Guide · 2026-11-03 · 7 min read

How chess ratings work: FIDE, Lichess, chess.com and CC Rating, and why they never match

A rating is a prediction, not a mark. How the FIDE (Elo), Lichess (Glicko-2) and chess.com (Glicko) systems work, what the Chess Castles CC Rating measures, and why a child can be 1800 on one site, 1400 on another and unrated in FIDE, all at once.

Every chess parent eventually asks: "My child is 1700 on Lichess. What is that in FIDE?" The honest answer surprises people: there is no fixed conversion. Ratings are not marks out of a hundred. Each rating is a number that only has meaning inside its own pool of players. This guide explains how the main systems work, so the numbers stop being confusing.

What a rating really is

A rating is a prediction. If two players are rated the same, each is expected to score about half the points in a game between them. The bigger the gap, the more the higher-rated player is expected to score: with a gap of 200 points, about three games out of four. After each game, your rating moves by how much better or worse you did than predicted. Beat someone you were expected to lose to, and you gain a lot; lose to someone you were expected to beat, and you lose a lot.

Because a rating is always measured against the other players in the same pool, the same strength gives different numbers in different pools. That one fact explains almost every rating mystery.

FIDE: the official rating (Elo)

The FIDE rating is the official international rating, used for titles, for seeding in tournaments and for selection. It uses the system invented by the Hungarian-American physicist Arpad Elo, which FIDE adopted in 1970 and published as a rating list from 1971.

• Only over-the-board games in FIDE-rated tournaments count. Online games never change a FIDE rating.
• There are three separate FIDE ratings: Standard (classical), Rapid and Blitz.
• Your first rating appears after at least 5 games against FIDE-rated opponents (games can be added up over several tournaments, within 26 months), and it must be at least 1400, the lowest rating FIDE publishes.
• After each event, the change is K × (your score − your expected score). K is 40 for new players and for players under 18 rated below 2300, 20 for most others, and 10 once a player has reached 2400.
• New ratings are published on the first day of every month.

Our Chess Guide works through a full example of the FIDE calculation.

Lichess: Glicko-2

Lichess uses the Glicko-2 system, and every new player starts at 1500. Glicko adds a second number to the rating, the "rating deviation", which measures how sure the system is. A new player’s rating is very uncertain, so it moves by large amounts after each game; after many games it settles and moves less. That is why a beginner can jump 200 points in an evening on Lichess. Lichess keeps separate ratings for bullet, blitz, rapid, classical, correspondence and puzzles.

Lichess itself says plainly that ratings cannot be compared from one site to another, and that Lichess ratings are often higher than FIDE or chess.com ratings because the systems and the player pools differ, not because players there are stronger.

chess.com: Glicko

chess.com uses the original Glicko system, and lets new players choose their starting level when they sign up. So two players of the same strength may start hundreds of points apart and take a while to converge. Its daily, rapid, blitz and bullet ratings are separate, and its puzzle rating is its own scale again.

CC Rating on Chess Castles

The CC Rating is Chess Castles’ own rating. It is worked out the way FIDE rates players, from your games against our Castle Rivals (computer opponents that play in the style of players at each FIDE rating), Castle Cups and rated games with friends. There are separate CC Ratings for Classical, Rapid, Blitz and Bullet. Each starts Unrated, and your first rating comes after 5 games against rated opponents, just like a first FIDE rating.

Because the Castle Rivals are built from real over-the-board games of players at each FIDE level, the CC Rating aims to tell you roughly where your games stand against FIDE-rated play. But it is not a FIDE rating, it does not count for titles, and only FIDE-rated tournaments change your official FIDE rating. Chess Castles is not affiliated with FIDE.

The four side by side

Why the numbers never match

• Different pools: a rating compares you with the people you play. Lichess, chess.com and FIDE tournaments have different players, and many strong over-the-board players never play online.
• Different starting points: 1500 on Lichess, a chosen level on chess.com, nothing at all in FIDE until you have played rated opponents.
• Different formulas: Glicko moves new ratings faster than Elo, and the two systems spread ratings out differently.
• Different time controls: a 3-minute blitz rating and a 90-minute classical rating measure different skills. Children are often much stronger at slow chess than their online blitz rating suggests, or the other way round.
• Different behaviour: online, players can play a hundred games a week; FIDE ratings change only after real tournaments, sometimes a few times a year.

What parents should do with ratings

• Compare a rating only with itself, over months: is the Lichess rapid rating higher than three months ago?
• Watch the slow ratings (rapid and classical), not bullet and blitz. They reflect thinking, not reflexes.
• Expect FIDE ratings of young players to lag behind their real strength: a child who improves fast is usually stronger than the published number. The K-factor of 40 helps the rating catch up.
• Do not use ratings as rewards or punishments. Talk about the moves, not the number. (See 7 tips for parents and when your child loses.)

On Chess Castles

• Play Castle Rivals at Classical or Rapid to get a CC Rating, and see your numbers on your profile.
• Connect your Lichess or chess.com games to Game Insights to see what your games say about your strengths, whatever your rating.
• Ready for a real FIDE rating? Read your first FIDE-rated tournament in India.

Questions parents ask

Read next

• How to read and write chess notation (and keep a scoresheet in a tournament)
• Your first FIDE-rated tournament in India: AICF registration, FIDE ID and getting a first rating