now. Hmm, theres been odd point things before but usually with something unusual like times under 1s, and I didnt see anything unusual about those times.

There seems to be some kind of bug in the tournament generation system, sometimes 2 kind of boards are generated one we actually play and one "virtual" (if it happens again, check it tomorrow in the "Tournament list" before Yariv deletes the virtual one). Maybe double points have something to do with that? But doubling only D2 points is weird indeed  ;)

Did anybody notice that Yariv, the famous inventor of Nonosweeper, had to relegate into division 3 - after having been in division 2 for 12 seasons in a row?! Very sad, I think!

By the way: On my webpage (http://www.stephan-bechtel.de), you can find a new nono tournaments' statistics -> tables of the most successful players of each division. Feel free to send me your comments.

Well... I'd love to see him back, it would mean he has some free time and can develop Nonosweeper  ;) On the other hand it's nice to know the sweeping community is improving and soon the Division 1 will have to fight hard to remain at the very top  8-)

Sorry, that was just too nice!!

8 1 on top and
2111121105
1300300000

So I hope to gain some points on T2

wow, what a board  :o and nice time, looks like you will beat me as I don't intend to play this T anymore  ;)

Grrr, seems that I have to play again...

Yes! I never thought I could win a tourny on such a board.

However, the T3 board is my a real nightmare for me!
I somehow got this 45 and a min later a 47 playing NF but it really hurts my head. I tried it flagging only and got down to 62.09, I'll have another go - it's much more fun to play it like this  8-)

grats Christoph, it's always nice to win a tournament ;) And I think you have to improve your NFing a bit to be able to get some points in this T  :P

I'm really missing this nice smiley which keeps on banging its head against a wall. I was hesitating so long with the last flag!!! That really should have been the high 3 which I estimate will be necessary to win this T. But however I should be more than contend with having put myself in the lead at least for the moment. Unfortuneately I can't see this 4.4 standing till sunday.

Perfect estimation, Christoph. Was hard enough to beat your 4.40, and then Maruda's 4.03 as well...

Grats/thx Stephan :)

I don't think I'll have more time to play this week a pitty since I really like the board and I think I could eventually get a 0.99 on it. However, 2.07 should get me enough points to secure me the Div1 for next season.

btw I got a new minesweeper score, I'm on 15 now.

Happy 30th birthday Stephan! And grats to very nice time in the last tournament  8-)

Thanks, Nikolaj.

Congrats, Christoph. 0.99 is not possible for me, but 1.70 would be nice as well :)

Of course, I accept my 1.67 as well  ;)

Yeah, 1.67 is nice I don't think I'll beat that. I'll have only Saturday evening to play (if at all) and I can't see me doint well then.
The board is quite large but still it's only 10 squares to flag. If they are arranged really nice a sub1 must be possible. Well, not a really low one since it's just too unlikely that one can bureforce it - the board is just too big for giving a chance to detect a fast board with high enough probability - I mean, how big can the probability for one out of 254 billion rise?

However, someghing way more important: On Damiens Guestbook we came to the conclusion that we're not entirely sure whether it's your 30th or your 29th birthday. I thought it was your 30th, since I was sure you were 26 when we met 3 years ago in February but then my mobile phone claimed you were born in 78...?

I looked at Stephan's forum profile and there is 30  ;D

Very nice time Stephan, I don't think I'll break the 2s barrier... I will play only on Friday so it's highly unlikely  ;)

@Christoph: Seems that I have to watch Damien's guestbook, right? Of course, my year of birth is 1977, so I turned 30 yesterday :'(
Could have been easily found out at http://www.solitaire-ranking.de.vu by clicking my Who's Who profile :)

Yes, it worked: I won a tournament with a time submitted on my birthday!  :o

Season 16
Tournament 6 of 8
2007-06-03 - 2007-06-09
Grid: 6 x 6     Mines: 10

Division 1
1 Stephan Bechtel 1.67 sec 2007-06-05 8 pts
2 hexx 1.71 sec 2007-06-09 6 pts
3 Maruda 1.82 sec 2007-06-03 5 pts
4 Christoph 2.07 sec 2007-06-03 4 pts
5 Nikolaj 2.22 sec 2007-06-06 3 pts
6 Qetuth 2.23 sec 2007-06-03 2 pts
7 Luca Vezzoni 2.51 sec 2007-06-04 1 pt
8 Caren 2.57 sec 2007-06-04 -

Just curious: Has anybody else managed the same?
Alternatively, it's also remarkable to win a tournament that takes place in the week of the player's birthday.

Well done Stephan!!

At least I didn't manage to win a tounry on my birthday - meanwhile, I really should have done (!) when this stupid smiley misclick kept me away from a sub4, however, you would have won it anyway, well you won it anyway  ;)

Gabi had a wrist operation last week, so she sweeps lefthanded right now.
Thinking of that I'm really amazed by the 26 she got on this tourny.

wow, it´s really good time :o
my left handed best is 20,60...

How come when I open the tournament link the screen is blank??

There are some problems with the webspace provider. Seems that some scripts aren't working correctly. Yariv is working on it.

But don't hesitate to upload nonetheless, your scores should be registered anyway!

hey Yariv, still don´t see Alliska´s 57 in the last tournament :-/

Oh good, the forums are working!!!

It's been a lot of work to shift things and I still haven't got MM done yet.
Nonosweeper now seems to be working mostly OK, except for the automatic e-mails. The new host seems not to allow e-mails from sendmail, but I've sent them a query about it. I expect something can be worked out for this eventually...

I've just changed the current tournament to finish on the correct day, thanks to Stephan for pointing that out.

I checked the link with Alliska's score, but it seems that it was made with Maruda's account code, so it was ignored because Maruda's time was already better. Is that a possibility at your end?

Congratulations on turning 30 in June Stephan, that makes you older than me as I turned 30 last month! ;)

I probably won't read the forums often so please send me e-mail if you find other broken stuff on the sites! ::)

Thanks Yariv for fixing nono sites! It's a good feeling to play tournaments again.

Don't remind me on my birthday. Vienna 2007 showed me that I'm really old but still playing those silly games ;)

By the way: I had to ;D about "Is that a possibility at your end?" - it seems that your intensive contact with helpdesk and hotlines let you adapt their language, didn't it?

Welcome back Daniel (who submitted only once in the last 41 tournaments) and Gero (once in last 54 tournaments)!

Thanks Stephan :)
But its not a new beginning of my nono career, I was just a bit bored and thought I could try the tourny board. ;) And I mentioned again that it is just waiting for the right board to get a competitive score. This isn't fun for me currently, I just play some boards to see I'm still able to solve nono boards in a more or less good time (the 60 i uploaded was pure luck, I get times in the 80's normally). And when I see the division 2 and 1 times I get respect and I would have to play more seriously to get competitive. That's not the aim I have right now. :)
So, good luck everyone getting new times. Too bad everybody seems to concentrate on tournys instead of improving in normal levels. :(

Stephan wrote on Oct 13^th, 2007 at 9:46am:

Welcome back Daniel (who submitted only once in the last 41 tournaments) and Gero (once in last 54 tournaments)!

Thanks!  I started to play more regularly when the site went down, but I didn't know how to submit for the tournaments.  I've been concentrating on getting my expert score down (since my int falls into the category of "good enough"), but the tournaments are fun to play as well.  This board is incredibly annoying, though, so I hope my score sticks.  I'd like to make it into division 2 eventually, probably not this time around since there were three boards before I started playing, but there's no harm in trying.

Of more importance to me is that I got my 3rd-5th best expert times (93, 93, 96) last night!  I also finished a genius board, but it was not a record and was a very difficult board, so I finished at 415 seconds.  ::)

D'oh.  Apparently ties do not go to the second player.

@Daniel: The rule is "First come, first serve". On small boards, there is always a likely risk of losing a rank without any gap to the player ín front of you :-(

@Qetuth: Great time for T6! Your 101 is by now the second-fastest time ever played on this board. Good luck with winning your first tournament  ;)

Too bad, scored a 122 today morning but when i uploaded it didnt work and it said record already exists and when i choosed tournament on opened nono game the record was still the old there, too. Last url also didnt helped ;/

@Stephan: Thanks! I couldn't believe it! I suspect a few others might have something to say about who wins before the week is out, but it was a nice board. At worst I'll know I'm making people work for their points  ;)

I also took 15 seconds off the fastest ever time for the current Mallet Mania board 15.1, so I'm having a good week.  :D

@Gero: Unlucky, though on the other hand it's unlikely it'll rob you of any points. I hope to see you continue to pop into the tournaments, even if you aren't making a serious comeback.

@Daniel: Wow. You know you managed to equal the score afterwards of someone who didn't have access to the game until 3 or 4 hours before the end of the tournament? :o Kobbie only got to post at all because he gave me a lift home from the squash courts. Not sure when exactly you posted your time, but it must have been close. If you missed out because I let him have a go before me, sorry...that's very unlucky, even moreso than usual when equalling times.

Posted with 5 minutes left in the tournament  :)

I hate such boards. imo that's torture rather than nonosweeper. But what really annoys me is that I got on the very only board in the season that anyhow fitted my playing style a little bit a second place and I'm still way away from being savely through.
I mean: 6 tournies 4 of which with boards I really can't enjoy playing, 1 not really long rectangle which is somehow playable and one not really small rectangle which was ok. There was no small board and not a single low density board yet. I've no fun anymore with having to play such disgusting boards over and over just to find another point. I'm really thinking of quiting competing in 1.Div and just let myself drop out to second or third and playing only boards I like to play (which are getting rare these days).

Come on, this board is not so bad...  The 12x12 with 40 or 45 mines is much worse ;) Although I must say I've lost few boards due to ambiguous situation with less than 10 blank squares to go and it was pretty annoying  ::)

Christoph, I start to feel the same way when there seem to be 5 tiny boards in a row. I'm not trying to criticise your complaint, just offer another point of view. It's a pity you don't enjoy them, I find the challenge of a hard to figure out board the best part.

To me, the small boards (including long narrow ones with fairly high density) seem all pretty much the same, and I often don't see a lot of point trying to be competitive in them unless I get particularly lucky or I'm particularly bored. And there are far more of those than 'interesting' boards.

Several times I've considered bringing up a revision of the tournament distribution so it isn't biased so much towards the small board experts, but every time I'm about to do that we finally get a decent board.

I've interpreted this season as: {tiny, geniuslike, low density, smaller than int, annoyingly tiny, low density} which is a fair bit different from yours. Two low density boards is odd, but I'd personally take it over more than half the season being target practice boards. So I suppose in the end it evens out, and this is just a better than usual season for me, worse for you.

Btw, note that I have the third best genius time of an active player (if gero is being truthful about not really being back  ;) ) and yet have never (as of last sunday) managed a third overall in a tournament. Maybe that says something about the lack of 'interesting boards 8-) Hey, you have two firsts, one of them better than 80% of second place  :o :o

I wouldn't call a board low density unless it's way faster to go for flags only instead of nf. But however, I really like low density (like 20x20, 8) or small low density (like 5x4, 4) which one can bruteforce and small other boards. And I love small board which are just large enough that one can't bruteforce them (like 7x7, 12) because on these luck entirely disappears and it comes down only to skil since everyone gets the easy boards.
Boards like the actual one are for me not just boring to play but are also annoying since I know that I can't win them without being extraordinary lucky - one can play a year on it without geting a single decent one (but murphis law tells, that someone else is about hitting an easy one, and bang, no chance for competing anymore since the week over).
I'm not saying I don't like big boards. I enjoy playing them once in a while, but they are not representing skill and thus I hate when they show up at tournys and make me play them for an way too long time because I need one or two points. I don't have that much time. And I don't like tournys to be decided by who has more time to play. (All of you will have recognized that on small boards you're coming way faster to a score around your final one than on big ones, right?)

I'm not asking to remove these board from trounrys, but this season will probably be decided without either a small or a low density board. Thus (to my oppinion) it will not just be the most random season ever played but also the season with the board set that least favors me - obviously both annoys me (especially the randomness to make that clear, we could as well flip coins who of Qetuth, Manu, Luca and me should go to 2.Div next season).

Hi Christoph, hi Qetuth,

it's funny that you discuss about this season being a good or a bad one. Definitely, it was a bad one due to the technical problems in the first Ts ;) And in fact, I don't really appreciate the boards of this season as well, so I would agree with Christoph.

But let me tell you some analysis I just checked out:

As far as I know, the random generation of T boards still follows the idea of the T pool, set up in 2006.
The pool of boards knows five categories: Small boards (A), big boards (B), long rectangles (C), low mine density (D), and other (E).
Yariv wrote in nonosweeper news: "Each season will contain 1 board from each category (=5 boards), 1 board from a random category and 2 randomly generated boards, so we should get a better mix of boards from now on!"

In S18, we had so far:
15x4/32 -> group C
30x10/180 -> group B
12x12/40 -> group D
8x8/32 -> group A (untypical one, but the limit for A is a maximum of 8 squares for rows and columns, regardless the mine density)
10x4/31 -> only fits in E
15x15/100 -> group D

In S17, there were the following boards:
7x7/15 -> A
30x/138 -> C
25x25/600 -> B
10x15/124 -> E
19x14/160 -> E
10x15/120 -> E
5x15/42 -> C
15x15/8 -> D

So, with two boards from group D (density lower than 50%), but both boards with a relatively high low density, S18 is maybe a rather untypical season. However, S17 had only one board from group D, with an extremely low low density. But that's the coincidence.

And nonotheless, there are still two boards remaining for season 18. I would prefer a really big board with extreme high or low density but who knows which board type will come....

I think the pool system really allows a better mix, but of course, we could still make categories more extreme to make sure that a higher amount of extreme board types is taken into account in each season. On the other hand, I prefer the current solution as there is a positive chance of having seasons without 12x12/45 type boards :-)

Happy sweeping and a fair competition!

@Christoph: You favor bruteforcing on tiny boards - I don't. Stephan favors s extremely high or low density boards - I don't. Qetuth favors biiiiiig boards - I don't. In fact I don't favor any boards, I'm average on every board, but there is one type of boards I really hate - 12x12/40 or 45 mines  ;) But the cathegories system means variability during the season and it means more fun for me.

What I really like is this:
1 Qetuth 101.68 sec 2007-10-21 8 pts
2 Nikolaj 102.23 sec 2007-10-25 6 pts
3 Maruda 102.28 sec 2007-10-24 5 pts

gap between the leader an the 3rd player is 0.6s after 100 seconds of playing!

@Stephan: I won't play this T anymore so you are allowed to tie my time, but nothing more :P

@Nikolaj: You know that I'm slow on this type of board. So, 129 is already 21 seconds faster than my second-best time in this week and was done on quite a good board...
I think I can (I have to, respectively) live with #5 or #6 in this week, and I maybe concentrate on bringing my int average down to 13.0 or 12.8 ;)

Current standings are really nice.
@hexx: What about finishing in 101.73 - would be nice symmetry and maybe Qetuth's T win?!

hmmmmmm....
91.87 seems to be a little bit faster than 101s ;D

2nd again.

Looks like we've got a good battle for the second spot in div3 going.

So the season 18 passed without any board I could enjoy playing. Exactly one board came along which somehow fitted my playing style (on which I took rank 2). Honestly, I'm fed up. All week long I had not more than one hour to play T8 and suddenly on the very last day I had to face Lucas 42 which would have taken me out of 1. Div. However, one more hour playing in the middle of the night gave me this nice 61. Not nice enough for my taste since one good (or lucky) game could ruin it again. But whatever will happen during the rest of the night and no matter if I'll be in 1st or 2nd next season - competeing is over for me right now. It's just no more fun like this and I'm not gonna waste time any more for playing without having fun.

So from now on I'll play only boards I like or parhaps 15 mins a week.
You can understand this as my official retirement.

@Christoph: Hopefully, you think about your decision. Would be very sad to lose you in nono competitions. But the 6.75 in current S19/T1 seems to be a good time, maybe you have already unretired.

Btw, I didn't really appreciate any board of S18 as well, but I'll hope for nice board in next seasons ;)

Well, this season provides already more nice boards than the last one :) - that's the only reason I played.
I can't see the 6.75 give me reasonable points since I blew a 5.90 on one wrong flag in the very next game. I guess it'll take a low 5 to win this T.
And you'll not lose me, I'll stil be around and play two or three boards a season - dependingly on how much I like them, but I'm for sure out of compatition.

You crazy guys. hexx with an incredible 4.56 in S19/T1 on the last T day, and Maruda with a 50.51 in S19/T2 on the first T day!

well, i think we should wait for hexx´s sub 50 on saturday ;)

Hey wild Maruda, don't wait for sub-50s cause 58.04s is the best I got for this week.  >:(
Your 50.51s score is quite interesting :o, did you grab a screeny of it? I'm really curius to see how it looks like!
BTW, because I knew I couldn't compete with 50s I also played on Flagged mode and got 68.00s and missed a 64s on last click?!?! :-?


Hey wild Stephan, my last T victory was in fact very easy, just check out the scores:
4s - 1 ;)
5s - more than 20 8-)
6s - more than zillions ;D
All this in 2 hours of intense recorded sweeping. :D

ok, i think it was almost dreamboard :)
with a bit of luck in the bottom row it was very nice board to play...

http://sweb.cz/Maruda/50%2C51.jpg

Nice one wild Maruda, the left side is too easy and bottom guess was big help, I like your board >:(
I would enjoy even more if there was a video, just to have a better insight of the event ;)

Well, I don't think I will be lucky enough to finish this T... I got 6 times to <40 mines (once it was 21) and about million times to <70. Flagged everything "flaggable". Turned on "?" marks to try different mines configuration and no, I didn't get any solvable board => wrong guess

@Qetuth, Gabi: You've finished it at least twice so far. Did you have to guess too? Or is it some kind of higher solving skill? ;)

I've finished it 4 times. Probably about six hours play. However: A fair bit of that, until the first finish (568 I think?), were playing much the same way I often play genius, as slowly and carefully as required with the aim of finishing ignoring time. So it wasnt as many games as you might think. I play genius and sometime expertOF like that all the time (finishing in random times between about 200 and 3000, usually about 500 though, unless I don't play continuously). I apparently have a different puzzle background to most of you, since that's the same style of play you'd expect from a harder puzzle book.

My most recent finish, in the 300s, was with no guesses besides the first two numbers down the side column, which is how I start. The 278 currently winning, I believe started with something like a 73311 down the left column and I started with a guess of the 73 from the top. I also guessed similarly from the bottom in the opposite corner, something like 44 from the bottom in the right column, and otherwise I think there was one other guess, clearing about 3 squares of a row which only had a 2 remaining but about 6 places for it to be.

I also, in one of my first speed based games, had a loss at about 90% in 160s which I'm pretty sure would have been finished without guesses beyond the start: The column I was trying to figure out the bottom half of turned out to be empty of further mines (I'd badly miscounted the number of blocks in a 1312131213etc type column. :-[ )

I see this board as a good challenge, but even I find it a bit frustrating at times, so I can't imagine what others think of it.

Q

In the hope of more times being posted: My tactics for S19T3. Sorry for the long and double post anyone who doesn't care. One point,  I can never stand using ?marks. I do a lot of mining and unmining as working, and am somewhat used to either resolving or remembering how to put things back how they were when done.

To start, wait for a board wih what looks like fairly full side columns, or at least a large number or two in them. Guess the first couple of numbers out of these to get you started, then solve as much as you can of those (hopefully most of the top 5th). I then quickly look down the rows for ones with enough to reveal mines and put those in (I recognise pretty much all of these from genius), then look over the columns, testing any I think theres a remote chance of giving more info.

I do this by, for example, running down a column, marking as if everytihng was squashed to the top. If I get to the bottom and there are 3 blanks left, every block of mines has 3 removed from its start (the top in this case), so if you had a 4, the bottom mine would be left.

Example of the way I do this:
With 1243 in width 15 (or height 15 in genius:
Mark from left, gives 2 spare cells left at the end, so remove 2 from every block:
M_MM_MMMM_MMM__
X_XX_XXMM_XXM__    <-  Xs are ones removed
________MM___M__    <-  Remaining mines.

With many 15 width boards now I know these, remembering them by: 1234 means two from the 4 and one from the 3. But for other sizes I still figure out by quickly going one way to mark, then back the other way to unmark.

Mines already there can help this process: eg if you have a block get to the square before a mine, then that mine must at least be part of the block or one before it, so skip the square after the old mine and continue: This basically gives you a one mine advantage for the second half of the column. But not for the first half, so be careful.

Other things I particularly look for, as they seem to occur a lot in this board, is cases like a column starting with 113 and the 5th square is a mine, so the 4th can't be. Similarly a column starting 34 and mines in the third, ninth and tenth, so the second block of mines must be part of the 4 but it can't stretch back far enough. These type of things seem to occur a LOT in this tourney compared to genius.

Once I've done as much as I can by basic methods like that, I look for an "influential" cell, and look at (often by marking mines all over the place), what I know if the first square is a mine, and what I know if the first square isn't. Logically, anything common to the two scenarios is certain. In theory, and square on the board could have this process applied and tell you new information, but most squares in sparse sections don't tell you you anything new for both being a mine and being safe, just one or the other, and in some logically hard dense sections the two scenarios will tell you exactly opposite information.

Mines likely to be influential include:
--A first mine in the unsolved section of a row or column starting with a large number: If it starts with a 6, and its a mine, then the first 6 are mines. So if you discover by the surrounding rows that it not being a mine mean the third cell is a mine, then the third through to the sixth are all mines either way. These cells are particularly powerful in corners.

--Any mine in a row or column which is only one cell too big: Eg, if the first cell is not a mine, then the rest is certain, so see what happens if the first cell is a mine. Then try that at the other end. Or a square in the middle of the row which intersects an important column.

--A row or column with only one block remaining, particularly a 1 or a 2. Anywhere you place that mine clears a lot of cells, so look at what those cleared cells do, particularly all at once. You can often eliminate much of one of these rows.


That's about all I can think of. As far as guessing, in a bigger board I think it's safer to guess something with a high probability of being okay (opposite to a smaller board where you can play enough games that the time advantage of a bad guess is too much to pass up). However, it's pointless guessing something that wont help you significantly, because then you'll just end up making another guess right after. So don't guess something that you can't see leading to more info in several directions.

Hope this helps someone. Good Luck.

Sure, that's what I meant by flagging everything flaggable :) I think everybody who solved genius board uses these techniques.

I use "?" marks only when I get stuck (i.e. when everything solvable is solved and I have to guess - it helps me distinguishing real mines from the guessed ones :))

Good to know one can be lucky enough to get solvable board :)

I read your post yesterday night Nikolay and told myself to play slowly to finish a board. Well and I did it. :)
I look at the last row and try to complete it by guessing. The rest was done by counting and mining everything. Well in the end I was forced to guess, but I was lucky^^
So don't give up! :)

FINALLY!!!  :P

Today I got down to 21 mines at 253 seconds and had to guess  :'( But the next game I was lucky with only 3 guesses :)

Now let's play to get good time  ;D

Holy hell I actually finished.

Yay!  ;D :D ;D :D ;D :D

That's only the second time someone outside division 1 has won a tournament....

Congrats everyone who finished the board, too.

Finally it happened. After 152 continuous participations at nono tournaments, I finally didn't manage to finish S19/T3 and therefore didn't have any time to submit. Special bad luck that this board appeared in a week in which I could play <4 hours. And special inability that I misclicked a definite win with 4 mines left at 400 something.

@Qetuth: Congratulations for your first tournament victory!

@Stephan: Does your 7.92s board look like this one :question >:(

http://hexx.250free.com/nonosweeper/x/ss19t8_790.png

Nice board, indeed.

But my 7.92 is a different one, luckily having a nice 8 in it.

Rows with numbers are:
(01) 3
(03) 1 1 1 1 1
(08) 1 1
(11) 8
(16) 1
(19) 1

grats Stephan, it's always great result to beat hexx  ;)

@hexx: bad luck :(

@all: Czech republic now has 3 sweepers in the D1, we've tied record of Germany  ;D

Thanks Nikolaj. I don't really care whether my board was a lucky punch. In fact, I was able to finish in the fastest time ever player on 20x20/20 (beating hexx' old best time by 0.01 second). And I'm very glad that, on nice grids, I'm still able to potentially win a T.

Congratulations Alliska for relegating into div 1 - bad luck that Gabi relegated down, so we missed the chance to have three female players in div 1.

Wanna see how I did 11.21s on T6! :D
I used my beloved NF strategy on this superb easy board:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMJrFZJHWY0

@hexx: very nice ;)

@all: alliska works in switzerland (since 27.1.) and probably will not be able to play more than once per month...

@hexx: Nice board, and well played! By the way, I played the same strategy, but from top to bottom.

@Maruda: That seems to be bad luck for her as she was likely to stay in division 1. Hopefully, she will be able to play either T7 or T8, otherwise I could be a tight race to rank 6.

Perhaps it is too late but,
I hear by claim two victories on the last T of season 20!!!!! :-?
I simply got 142.50s twice, in row, and with the same total clicks :-X

142.50s (the first)
http://hexx.250free.com/nonosweeper/x/s20t8_14250.png
http://hexx.250free.com/nonosweeper/x/s20t8_14250t.png

142.50s (the second)
http://hexx.250free.com/nonosweeper/x/ss20t8_14250.png
http://hexx.250free.com/nonosweeper/x/ss20t8_14250t.png


On the other hand I got 8.43s in current T. ;D
Very easy 16 "3bv" grid completed in ...... 16 clicks!!! ;)

:'(  :'(  :'(  :'(  :'(  :'(  :'(  :'(  :'(  :'(  :'(

I just showed my girlfriend this weeks tourny board (without a mouse attached). I got a 3x4 block of mines but since I played with a touchpad I couldn't do better than 3.24.
With a mouse and a table this could have been my 3rd tourny victory... I doubt the 1.93 will be enough  :'(

I just understood that this T4 board is way easier than it looks like. All I did was changing my game plan and within a couple of minutes I got rewared with a 1.90, a 1.88 a 1.63 and a 1.62.
Stil, I should have goten a sub1 when I got this dreamboard - I still feel not safe with 1.62.

Hey, Cristoph,

I've just got 1.59s ;)
yet, not a safe score >:(

Not safe indeed!  :P :P :P

http://members.iinet.net.au/~queteq/MM/screenshots/tourney22w4.JPG

I haven't been playing much lately (had an operation and couldn't sit up for a few weeks last month, and have often been either busy or stuck with a touchpad since), but I missed the final click at 1.71 on the first day of this one, so I was determined to at least play till I matched it. The board I missed had columns 8, 2 2, 0 from memory. This one was much nicer.

HEHEHE ;D  ;D  ;D

I've nothing to say.... ;)

i had insane difficulties with this weeks 12x12 12mines tournament since it took me always >10 seconds to solve all the empty lines line by line. my best time that way was a 13, i couldn't understand at all how times of less than 10 sec were possible.
now today i discovered the feature that clears al squares when all needed mines are marked. within 5 min i managed to improve my score to less than 7 sec, current pos1 in my division.
nowhere in the game discription this feature is mentioned, so i think that is why in 3rd division times differ with >35 sec right now. maybe it should be mentioned somewhere that there is this certain feature.
happy sweeping everyone

Hi EWQMinesweeper,

I assume that tons of players had to detect the blue face. I remember a tournament where Roli submitted a 4, while I was stuck at 14 or something. Took me hours to find out...

But in fact, the mystery of the blue face has already been commented by Yariv in February 2005. See page 1, posts 1 and 3, of the thread "Questions, Comments and Suggestions" :)

That really hurts... I got an 4.32 and a 4.16 in my last playing minute in T6. Both times the smiley got stuck and I had to reclick it and thus missed a sub4. So after the desaster with my not attached mouse in T4 which cost me the victory and 5 points against Qetuth I loose another 2 because my computer fools me... if I hadn't retired I would be really mad - as I play just for fun it's just a little frustrating.

i just got a 3.71 sec score on current tournament board but it keeps on uploading and nothing happens. and as i probably won't be able to beat this time again in this week i'm a bit sad.

yariv, can you manually add my score? i can send you screenshot of the board and of the current tournament best window if needed


EDIT:  it worked after page stopped loading and i got message that it couldn't load. i loaded again and it worked. ;D

Short term uploading problems happen every now and then. I usually just save a copy of the url in a text file just in case and press refresh a bit later. As often as not, it turns out that the time did get submitted, it was just the resulting generated page which failed to arrive.

For future reference, you'd be better off with sending Yariv the time upload url than the screenshots: Screenshots could potentially be faked, and the time in the tournament window is just drawn from the .ini file. Then, either he can submit the url directoly or he can try to figure out what's wrong with it if it was a bug.

Of course, if you don't have the url for some reason, the screenshots have to do.

PS: Great time! You look like being another D1 regular already!

How funny's that?
First I play 2.38 to trail Manu by 0.01, two games later I tie my 2.38. Now I play a 2.12 to trail Maruda by 0.00 :) and the very next game I tie the 2.12 again :D

;D
wasn't it obvious, that that had to happen?
another 0.01 - this time trailing Stephan.

@Christoph: Hopefully, you stop now or just improve by 0.01 ;).
Btw I: This morning, I tied my 2.04 (which is even quite unlikely as a 2.18 is my current third-best time).
Btw II: I think that one will need at least a 1.80 to win this T, and hexx certainly will do so >:(

Stephan, you were wrong :P grats  ;)

I must say I'm pretty slow on small boards and this kind of tournament is no fun for me. I was really happy wen beating Manuel ;D

What a great surprise. This was maybe my most unexpected T win. Christoph was hanging nearly behind me in a tough way. Both Maruda and Alliska had got a sub-2.20 on sunday where a 2.04 was my single lucky punch until then. And I was quite unhappy, as I could improve my best time on friday only by 0.01 seconds, while I knew that I won't be able to play the whole Saturday.  So, thank you to hexx for this gift of a tied times victory :D.

@Nikolaj: I know that you don't like it. And I was happy when I saw the board as my season's points didn't look very good before T4. So, these boards are the only chance to climb upwards... Sorry about that.
But I am pretty sure that you'll like T5, won't you? ;)

MUCH better indeed ;) only Maruda is too fast again...  :'(

Alliska´s board...

http://img74.imageshack.us/img74/1641/4182se0.th.jpg

How is that 41 possible??? :o

I like boards where top row and leftmost column are both solvable without guessing. So, you have an optimal start (an maybe result in a 41).

finally a tournament board where i have a chance to compete with the people in div2
with a little more practice maybe i can get a 16 or 15 at the end of the week

i really like this weeks level :)

TBDMfan wrote on Aug 4^th, 2008 at 4:58pm:

finally a tournament board where i have a chance to compete with the people in div2 with a little more practice maybe i can get a 16 or 15 at the end of the week i really like this weeks level :)

...and i really don't like T7. i keep blasting boards where i could get easily a sub20.
e.g  i blasted a board with 2 empty columns, 1-7, 1-4-2 and 2-3-2 columns right in the first seconds.

@hexx: i recognized that you always submit your scores in the very last days and i wonder why you do that. is it tactic or lack of free time?

There was a time I used to submit scores as late as possible in order to increase probabilities of winning T.
Since many months from now I give a damn to late uploding. :P
Now, I'm playing just for the fun, so Saturday is basically the only day I have time for sweeping :)

@all: i have a question concerning T8 and one concerning the divisions in general

1st one: who of you played T8 with swapped buttons too? today i tried T8 with swapped buttons and i find it a lot easier to mark rows of mines with the left button, and regarding the number of 3s i got today i'm faster that way.

2nd one: what happens if there are 2 players in a division with same points? who of these 2 will be on better place? the one who placed more often 1st in the season? the one who has better sum of times through the whole season? the one who was better before the tied rank?
i'm asking because i don't know and because if i won't manage to improve 0.06s more tomorrow vladimir orlov and i will have both 45 points in div2?

anyways, with swappaed buttons i now feel that with a good board i might beat the 2.98s. i'll try my best tomorrow, 10x3s in 13 min with 3.397 avg and 0.15s improvement in half an hour is quite a motivation.

There are some tourneys in MM I used to try to shave a few centiseconds off by swapping buttons, and Teek used to do the same to great effect, so I figured it was a left hander thing  ;) I've never really thought of it for Nono though, that I remember.....hmm....

If two players are tied, then it goes to the sum of the times they have posted (so if someone didn't play a large experty board but made up the points on the other boards, they will probably win easily). And I believe if times are tied to the nearest 0.01, it goes alphabetically.

Check out stephans site at http://www.stephan-bechtel.de/ for an idea of where you stand: click Nono sites and then in the tournament section, the current season. Looks like you've got about 50 seconds on Vladimir as well as the two points, so unless he somehow beat you by 50 seconds in round 8, you'll win the tiebreaker.

thanks for the answer.

i'm left handed too, but i use my right hand at the computer. dunno if it really has sth to do with being left or right handed, but i just have the impression that with my pointing finger (right hand) i have more precision at higher speed than with my middle finger (right hand) and when it comes to marking rows of mines i failed on many very easy boards with normal setting, like due to marking one mine too much, which with swapped buttons i now don't do as often.

i already knew stephan's website, and that's why i was wondering since there are the overall season sums listed as well as who placed how often on which ranking in their division in the season.

looks like tomorrow i will start into the new season in div1, YAY!

Hi,

thanks to Qetuth for mentioning the statistics of my site ;).

@EWQMinesweeper: If you still wonder: The season stats on my site are sorted like a medal ranking just to historical reasons (when I started with that, I didn't know the relegation rules). But behind the total sum of times, you can find your rank in parentheses showing your current rank at Yariv's official relegation ranking. By the way, congratulations for relegating into Div1 after only 13 played tournaments!

@stephan: thanks (also for the hints about div1 ;))
i visit your nono website more often than you might expect ;D

i hope to get >10 points in S24. that would be enough for me atm, but i know that when i started in div2 i thought i'd have to struggle to keep the division as well, then i was aiming at getting in total 40 points, and then it came that i played for 2nd place. i hope that in div1 it will a bit like that too.

If anyone's interested, mathematically, the most points you can get and still be relegated is 33.

Round	Pl.1	Pl.2	Pl.3	Pl.4	Pl.5	Pl.6	Pl.7	Pl.8
1	8	6	5	4	1	2	3	0
2	6	5	4	3	2	1	8	0
3	6	4	3	2	1	8	5	0
4	4	3	2	1	8	6	5	0
5	3	4	1	8	6	5	2	0
6	3	2	8	6	5	4	1	0
7	1	8	6	3	5	4	2	0
8	2	1	4	6	5	3	8	0
Total	33	33	33	33	33	33	34	0

Here 6 people tie on equal second on 33, so one of them will go down as the 7th place.

On the other hand, the least points you can get and still go up a division is 24, by a similar setup of first getting 64 and everyone else getting 24.

WHY DO TOURNAMENTS HAVE TO END AT 8 A.M. ?? I THOUGHT OF 9 A.M. AND NOW I CAN'T SUBMIT MY 7,54 FOR T1    :'( :'( :'( :'( :'(

I feel sorry for Alliska tying Nikolaj's time of 59.06 in T2. It must be very unlikely to take exactly the same time for a game that needs nearly one minute to be solved.
But this case shows that, in my opinion, it's always better to submit as early as one made the score.

Btw: 400th post in this thread. Qetuth/Nikolaj: Maybe we should close this and open "Tournaments vol. 2"?!

@Stephan: i really don´t like you. it took terrible 5 hours of mistakes and nasty words to beat your 9,1 >:(

@maruda: how long did you think did it take me to get my 10??? i spent 2 nights playing nonosweeper till 3 am and you can't imagine how happy i was to be 3rd.....and now it's only a 5th place  :'(

After more than 400 replies to and more than 40'000 views of this thread, the end of the 200th tournament is a good chance to open a vol. 2 thread :)