How Chess Ratings Work

In chess, your “chess rating” is an estimate of how strong you are as a player. It’s not necessarily the same for every person!

Some people may have higher ratings than others even if they play more frequently or at lower levels. This can be confusing because some websites will use different formulas to calculate your rating.

There are two main factors in determining your chess rating: Your ELO (Effective Length Of Play) and Your FEN (Field Evaluation Number). The first one comes from how many games you’ve played and the other comes from what your opponent has just lost so far.

Your ELO goes up when you win a game and down when you lose a game, so these things influence your rating in opposite directions.

The difference between your ELO and their ELO makes up your own personal ELO, which is why it’s important to play against players of all skill levels.

This article will go into greater detail about the whys and where-to-looks of ELOs but first, let us look at how they’re calculated.

Understanding the rating system

The way in which chess ratings work is quite complicated, but at the end of this article, you will know all about it!

The FIDE (Fédération Internationale de Football Association) World Chess Federation uses an elaborate formula to determine how much credit each player gets for their performance. This includes both your personal rating as well as that of your national federation.

This formula was first used back in 1975 when there were only around 6,000 active players worldwide. Since then, the number of people playing has exploded and so has the level.

In fact, the average world-class player now earns over $100,000 per year! Most are paid significant amounts of money for performing their job, while some even get free training, travel expenses or financial aid due to being qualified as part of the national team.

But what most people don’t realize is that earning very little money isn’t really a reason to give up. It can actually help develop you as a person and professional.

Calculating your rating

So how do you calculate your chess ratings? The most common way is to use FIDE, or Fédération Internationale des Échecs (International Federation of Chess), which publishes an online database that contains information about every player in the world!

This website allows users to input a list of games, along with some basic game-related data such as move numbers and time controls. By entering your games into this site, their computer software calculates your overall ELO by comparing your gameplay to other players’s playstyles and what moves they used in each game.

The more games you have, the higher the weight the program gives to your strengths and weaknesses! For example, if there was a very short game where you made a really bad mistake, your rating would be adjusted down because people like making good decisions so heavily weigh against you.

Understanding how to improve your chess rating

The next step in improving your chess skill is understanding how to increase your FIDE (the game’s governing body) chess ratings. This article will go into more detail about what makes up an individual’s chess rating, why some people are faster than others at the same level, and how you can get a better ranking yourself!

Chess ratings determine just how good of a player you are by comparing you to other players with the same degree of proficiency. A higher rated player is always better than a lower rated one because they are able to play much larger competitions against opponents of equal or even lesser talent.

Your personal chess rating is not the only factor that determines your place in the grand scheme of things, but it does make a difference. It also raises questions like “How do I become a better chess player?” and “What are my chance of becoming a strong chess player?”

The simple answer to both those questions is to find out who else is strong and train like them. By learning the basics of the game and practicing strategies and concepts on a regular basis, you will naturally pick up skills along the way.

Recognizing a good or bad rating

A player has either a high, medium, or low chess rating. The highest is always less than 2200, while the lowest is more than 2100.

A high-ranking player is someone who can consistently compete at a very strong level of play. They are usually referred to as “grandmasters” because their skills approach that level.

A middle ranking player is someone close to a grandmaster strength but not quite there yet. These players typically earn a “GM” title after they reach this level of skill.

A lower ranked player does not perform well enough to be awarded the GM title, but he or she is still very skilled! They are often described as having the “next step” in their development.

Understanding the importance of rating differences

A player’s ELO rating is not their true “chess ability,” however important it may seem to them. Your personal chess skillwill truly come into play when you compete against opponents with higher or lower ratings than yours!

When you face someone who has a much higher rated opponent, your own skills will matter less because they will easily dominate the game.

On the other hand, if you are playing an opponent with a low rating, then your own skills will be more crucial in determining the outcome of the match.

The simple reason for this is that even very strong players lose games from time to time! In fact, we all have at least one game where we made a mistake that cost us points.

By knowing how much strength there is between you and others, you can determine how likely it is that such mistakes occur. This helps you evaluate whether the current matchup is winnable or not, and gives you a sense of what level of intensity you should bring to play.

Understanding how to play chess

A player’s rating is not just determined by their skill, but also how well they played against other players of their same rating. There are many different systems used to calculate this!

Most competitive chess games have an average length of around 30 minutes. So if you were playing someone with a lower rating than yourself, then your game would last about three times longer than theirs!

If we look at the table above, we can see that most people who play below 2000 FIDE (the international standard) get defeated within the first few moves. This means there is very little chance for them to gain experience, which is why it is hard for them to improve.

By contrast, higher rated players usually win in the opening stage before trading blows throughout the game. They have already built up enough skills to know what will work best so they can focus more on strategy instead.

However, even though they may be slightly weaker, they will probably use their knowledge better, and thus earn more points because of it.

Practice makes perfect

The way in which chess ratings are calculated is dependent upon two main factors: how many games you have played and how well you play your games. Games between two individuals of the same rating are not considered when calculating an overall rating.

A ratio called “Elo” determines how high or low your personal rating is, compared to others with similar rankings. This Elo system was developed back in 1950 by Arpad Deutsch, who originally referred to it as the FIDE (the World Chess Federation) Rating System.

Since then, several different systems have been used for calculating player ratings. Some use slightly different methods that produce similar results, but all agree that games against opponents of equal skill level should carry weight more heavily than games against people one step higher or lower.

The most common method is what we refer to as the “pairing format.” Under this system, each game contributes 0-2 points towards your total rating depending on whether you win or lose. A 2-point loss gives you a -2 rating change, while a 2-point win boosts your rating by +2.

By using only these binary success and failure conditions, the pairing format creates a very mathematical approach to determining ratings. It also assumes that both players involved in a match are at least close to being at the same skill level, which can sometimes be difficult to achieve in practice.

Learn to take criticism

As we have seen, there are two main components in determining a player’s chess strength — their Elo rating and their FIDE (or ICCF) performance. The first factor is easy to understand – your overall skill level determines how high you move up in the rankings!

The second factor is a little more complicated. This one depends mostly on your opponent’s ratings. If someone with a higher rated opponent drops down a level, then your own ranking will drop as well because you must be at least that many points lower than your competitor for this to happen.

If however, your competition rises even a few hundred points beyond you, then your ranking won’t change very much if anything. Because although they may now be several thousand points above you, they are still playing at or near your level.

This article will go into more detail about why this happens, but your success in keeping track of these changes really depend on you.