Quad-Season Award winners with their prizes.

Chess Rating System

All chess rating systems use some version of the Elo system. What is Elo? First, it is Elo and not ELO, as the system is named after its creator Arpad Elo, and is not an abbreviation of anything. Simply, Elo is a system used for calculating ratings in zero sum games such as chess or tennis, but it can be used for any closed system with direct wins and losses.

Every player has a numerical rating, and the difference between the ratings serves as a predictor for the outcome of the match. Two players with an equal rating are expected to score an equal number of wins/draws in a match (e.g. In a 10 game match between two players of equal rating, the expected outcome would be 5 wins for each player).

A player with a 100 point advantage on their opponent would be expected to score 64%, while a 200 point advantage would produce a 76% expected score.

Your Elo will change as a direct result of the games that you play and the strength of your opponents. If you beat a much stronger player you will gain many more rating points than you if you beat a much weaker player. For example, on chess.com, if you beat a player rated 100 points above you, you will gain 10 ratings points, but if you beat a player rated 100 points below you, you will only gain 6 points. In theory, this means that the system is self correcting, and given enough games played, your rating will directly track with your relative strength.

An important note—Elo ratings are comparative, and not objective. While ratings in one system are useful in broadly predicting performance in another, they are not independent measures of strength. Elo is solely based on wins/losses/draws, and does not take into account how those results came about. For chess, the best objective rating system is probably average accuracy/centipawn loss, but there is no standardized way to compute these percentages.

Provisional Ratings

When you first start playing chess on either chess.com or lichess, your rating is going to be provisional. They don’t know how strong you are yet! That means that you will gain or lose huge amounts of rating on one win or loss. However, the more games that you play, the more confident the system becomes of your rating, and the smaller your gains and losses of rating will be.

Performance Ratings

Performance rating is the level that a player performed in a tournament or series of games based on how many games they played, their score in those games, and the Elo ratings of their opponents. Essentially, your performance rating is what you would have been rated to have a net zero Elo change based on your results in those games. Performance ratings higher than your current rating means that you outperformed your rating, while performance ratings below your rating indicate a subpar performance. You can use these at the club to see if someone had a particular strong month, or performed beyond expectations in a difficult quad. For example, if a player rated 1500 had scored 1.5 out of six in the championship quad last month, their performance rating would still be nearly 200 points above their rating!

#Blitz vs Bullet vs Rapid vs Puzzle Ratings It is completely normal to have different ratings for the various time controls, even if you are equally skilled in all of them! This is due to the different quality of the player pools in each of the time controls.

Rapid: This is the time control that most beginners play, and is also the one that most experts avoid (this is also the easiest time control to cheat in). Thus, it is extremely bottom heavy, and will lead to a rating that is higher than your blitz or bullet for most players.
Blitz: The most common time control for intermediate to expert players online, and thus is much more top heavy than the rapid pool. Ratings will be depressed in comparison to rapid ratings for most players, with a breakeven point roughly around 2000.
Bullet: Because of how dependent on mouse speed this time control is, ratings can fluctuate to an even larger degree than blitz or rapid. Beginners rarely play bullet, and intermediate to advanced bullet games can be far more dependent on mouse speed than actual chess ability. Even strong titled players can be beaten by far weaker players in bullet games.
Puzzle: While it may be nice to see a very high puzzle rating, these do not matter in the slightest (sorry folks).
Lichess vs Chess.com

While there are small differences between how Chess.com and Lichess compute their ratings, there are two much more important components for comparison.
First, due to a variety of factors, Chess.com has a much larger player pool, and a much larger proportion of beginners relative to the pool than Lichess. This means that your percentile ranking is almost always going to be higher on chess.com than Lichess.
Second, Chess.com gives players a choice of where to start their rating (400, 800, 1200, or 1600), while Lichess starts all players at 1500.

These two differences lead most players to have a higher rating on lichess, especially for lower rated players. Most beginner to intermediate players will have ratings of 200-300 points higher on lichess, however, this difference shrinks the higher you get to master level, and by 2300 ratings across the two sites are close to identical.

USCF/FIDE Ratings

USCF is the governing body of over the board (OTB) chess in the United States, with FIDE handles most tournaments in Europe. Most players who start playing in tournaments will find that their rating OTB is going to be lower than their ratings online to start, but that it will eventually catch up assuming consistent OTB play.

Bend Chess Club Ratings

Club ratings are designed to be a rough approximation of USCF strength, but are only directly affected by the games that are played within the Quads. Any player with a ? next to their rating is still provisional (<20 games played), and will gain or lose more points accordingly. New ratings are calculated at the end of every month, and updated accordingly on the quads standings. While we have a relatively small player pool, and the nature of quads lends itself towards playing a lot of the same players each month, club ratings tend to do a good job of matching with existing USCF and online ratings. #Rough Chess.com Rating Groups:

100-400:Early Beginner.

Players in this range are still learning the basics of the game, such as piece movements, basic tactics (like pins, forks, etc.), and checkmate patterns.

*400-600: Solid Beginner.

Players know all of the rules of the game, but still struggle with tactical awareness. Players in this range are starting to get a grip on the basic strategies and tactics. They are learning how to think ahead a few moves, but they may still miss tactical opportunities or overlook threats.

600-800: Late Beginner.

There are still many tactical mistakes, but players start to know a little strategy. Scholar’s mate attempts are still common, but at this point players have stopped falling for it!

800-1000: Early Intermediate.

Players in this group are beginning to understand the deeper aspects of chess, including basic openings and middle-game strategies. They have a better understanding of piece coordination and basic tactics, but will still hang pieces on occasion.

1000-1200: Solid Intermediate.

Players start to gain more tactical awareness and strategical understanding, but will still struggle to execute clean games. Players start to play some degree of opening theory, and show the ability to convert simple endgames.

1200-1400: Late Intermediate.

Players start to gain the ability to play with more consistency, and begin to develop a serious opening repertoire, along with more knowledge about how to turn an advantage into a win.

1400-1600: Early Advanced.

Players have a strong grasp of both tactical and strategic elements of the game. They know many common openings, understand key concepts like pawn structure and piece coordination, and are capable of handling more complex middle and endgame positions.

1600-1800: Solid Advanced.

Players will still make significant tactical and positional errors, but have gained the ability to execute long-term plans and can handle relatively complicated endgames.

1800-2000: Late Advanced.

Players in this category are well-versed in both tactics and strategy. They have a deep understanding of the opening principles, middle-game plans, and endgame theory. They are aware of advanced tactical patterns and can create more complex strategies.

2000-2200: Expert.

These players can see most tactical motifs and often have a deep understanding of strategic plans. They also have a good understanding of how to capitalize on small advantages in the endgame. Opening knowledge is mandatory, and many games will begin with 10-15 moves of theory.

2200-2400. Master.

Many titled players start to fall within this range, commonly CM’s, NM’s, and FM’s. Contrary to what many beginners think, blunders are still relatively common at this level, but unlike in lower levels, one mistake often is decisive.

2400+: Grandmaster.

Grandmasters online strength can vary significantly, but almost all are above 2400, while the top players in the world are 3000+.