What is 3BV in Minesweeper?

3BV stands for Bechtel's Board Benchmark Value. It is the minimum number of clicks needed to clear a specific board with perfect technique: every opening counted once, every remaining safe cell counted once, no wasted clicks anywhere. A higher 3BV means a harder board that requires more work, regardless of how the mines happen to be arranged.

What does 3BV mean in Minesweeper

In plain terms, 3BV answers "how much actual work does this exact board demand?" Two Expert boards both have 99 mines, but one might be full of large open areas (low 3BV, fast) while another is fragmented into many isolated numbers (high 3BV, slow). Because it ignores the luck of an easy layout and measures only the workload, 3BV is the fairest way to compare boards - a low time on a low-3BV board is not the same achievement as the same time on a high-3BV one.

How is 3BV calculated

The count follows two simple rules:

• Each connected blank region (an opening) counts as one click, because a single click cascades the entire region open along with the numbers bordering it.
• Every other safe cell that is not part of any opening counts as one click of its own.

Add those together and you have the board's 3BV. Flags and chords do not change it - 3BV is a property of the layout, not of how you played. A worked example: a board with three openings and twelve isolated bordering numbers has a 3BV of 3 + 12 = 15, meaning 15 perfect clicks would clear it.

Why 3BV/s beats raw time

3BV/s divides the board's 3BV by your solve time. A 40-second clear of a 3BV-180 board (4.5 3BV/s) is a far stronger performance than a 35-second clear of a 3BV-90 board (2.6 3BV/s), even though the second time looks better. Because it normalises for board luck, 3BV/s is the primary competitive metric: it lets two players who solved completely different boards be compared fairly. As reference points, sustained 1.0 3BV/s on Intermediate marks a strong club player, while elite Expert specialists hold 2.0+.

What is a good 3BV to aim for

There is no single "good" 3BV because it is set by the board, not by you - your goal is a good 3BV per second instead. That said, knowing a board's 3BV helps you judge a run: if you cleared a 3BV-200 Expert board in 80 seconds you sustained 2.5 3BV/s, which is genuinely fast, even if 80 seconds sounds slow next to a record. Record chasers actively *select* low-3BV boards because fewer required clicks raise the ceiling on raw time, which is why they restart relentlessly on unfavourable openings.

Efficiency, the companion metric

Efficiency compares the clicks you actually used against the board's 3BV - 100% means literally zero wasted clicks, achievable mainly through perfect chording. Minesweeper.now tracks 3BV, 3BV/s, and efficiency for every game and shows them on your profile and the global rankings. Full worked examples live in the efficiency guide.