How chess ratings actually work
Elo, Glicko-2, and the number next to your rating that most sites never show you.
Elo asks one question: given the gap between two ratings, how surprising was that result? Win against someone rated far above you and your rating moves a lot, because the system did not expect it. Beat someone far below and it barely moves. Everything else is bookkeeping.
Glicko-2, which both Lichess and Chess.com use a variant of, adds a second number: rating deviation, or RD — how sure the system is about you. A new account has a huge RD and its rating swings hard; after a few hundred games RD shrinks and the same result moves the number far less. That is why your first fifty games feel wild and your next five hundred feel stuck, and it is why this site marks a rating "still settling" rather than treating it as final.
Common questions
Why is my Lichess rating higher than my Chess.com one?
Different starting points and different player mixes, not different skill. Both pools drifted apart early and never converged. Your position inside each pool is the part that compares.
What is RD?
Rating deviation — how uncertain the system is about your rating. High RD means your number is a rough guess and will move fast; low RD means it has settled and will move slowly.
Does losing to a weaker player hurt more?
Yes, and that is the system working. The result was more surprising, so it carries more information about you.
Data updated 2026-08-01
Chess.com publishes no rating distribution. Those figures are derived from the Lichess distribution mapped through the conversion anchors, and are rounded accordingly.