About Rating

What is the Rating?

Quantify a player’s ability

A rating is a system to quantify the strength of chess players. The rating system uses statistics and is a more scientific indicator of a chess player’s strength than dan, kyu and win percentage. Elo rating system was invented by Dr. Arpad Elo, who was a chess player himself, and become a success after being used by USCF (United States Chess Federation) in 1960, and was later adopted by FIDE (International Chess Federation) in 1970, being used all over the world ever since.

Advantages of rating

It is common practice to use winning percentage as a measure of a player’s strength, but this can mean that the player who plays the weaker opponent is stronger. For example, suppose there are two players, one who wins from the stronger opponent by 40% rate and the other from the weaker opponent by 60%, it would be inaccurate to say that the person who won 60% of the games is stronger than the person who won 40% of the games when comparing these two. In other words, the winning percentage does not always reflect the reality.

However, with rating, you can get a number that is closer to the actual state.

For example, if two players with equal ratings play against each other, they are expected to score an equal number of wins. A player whose rating is 100 points greater than their opponent’s is expected to score 64%; if the difference is 200 points, then the expected score for the stronger player is 76%. Since the calculation is made on the basis of statistics, it can be said that the higher the rating is, the stronger the player is. Being backed by statistics makes ratings more reliable and accurate.

Today, rating systems are widely used in chess, as well as in other games and sports, to prove its soundness.

The Danger of Ratings Overconfidence

Even The best systems have their weaknesses. The rating system is no exception. distortion is inevitable in areas where interaction is limited. Abandoning games for fear of lowering the rating and game fixing….In fact, it is easy to abuse the system and create false ratings.

Do not put too much faith in the ratings. You should be aware of the dangers, especially when using it for qualification and selection!

The Need for Rating Management

Accordingly, organizations that adopt this system are required to be aware of the weakness of this system at all times. Please understand that fair rating operations and strict controls are necessary. It’s never easy, and the Japan Chess Federation has several staff members in the Rating Department working to ensure fair operations.

Japan Chess Federation Updates Monthly

In Japan, JCA had been calculating the rating using the method unique in Japan and updating the rating every two months, however, from February 2019, the Japan Chess Federation has become the official national rating, which is calculated in about the same way as FIDE’s and updated monthly.

Increase the Rating

Join Japan Chess Federation and participate in official games. You can get a national rating by participating. The goal of many chess players is to increase their rating. Increase/decrease of your rating encourages you to continue playing.

The FIDE rating is the most prestigious chess rating in the world and the Japan Chess Federation encourages players to gain it. You will want to participate in the FIDE official tournaments. You can easily obtain a FIDE rating by joining the Japan Chess Federation.

About Rating Reports

Regarding the Japan Chess Federation sanctioned games, the following a, b, and c should be reported for each tournament (meeting).

  1. a) Name, date, time, place, Rapid-or-not, and name of the person in charge of the tournament
  2. b) Participant list (Japan Chess Federation-ID, name in Romaji)
  3. c) Match results (white name in Romaji, result, and black name in Romaji)

As a general rule, reports up to the 20th of each month are used for rating calculation, and a new rating will be announced on the first day of the following month.

Please report the name in the same order as in Japanese, i,e, surname and last name.

We would like to recommend for you to use the template form for submitting the report.

Report submission form templates

To make the process even easier, we recommend you to use the software “Swiss-Manager” to run the tournament, where you only need to send us the tournament (or club) name and Chess-Results link for the report.

Mail address

japanchess.rating@gmail.com

 

Rating Rules

Please see the following regulations for detailed rules and calculations.

Rating Regulations