What is a good Minesweeper efficiency percentage?
Efficiency is your board's 3BV divided by the clicks you actually used, as a percentage. 100% means you used exactly the minimum number of clicks a perfect player would need. Above 100% means chording is doing work that individual clicks would otherwise have to do, and elite Expert players regularly run 120-140%.
What counts as good
| Efficiency | What it means |
|---|---|
| Under 70% | Lots of wasted clicks - usually flagging everything and opening cells one at a time |
| 70-100% | Competent; you are opening efficiently but rarely chording |
| 100-120% | Chording regularly and choosing when to flag |
| Over 120% | Strong competitive play |
How efficiency exceeds 100%
3BV counts the minimum *left clicks*. A chord is one action that can open up to eight cells, so a run full of chords can clear the board in fewer total actions than 3BV assumes. That is why the ceiling is not 100%.
Why it is not the same as speed
Efficiency measures clicks; 3BV/s measures work per second. You can be highly efficient and slow if you pause to think between every action. The two together tell the whole story: efficiency says whether your route was good, 3BV/s says whether you executed it quickly.
Work out any board's numbers with the 3BV calculator, and the efficiency guide covers how to cut click count in practice.
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