Well, once you play it enough, you realize certain sequences that always hold true. There are many patterns in the game and it is just a matter of time until you figure them all out. What I mean by luck is the boards layout, not the way I play. Sometimes board layouts have it so that you have no other choice but to guess (a 50/50 chance), where as others may not have any of those. I'd rather be able to use deduction to figure out what to mark as a mine, rather than luck.

I've seen streaming videos of people that hold the world records for this game (Yes, there are world records). They probably only mark about 30 of the mines in expert and can just see the patterns otherwise. It is quite extraordinary. I started doing that technique a while ago, but I still have to mark up on average 75-80 mines a game (Out of 99, obviously). That is the only reason people can lower their times, because they can cut out about 50 less mouse clicks than I. The record is like 49 or 50 seconds, something like that, which is fucking amazing!

For practice, I try to do expert extremely slowly, but not marking a single mine. It is very difficult, but I've learned a lot of strategy from it. There are a lot of methods to get better and faster times, but I'm progressing quite nicely.

What are your friend's best times?