How To Increase Your Chess Rating

Chess rating is a system designed to estimate, through performance indicators, the strength of a player in comparison to others. Just like other sports, official institutions keep track of players’ wins, losses, and draws to determine their position in rankings.

There is no real difference when it comes to chess. What may be debated, however, is the credibility of the institution which is designing the rating system.

How To Increase Chess Rating

While most people involved with chess consider the Elo rating the official standard of performance measurement, it doesn’t mean much to players who aren’t seeking professional recognition.

Nevertheless, pretty much every chess player in the world seeks ways to rise in the rankings and get higher ratings. But how do they do that?

By winning, of course. While that sounds too obvious, there are other aspects that may cause players to rise faster or slower than others.

Opponent’s Rating

The rating of your opponent, for instance, can determine how much your rating is rising. The higher the rating of the opponent you beat, the more your rating will rise. In opposition, the lower the defeated opponent’s rating is, the less your rating should increase.

Even at first glance, it is plain to see that it’s easier to rise slower than faster as it is harder to beat opponents with much higher ratings than unskilled ones. On the other hand, most players who quickly rose through the rankings did so by winning highly ranked opponents.

That, however, means that they were either extremely lucky, which doesn’t seem to be the case, or highly skilled. In conclusion, if you’re a highly talented player, the odds you’ll quickly rise through the ratings are fairly high.

So, especially if you’re aiming at a stellar rise, increasing ratings seem to be more about learning how to become a great chess player, as that should lead you to win much more than losing.

Have Fun Along The Way

However, if you’re not seeking the highest positions in the Elo rating system, trying different strategies and having fun while playing chess might make more sense than diving deeper and deeper into studying the game.

On the flip side, losing to players that are ranked much lower than you should cause your ratings to decrease more than losing to a player that matches you in the rankings. So, keep an eye out for the rating of the opponents you choose, or accept to play against.

Becoming a Grandmaster is not the only goal chess players aim at. That, however, doesn’t mean that rising through ratings doesn’t bring satisfaction. Simply being a little bit competitive should already cause players to seek to win more and more – and there is fun even in that!

Win More Than Lose

In the end, there is no simpler way to rise in ratings than winning matches more than losing. While that has a lot to do with becoming a good player, even in a highly strategic game such as chess, there will always be room for luck!