Chess Elo rating: how it works and how to improve yours

How to calculate your Elo: a worked example

To turn the formula into a concrete result, let’s take player A rated 1,500 facing player B rated 1,700. Player A’s expected score is calculated as follows: E(A) = 1 / (1 + 10^((1700-1500)/400)) ≈ 0.24, meaning roughly a 24% chance of winning on paper.

If player A wins with a K factor of 20 (regular player), their new Elo becomes: 1,500 + 20 × (1 − 0.24) ≈ 1,515. Player B, who loses despite starting as the favourite, drops by around 15 points in turn, settling at roughly 1,685. The bigger the initial gap, the larger the points transfer in the event of an upset.

Elo rating by country: which federations dominate chess?

Alongside the individual ranking, FIDE publishes a monthly ranking by federation, based on the average Elo of each country’s top players. The historically best-placed nations are Russia, the United States, China, India and Norway, buoyed by a large number of grandmasters.

France ranks among the best-placed nations worldwide; find out more about its standing in our article World chess: is France among the 8 most powerful nations?. At national level, some regions have more registered players and active clubs than others, as shown in our overview of France’s most active chess regions.

FIDE Elo, Chess.com, Lichess: why the figures aren’t comparable

The Elo rating shown on Chess.com or Lichess has no official value and cannot be directly equated with FIDE Elo: each platform manages its own pool of players, its own algorithm and its own calculation rules.

A player can therefore display a Chess.com Elo significantly higher or lower than their FIDE Elo without any contradiction: these are two distinct scales, built on different player populations.

Frequently asked questions

What is a provisional Elo?

Until a player has played a sufficient number of rated games, their rating is described as provisional: it fluctuates more sharply after each game, while the system refines its estimate of their true level.

Does an Elo rating drop if you don’t play?

No. Elo only changes after a rated game: without a game played, it stays unchanged, even after several months without competing.

Can a player have several different Elo ratings?

Yes. FIDE calculates a separate rating for each time control: classical, rapid and blitz. The same player can therefore have three different Elo ratings depending on the format played.

How do you become an international grandmaster?

The grandmaster title is obtained by combining a minimum Elo rating with several norms achieved in FIDE-rated tournaments, on the recommendation of the national federation. It is therefore not a simple automatic Elo threshold, but a dual requirement.

How do you get an official FIDE rating?

To obtain a FIDE rating, you need to play rated games in tournaments recognised by the international federation, generally through a national federation: in France, the French Chess Federation (FFE) issues the licence needed to enter these competitions.

Once licensed, playing regularly at a club or in rated tournaments earns you an initial rating, which then evolves game after game. To train under conditions close to competition, it’s best to use regulation equipment: a digital clock to manage playing time, a chess board in tournament dimensions and a Staunton chess set matching the format used in clubs. To practise while travelling between tournaments, a folding travel chess board remains the most practical solution.