An improved method and system for locating a slicer threshold and phase is disclosed. A two-dimensional field of coordinates is defined using phase versus eye monitor magnitude. At each coordinate, the number of samples above the eye monitor magnitude are counted. Dividing by the total number of samples considered yields a ratio between 0 and 1. Each eye 0, 1, 2 (bottom, middle, top in a PAM4 system) has an ideal ratio (75%, 50%, 25%) assuming a balanced distribution of PAM4 levels. The rating (third dimension) at each coordinate is calculated to be (0.25−abs.value (actual_ratio−ideal_ratio)) limited to positive results only. The resulting ratings are summed over phase. The eye center is calculated using weighted average of the sums. The eye center is compared to the calibrated target to determine which way to move the slicer threshold.