CHESS RATINGS – IT'S LIKE
“WHAT'S YOUR SIGN?” WITH NUMBERS
Chess players who compete in official events get a numerical rating. This
is sometimes called the player's Elo rating (which is named for Arpad
Elo, the mathematician who created the rating system; thus the word is
pronounced “EE-low”, not “ee-ell-oh”, which was instead the abbreviated
name of a popular 1970's rock band). Ratings are incredibly important to
some chess players, so much so that many chess players upon meeting
another player for the first time, don't say, “How do you do?” or “Pleased
to meet you!”; instead, they instantly ask, “What's your rating?”
To understand the point of playing rated games in Chess King, you'll
need to understand just a bit about the chess rating system. For a full
explanation of the rating system, please consult any number of chess
websites which explain the system in painfully exacting detail, or books
such as the U.S. Chess Federation's Official Rules of Chess. We'll instead
content ourselves with a capsule summary here, just enough so that you
understand Chess King's rated games.
Using the USCF as a base, players rated 1200 or lower are considered
beginners. Players from 1201 to 1999 rating are known as “class” level
players, sometimes known also as “club” or “untitled” players. Players
rated 2000 to 2199 have earned the title of Expert, while players 2200
and higher are Masters.
Players gain rating points when they win games, and lose rating points
when they lose games. It's that simple.
According to the USCF Official Rules of Chess, “The rating system is
based on the theory that the rating difference between two players
corresponds to their expected score with each other.” Translated, that
means that the higher rated of two players is expected to win, and the
larger the rating difference, the more likely it is that the higher rated player
will win the game.
This rating difference acts like a “risk-reward” system. The bigger the
rating difference, the more rating points the lower rated player will gain if
he wins a game and, conversely, the more rating points the higher rated
player would lose. On the other hand, if a very high rated player beats a
very low rated player, only one rating point will change hands (you will
always lose at least one rating point if you lose a game, no matter what,
and will always gain at least one point for a win).
The ultimate result is that a chess rating is nothing more than a gauge
of the expected outcome of a chess game between two players. It's not
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