FIDE Rating Calculations for Unrated Players

If you are an unrated player and you are playing your first event, you must qualify the Gate Criteria listed below to get entitlement to FIDE Rating in the coming FRL (FIDE Rating List):

1. You must face 5 rated players (All these games shall have at least one move from each side. Walkovers against rated players are not counted for the rating.) – These five players can be met in two different events as well. e.g. you are playing one event and you play against 3 rated players and score 0.5 against one of them and go for the next event where you play the next 2 rated opponents, even then criteria -1 gets fulfilled.)
2. You must score 0.5 points against any of the rated opponents.
3. You shall score a Rating Performance of 1400 or more.

What is Rating Performance (Rp)?

Referring to FIDE Rating regulations w.e.f. 01.03.024, we can say that Rp is the sum of the average rating of the opponent and the dp value. If an unrated player scores zero in their first event this score is disregarded.

• Ra is the average rating of the player’s rated opponents plus two hypothetical opponents rated 1800. The result against these two hypothetical opponents is considered a draw.
• Ru (Rating of an Unrated player) = Ra + dp (Ru is rounded to the nearest whole number.)
• The maximum initial rating is 2200.
• If an unrated player receives a published rating before a particular tournament in which they have played is rated, then they are rated as a rated player with their current rating, but in the rating of their opponents they are counted as an unrated player
• If there are no records in the FIDE Rating List for a particular unrated player for 26 FRLs, the player is considered to be a new player.

Calculating Rating Change for the Rated Players

Let us calculate the rating change for a game between FIDE ELO 1500 & 1600 Rated Players.

• Here the rating difference is 100 and hence, we need to look up the H and L values for that range in the above-mentioned p-dp table. (A difference in rating of more than 400 points shall be counted for rating purposes as though it were a difference of 400 points.)
• 99 -106 is the range where the rating difference of 100 lies and hence H is 0.64 & L is 0.36. It means that a player of rating 1600 has a 64% winning chance in that game while a player with a rating of 1500 has a 36% winning chance.
• Now, we come across a mighty “K-Factor” which plays a crucial role in the process. K is the development coefficient.
• K = 40 for a player new to the rating list until they have completed events with at least 30 games.
• K = 20 as long as a player’s rating remains under 2400.
• K = 10 once a player’s published rating has reached 2400 and remains at that level subsequently, even if the rating drops below 2400.
• K = 40 for all players until the end of the year of their 18th birthday, as long as their rating remains under 2300.
• If the number of games (n) for a player on any list for a rating period multiplied by K (as defined above) exceeds 700, then K shall be the largest whole number such that K x n does not exceed 700. (This means that if you play 20 games with a K factor of 40 in one rating period, your dynamic K factor will be 700/20 = 35)

How To Calculate FIDE Rating In Chess With FIDE Initial Rating Formula

Let’s assume a player of Rating 1500 with k factor of 20 wins the game against 1600 rated player:

The rating change for the above-mentioned player is calculated as follows :

Rating change = (Score of Player – % win_chance) * k

i.e. (1 – 0.36) * 20 = 0.64 * 20 = 12.8 ELO Points Gain.

Now let’s assume a player of Rating 1500 with k factor of 20 drew the game against 1600 rated player:

The rating change for the above mentioned player is calculated as follows :

Rating change = (Score – % win_chance) * k

i.e. (0.5 – 0.36) * 20 = 0.14 * 20 = 2.8 ELO Points Gain.

Now let’s assume a player of Rating 1500 with k factor of 20 loses the game against 1600 rated player:

The rating change for the above mentioned player is calculated as follows :

Rating change = (Score – % win_chance) * k

i.e. (0 – 0.36) * 20 = 0.14 * 20 = 7.2 ELO Points Loss.

Elo Rating Change Calculator

This section will calculate the change in a player's Elo rating after playing a single game against another player. The value K is the maximum change in rating.

Player Elo:
Against Elo:
K factor:

Win	Draw	Loss

Expected Percentage:

Rapid and Blitz Regulations

• If a player is already rated in Standard Chess, his Standard Chess rating (Commonly known as Classical Rating) is considered his rating in his first Rapid or Blitz Tournament.
• If a player is not a FIDE-rated player in Standard, Rapid, or Blitz chess, his rating calculations for Rapid and Blitz are as follows: the calculations for Rapid and Blitz Chess are exactly the same as Standard Chess.

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