The Lichess rating guide
What players at each Lichess rating actually do, side by side. Rates are per 100 live moves: moves played while the game is not already decided.
What the terms meanShow less
- Centipawn.
- A hundredth of a pawn, the unit a chess engine scores a position in. Giving up a pawn for nothing costs about 100.
- Centipawn loss.
- How much worse a move is than the best move in the position. The average (ACPL) counts every move a player makes.
- Blunder, mistake, inaccuracy.
- A move that loses at least 150 centipawns is a blunder, at least 70 a mistake and at least 40 an inaccuracy. Only live moves are counted.
- Only move.
- A position where one move is clearly better than every other. “Finds the only move” is how often a player plays it.
- Time trouble.
- Less than a tenth of the starting time left on the clock. “Games in time trouble” is the share of games in which a player's clock got that low on any move, however the game stood.
- Winning, better, balanced, worse.
- How the engine scores the position for the player about to move. Balanced is within half a pawn either way, better is up to a pawn and a half ahead, winning is from there up to three pawns ahead, and worse is up to a pawn and a half behind.
- +1, +2, +4.
- A lead of at least one, two or four pawns by the engine's score. A lost position is one that has fallen two pawns behind or worse.
- Percentile.
- The share of a site's players who are rated lower. Blitz and rapid players are ranked separately.
Site
Chess.comLichess
Time control
How each Lichess rating actually plays
| Measure | 600 | 1000 | 1500 | 2000 | 2500 | 2800 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Blunders | 36.3 | 22.4 | 15.2 | 9.5 | 5.9 | 4.4 |
| Mistakes | 16.9 | 16.4 | 15.0 | 12.4 | 9.1 | 7.1 |
| Inaccuracies | 9.7 | 11.5 | 12.1 | 11.4 | 9.3 | 8.4 |
| Average centipawn loss | 108.2 | 82.4 | 65.9 | 51.3 | 38.4 | 32.0 |
| Plays the engine's top move | 24% | 29% | 32% | 37% | 43% | 47% |
| Finds the only moveshare of positions with one real answer | 50% | 64% | 71% | 80% | 86% | 89% |
| Game length | 26.1 | 29.8 | 34.4 | 38.1 | 41.8 | 45.2 |
| Live moves per gameplayed while the game is undecided | 8.0 | 12.3 | 17.4 | 22.9 | 28.3 | 32.3 |
| How they use the clock | ||||||
| Games in time troubleunder a tenth of the clock | 28% | 25% | 25% | 29% | 34% | 33% |
| Seconds per move | 5.4 | 4.5 | 3.8 | 3.6 | 3.7 | 3.4 |
| Instant movesplayed in two seconds or less | 39% | 46% | 54% | 58% | 62% | 65% |
| Clock left at move 8share of the starting clock | 81% | 87% | 91% | 93% | 93% | 93% |
| Clock left at move 15share of the starting clock | 59% | 68% | 76% | 79% | 77% | 78% |
| Clock left at move 30in games that get there | 29% | 33% | 39% | 40% | 38% | 39% |
| Clock left at move 50in games that get there | 19% | 18% | 20% | 17% | 15% | 14% |
| Moves played inside a scrambleown clock under a tenth | 3.3% | 2.8% | 3.0% | 4.1% | 6.7% | 7.5% |
| What the game looks like | ||||||
| Games that end decisivelywon or lost, not drawn | 96% | 96% | 97% | 95% | 93% | 87% |
| Reaches an endgame | 21% | 26% | 31% | 34% | 40% | 44% |
| Capturesper 100 own moves | 28.8 | 27.9 | 25.3 | 23.9 | 22.7 | 21.8 |
| Checksper 100 own moves | 11.2 | 10.5 | 8.2 | 7.0 | 6.6 | 7.0 |
How strong is each Lichess rating?
1447is the rating half of Lichess blitz players are below
A quarter are rated above 1743, a tenth above 1989 and one in a hundred above 2385.
Blunders per 100 live moves
Blunders fall 88% between 600 and 2800: from 36.3 of every 100 live moves to 4.4.
Lichess blitz 3+0Lichess blitz players at each rating
Inaccuracies per 100 live moves
Inaccuracies are 9.7 of every 100 live moves at 600 and 8.4 at 2800, 13% lower where blunders are 88% lower. The small errors stay.
Lichess blitz 3+0Lichess blitz players at each rating
Finds the only move
Where one move is clearly best, a 600 finds it 50% of the time and a 2800 89%.
Lichess blitz 3+0Lichess blitz players at each rating
Games in time trouble
28% of games reach time trouble at 600, 23% at 1200, the fewest, and 33% at 2800.
Lichess blitz 3+0Lichess blitz players at each rating
How games are won and lost at each rating
| Measure | 600 | 1000 | 1500 | 2000 | 2500 | 2800 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Against their own rating | ||||||
| Score after reaching +1 | 62% | 62% | 64% | 64% | 69% | 69% |
| Score after reaching +2 | 63% | 65% | 70% | 71% | 76% | 79% |
| Ever loses from +4 | 30% | 27% | 20% | 18% | 13% | 9% |
| Score from lost positionsgames where their eval fell to minus two | 40% | 34% | 32% | 27% | 23% | 19% |
| Of all their games | ||||||
| Lost to a single blunder | 19% | 21% | 24% | 20% | 17% | 14% |
| Slowly outplayed | 6% | 11% | 16% | 22% | 28% | 21% |
| Fell apart after one error | 2% | 2% | 2% | 1% | 1% | 1% |
| Lost in the opening | 18.9% | 9.3% | 4.6% | 1.3% | 0.3% | 0.2% |
What a lead is worth
Score against a player of the same rating
A pawn ahead, a 600 goes on to score 62% and a 2800 69%. From a lost position the same two still take 40% and 19%.
After reaching +1From a lost position
Where each rating blunders
| Measure | 600 | 1000 | 1500 | 2000 | 2500 | 2800 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| When in the game | ||||||
| Opening | 29.4 | 15.5 | 8.2 | 3.3 | 1.1 | 0.6 |
| Middlegame | 46.6 | 29.2 | 19.7 | 12.2 | 7.2 | 5.0 |
| Endgame | 36.8 | 26.2 | 19.5 | 14.7 | 10.1 | 8.2 |
| In what kind of position | ||||||
| Winning | 33.8 | 22.3 | 18.6 | 13.5 | 9.5 | 7.6 |
| Better | 27.6 | 15.6 | 10.7 | 6.8 | 3.8 | 2.6 |
| Balanced | 23.6 | 13.8 | 9.0 | 5.2 | 3.2 | 2.3 |
| Worse | 28.0 | 17.7 | 12.6 | 7.8 | 5.5 | 4.3 |
| With how much clock left | ||||||
| Over half | 33.0 | 19.6 | 12.9 | 7.2 | 3.4 | 2.1 |
| 25 to 50% | 45.8 | 32.3 | 23.4 | 14.8 | 8.5 | 5.8 |
| 10 to 25% | 49.1 | 33.7 | 24.0 | 16.7 | 10.7 | 7.9 |
| Under 10% | 55.5 | 39.5 | 28.6 | 22.7 | 16.2 | 12.8 |
| With which piece | ||||||
| Queen | 41.3 | 27.1 | 18.9 | 12.5 | 7.8 | 6.2 |
| Rook | 45.7 | 27.2 | 19.5 | 12.3 | 7.7 | 5.7 |
| Knight | 37.8 | 22.9 | 14.9 | 8.8 | 5.4 | 3.8 |
| Bishop | 33.0 | 20.2 | 13.6 | 8.3 | 4.9 | 3.8 |
| Pawn | 33.0 | 20.3 | 13.4 | 8.4 | 4.8 | 3.3 |
| King | 34.0 | 20.4 | 13.7 | 8.3 | 5.8 | 4.9 |
The four rows under “In what kind of position” leave out positions that are already won or already lost. Throwing away a won game still counts in the overall blunder rate, which is why that rate can be higher than all four.
Which phase the blunders come in
Blunder rate in each phase, against the rating's own average
At 600 the middlegame is where a player blunders most; from 1800 up it is the endgame, at 1.8 times their own average rate by 2800.
EndgameMiddlegameOpening
How much players of the same rating differ
| Measure | 600 | 1000 | 1500 | 2000 | 2500 | 2800 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Blunders | ||||||
| A quarter are below | 31.0 | 19.6 | 13.2 | 8.5 | 5.3 | 4.0 |
| A quarter are above | 41.1 | 24.9 | 17.0 | 10.4 | 6.4 | 4.8 |
| Mistakes | ||||||
| A quarter are below | 15.7 | 15.3 | 13.9 | 11.5 | 8.3 | 6.6 |
| A quarter are above | 17.7 | 17.2 | 15.8 | 13.0 | 9.7 | 7.5 |
| Inaccuracies | ||||||
| A quarter are below | 8.2 | 10.5 | 11.3 | 10.7 | 8.6 | 7.7 |
| A quarter are above | 10.7 | 12.1 | 12.5 | 11.8 | 9.7 | 8.8 |
| Finds the only move | ||||||
| A quarter are below | 45% | 61% | 69% | 78% | 85% | 88% |
| A quarter are above | 58% | 69% | 75% | 82% | 88% | 91% |
| Seconds per move | ||||||
| A quarter are below | 4.2s | 3.7s | 3.3s | 3.2s | 3.4s | 3.2s |
| A quarter are above | 6.1s | 5.0s | 4.2s | 3.9s | 3.8s | 3.7s |
| Games in time trouble | ||||||
| A quarter are below | 14% | 13% | 13% | 19% | 25% | 23% |
| A quarter are above | 38% | 33% | 34% | 36% | 40% | 41% |
How much a rating pins down
The typical player of each rating, and the half of its players nearest to them
Half of the players rated 2000 blunder about as often as a typical 1900 to 2100, but are in time trouble in anything from 19% to 36% of games.
Blunders
Mistakes
Inaccuracies
Finds the only move
Seconds per move
Games in time trouble
What each rating finds on the board
| Measure | 600 | 1000 | 1500 | 2000 | 2500 | 2800 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Takes the free materialspotting hanging pieces before anything else | 61% | 77% | 85% | 90% | 94% | 95% |
| Finds the forkknight and queen forks, both directions | 23% | 42% | 44% | 63% | 69% | 71% |
| Finds the quiet best movepositions where nothing is forcing | 35% | 47% | 54% | 64% | 75% | 79% |
| Finds the defensive savedefending worse positions instead of collapsing | 36% | 45% | 53% | 64% | 70% | 75% |
| Trades down when aheadconverting an advantage by liquidating | 33% | 48% | 50% | 59% | 71% | 73% |
| Sees the deeper wincalculating past the third move of a line | 17% | 31% | 35% | 43% | 53% | 67% |
The easy finds and the hard ones
How often the move is found
Free material is taken 61% of the time at 600 and 95% at 2800; a win several moves deep, 17% and 67%.
Free materialA defensive saveA deeper win
The openings each rating plays
| Measure | 600 | 1000 | 1500 | 2000 | 2500 | 2800 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| As White | ||||||
| 1.e4King's Pawn | 63% | 65% | 60% | 52% | 44% | 50% |
| 1.d4Queen's Pawn | 18% | 21% | 25% | 29% | 34% | 28% |
| 1.Nf3Réti / Zukertort | 4% | 3% | 3% | 6% | 12% | 12% |
| 1.c4English Opening | 2% | 1% | 3% | 5% | 6% | 7% |
| Against 1.e4 | ||||||
| 1...e5Open Game | 60% | 56% | 42% | 21% | 19% | 28% |
| 1...c5Sicilian Defense | 3% | 6% | 14% | 27% | 37% | 38% |
| 1...c6Caro-Kann Defense | 3% | 5% | 7% | 13% | 14% | 11% |
| 1...e6French Defense | 7% | 8% | 10% | 13% | 13% | 9% |
| Against 1.d4 | ||||||
| 1...d5Closed Game | 51% | 57% | 45% | 29% | 29% | 24% |
| 1...Nf6Indian Defense | 4% | 7% | 8% | 28% | 53% | 60% |
| 1...e6French or Queen's Gambit | 11% | 9% | 12% | 11% | 4% | 5% |
How opening choices shift with rating
First moves as White
1.e4 opens 63% of games at 600 and 50% at 2800; 1.d4, 18% and 28%.
1.e41.d4
Replies to 1.e4
At 600 the reply is 1...e5 in 60% of games and the Sicilian in 3%. From 1900 up, the Sicilian is played more.
1...e51...c5
Replies to 1.d4
At 600 the reply is 1...d5 in 51% of games and 1...Nf6 in 4%. From 2100 up, 1...Nf6 is played more.
1...d51...Nf6
What punishes a blunder, and what causes it
| Measure | 600 | 1000 | 1500 | 2000 | 2500 | 2800 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The idea that refuted it | ||||||
| Piece left hanging | 32% | 27% | 24% | 20% | 17% | 18% |
| Losing exchange | 11% | 12% | 12% | 13% | 11% | 10% |
| Discovered attack | 11% | 11% | 10% | 9% | 7% | 5% |
| Fork | 10% | 10% | 9% | 8% | 8% | 9% |
| Pin or skewer | 6% | 7% | 7% | 8% | 7% | 6% |
| Pawn or promotion | 3% | 3% | 5% | 5% | 10% | 8% |
| King attack | 4% | 5% | 5% | 5% | 6% | 5% |
| Deflection | 4% | 3% | 4% | 5% | 5% | 5% |
| Trapped piece | 3% | 2% | 2% | 1% | 1% | 1% |
| Quiet move | 6% | 7% | 8% | 8% | 8% | 10% |
| Forced defense | 3% | 4% | 4% | 5% | 6% | 7% |
| Other | 7% | 9% | 11% | 12% | 15% | 16% |
| What caused it | ||||||
| Played it too fast | 27% | 27% | 31% | 28% | 28% | 28% |
| Missed a threat | 31% | 30% | 27% | 26% | 20% | 17% |
| Low on time | 7% | 7% | 9% | 16% | 32% | 40% |
| Never looked at the reply | 23% | 20% | 17% | 14% | 9% | 6% |
| Misjudged the position | 10% | 12% | 13% | 12% | 9% | 8% |
| Miscalculated | 3% | 3% | 3% | 2% | 2% | 1% |
| Misjudged an exchange | 0.7% | 0.8% | 0.8% | 0.7% | 0.4% | 0.2% |
How the blunders change
Share of blunders, by what refuted them
A piece simply left hanging is 32% of all blunders at 600 and 18% at 2800.
Piece left hangingLosing exchangeAnother tacticQuiet move or defenseOther
Share of blunders, by what caused them
Running low on time is behind 7% of blunders at 600 and 40% at 2800, more than any other cause from 2400 up.
Low on timeMissed a threatPlayed it too fast
Frequently asked about Lichess ratings
Answered for Lichess blitz 3+0, the choice at the top of the page.
What is a good Lichess rating?
It depends who you measure against. Half of all Lichess blitz players are rated below 1447, so anything above that is already rated above most of the site, and 1989 is ahead of nine players in ten. A stricter bar is much rarer: only one in 230 is rated 2500 or more.
What is the average Lichess rating?
The average Lichess blitz rating is 1457, and the middle player is rated 1447, almost the same, because the ratings are spread evenly on either side of the middle. Half of all Lichess blitz players are rated between 1161 and 1743.
What percentile is my Lichess rating?
Lichess ranks its blitz players and its rapid players separately, so it depends on the time control. Among Lichess blitz players, 13% are rated below 1000, 55% below 1500, 90% below 2000 and 99.6% below 2500. Each rating's own page leads with its exact share.
What is a beginner, intermediate and advanced Lichess rating?
There is no agreed line, only a rule of thumb, and it is usually given in Chess.com ratings: beginners under about 1000, intermediate players around 1500 and advanced players from about 2000. The Lichess blitz 3+0 ratings that play like those three are about 1400, 1700 and 2000. On that scale, 46% of Lichess blitz players are rated below 1400 and 90% below 2000. What changes between the three is easier to pin down: a 1400 blunders on 16.2 of every 100 live moves and loses 4.7% of games in the opening; for a 1700 it is 12.9 and 3.2%, and for a 2000 it is 9.5 and 1.3%.
How accurate are players at each Lichess rating?
Closer together than the ratings suggest on the best move, and far apart on what the other moves cost. A 600 plays the engine's top choice on 24% of moves in Lichess blitz 3+0 and a 2800 on 47%, because most positions have more than one reasonable move. The average loss a move falls from 108.2 centipawns to 32.0, and most of that is the big errors going: blunders fall 88% over those ratings and inaccuracies 13%.
How many blunders do players make per game?
About 2.9 a game at 600, 2.2 at 2000 and 1.4 at 2800 in Lichess blitz 3+0, a smaller difference than the gap in strength suggests. The rate falls much further, from 36.3 of every 100 live moves to 4.4, but stronger players' games stay undecided for longer, so there are more moves left to get wrong.
At what rating do players stop hanging pieces?
They never stop completely. A piece simply left hanging is 32% of all blunders at 600 and still 18% at 2800 in Lichess blitz 3+0. Blunders themselves get rarer, so that comes to about 11.7 hung pieces in every 100 live moves at 600 and 0.8 at 2800. When a piece is there to be taken, a 600 takes it 61% of the time and a 2800 95%, so the same slip is more likely to be punished as ratings rise.
Is a Lichess rating the same as a Chess.com rating?
No. Each site rates its players against its own pool, and the two pools are not alike: a Lichess 1500 plays like a Chess.com 1171 in blitz 3+0. Chess.com numbers run lower for the same play until about 2000, where the two scales meet, so no single number converts every rating. Every rating converted, both ways: Chess.com vs Lichess ratings.
Is a blitz rating the same as a rapid rating on Lichess?
No, they are two separate ratings, each ranked among the players of its own speed. Half of Lichess's blitz players are rated below 1447 and half of its rapid players below 1379, so the same number ranks a little higher in rapid. The same number does not stand for the same play, though: move for move, players rated 1500 in blitz 3+0 play about as well as players rated 1364 in rapid 10+0. Every rating at both speeds: blitz vs rapid ratings.
Lichess ratings at the other time control
This page opens on Lichess blitz 3+0, and the choice at the top changes every table on it. The same tables and answers for the other one are below.
Lichess rapid 10+0
How each Lichess rating actually plays in rapid 10+0
| Measure | 600 | 1000 | 1500 | 2000 | 2500 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Blunders | 38.7 | 23.3 | 13.7 | 8.2 | 4.2 |
| Mistakes | 16.4 | 16.0 | 14.3 | 11.8 | 7.2 |
| Inaccuracies | 8.7 | 10.8 | 11.7 | 11.0 | 8.3 |
| Average centipawn loss | 107.7 | 79.4 | 60.6 | 46.4 | 30.4 |
| Plays the engine's top move | 23% | 30% | 34% | 38% | 47% |
| Finds the only moveshare of positions with one real answer | 48% | 64% | 75% | 82% | 90% |
| Game length | 28.5 | 30.0 | 34.0 | 38.1 | 42.9 |
| Live moves per gameplayed while the game is undecided | 8.1 | 11.2 | 17.3 | 23.5 | 29.3 |
| How they use the clock | |||||
| Games in time troubleunder a tenth of the clock | 5% | 5% | 8% | 14% | 28% |
| Seconds per move | 9.1 | 8.9 | 8.6 | 9.4 | 11.1 |
| Instant movesplayed in two seconds or less | 23% | 25% | 29% | 31% | 38% |
| Clock left at move 8share of the starting clock | 90% | 92% | 94% | 95% | 94% |
| Clock left at move 15share of the starting clock | 79% | 80% | 83% | 83% | 78% |
| Clock left at move 30in games that get there | 57% | 57% | 58% | 54% | 41% |
| Clock left at move 50in games that get there | 43% | 42% | 39% | 30% | 20% |
| Moves played inside a scrambleown clock under a tenth | 0.8% | 1.0% | 1.5% | 3.2% | 8.2% |
| What the game looks like | |||||
| Games that end decisivelywon or lost, not drawn | 91% | 95% | 96% | 94% | 88% |
| Reaches an endgame | 27% | 27% | 29% | 34% | 41% |
| Capturesper 100 own moves | 26.7 | 27.2 | 25.3 | 23.4 | 22.1 |
| Checksper 100 own moves | 12.3 | 11.8 | 9.2 | 7.3 | 7.3 |
How games are won and lost at each rating in Lichess rapid 10+0
| Measure | 600 | 1000 | 1500 | 2000 | 2500 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Against their own rating | |||||
| Score after reaching +1 | 64% | 65% | 66% | 68% | 71% |
| Score after reaching +2 | 67% | 69% | 72% | 75% | 80% |
| Ever loses from +4 | 23% | 19% | 16% | 12% | 6% |
| Score from lost positionsgames where their eval fell to minus two | 32% | 30% | 27% | 24% | 20% |
| Of all their games | |||||
| Lost to a single blunder | 18% | 23% | 22% | 21% | 13% |
| Slowly outplayed | 6% | 11% | 18% | 24% | 23% |
| Fell apart after one error | 1.8% | 1.7% | 1.5% | 0.7% | 0.3% |
| Lost in the opening | 19.7% | 10.8% | 4.1% | 1.2% | 0.3% |
Where each rating blunders in Lichess rapid 10+0
| Measure | 600 | 1000 | 1500 | 2000 | 2500 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| When in the game | |||||
| Opening | 32.1 | 17.5 | 8.1 | 3.2 | 0.8 |
| Middlegame | 48.9 | 30.1 | 17.5 | 10.6 | 5.2 |
| Endgame | 33.6 | 22.0 | 15.7 | 9.9 | 5.9 |
| In what kind of position | |||||
| Winning | 35.6 | 23.8 | 16.3 | 12.1 | 6.7 |
| Better | 30.4 | 17.7 | 10.3 | 6.1 | 2.2 |
| Balanced | 25.0 | 14.2 | 8.0 | 4.6 | 2.0 |
| Worse | 30.0 | 18.4 | 11.3 | 6.9 | 4.3 |
| With how much clock left | |||||
| Over half | 38.2 | 22.7 | 13.0 | 7.2 | 2.6 |
| 25 to 50% | 44.2 | 30.3 | 19.0 | 12.2 | 5.3 |
| 10 to 25% | 39.0 | 28.0 | 19.9 | 12.3 | 7.0 |
| Under 10% | 46.1 | 33.7 | 20.0 | 14.6 | 11.0 |
| With which piece | |||||
| Queen | 44.6 | 28.4 | 17.4 | 10.5 | 5.7 |
| Rook | 44.6 | 27.0 | 16.1 | 10.2 | 5.4 |
| Knight | 39.7 | 24.4 | 14.1 | 7.9 | 3.6 |
| Bishop | 36.5 | 21.3 | 12.0 | 7.3 | 3.5 |
| Pawn | 35.3 | 21.2 | 12.4 | 7.5 | 3.4 |
| King | 33.9 | 20.3 | 11.7 | 7.0 | 3.9 |
The four rows under “In what kind of position” leave out positions that are already won or already lost. Throwing away a won game still counts in the overall blunder rate, which is why that rate can be higher than all four.
How much players of the same rating differ in Lichess rapid 10+0
| Measure | 600 | 1000 | 1500 | 2000 | 2500 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Blunders | |||||
| A quarter are below | 34.0 | 20.8 | 12.1 | 7.2 | 3.7 |
| A quarter are above | 42.8 | 25.5 | 15.1 | 9.1 | 4.6 |
| Mistakes | |||||
| A quarter are below | 15.2 | 15.1 | 13.3 | 10.7 | 6.7 |
| A quarter are above | 17.5 | 16.8 | 15.2 | 12.7 | 7.7 |
| Inaccuracies | |||||
| A quarter are below | 7.6 | 9.9 | 11.1 | 10.2 | 7.7 |
| A quarter are above | 9.3 | 11.3 | 12.0 | 11.4 | 8.6 |
| Finds the only move | |||||
| A quarter are below | 43% | 61% | 73% | 80% | 89% |
| A quarter are above | 57% | 69% | 79% | 85% | 92% |
| Seconds per move | |||||
| A quarter are below | 7.3s | 6.7s | 6.7s | 7.6s | 9.6s |
| A quarter are above | 10.5s | 10.5s | 9.9s | 10.8s | 12.2s |
| Games in time trouble | |||||
| A quarter are below | 0% | 0% | 1% | 4% | 14% |
| A quarter are above | 7% | 7% | 10% | 18% | 34% |
What each rating finds on the board in Lichess rapid 10+0
| Measure | 600 | 1000 | 1500 | 2000 | 2500 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Takes the free materialspotting hanging pieces before anything else | 62% | 77% | 87% | 91% | 96% |
| Finds the forkknight and queen forks, both directions | 29% | 43% | 55% | 69% | 77% |
| Finds the quiet best movepositions where nothing is forcing | 35% | 48% | 59% | 68% | 83% |
| Finds the defensive savedefending worse positions instead of collapsing | 31% | 44% | 59% | 66% | 74% |
| Trades down when aheadconverting an advantage by liquidating | 30% | 43% | 54% | 61% | 77% |
| Sees the deeper wincalculating past the third move of a line | 20% | 28% | 39% | 50% | 69% |
The openings each rating plays in Lichess rapid 10+0
| Measure | 600 | 1000 | 1500 | 2000 | 2500 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| As White | |||||
| 1.e4King's Pawn | 68% | 71% | 66% | 61% | 50% |
| 1.d4Queen's Pawn | 16% | 18% | 24% | 27% | 34% |
| 1.Nf3Réti / Zukertort | 3% | 2% | 3% | 4% | 9% |
| 1.c4English Opening | 2% | 2% | 3% | 4% | 5% |
| Against 1.e4 | |||||
| 1...e5Open Game | 69% | 65% | 51% | 29% | 19% |
| 1...c5Sicilian Defense | 2% | 4% | 13% | 30% | 43% |
| 1...c6Caro-Kann Defense | 2% | 4% | 8% | 11% | 13% |
| 1...e6French Defense | 4% | 6% | 10% | 11% | 14% |
| Against 1.d4 | |||||
| 1...d5Closed Game | 46% | 56% | 53% | 38% | 32% |
| 1...Nf6Indian Defense | 3% | 8% | 14% | 34% | 54% |
| 1...e6French or Queen's Gambit | 8% | 10% | 8% | 5% | 4% |
What punishes a blunder, and what causes it in Lichess rapid 10+0
| Measure | 600 | 1000 | 1500 | 2000 | 2500 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The idea that refuted it | |||||
| Piece left hanging | 30% | 26% | 21% | 18% | 13% |
| Losing exchange | 10% | 12% | 13% | 12% | 11% |
| Fork | 12% | 10% | 10% | 10% | 9% |
| Discovered attack | 11% | 11% | 10% | 8% | 8% |
| Pin or skewer | 7% | 8% | 7% | 8% | 7% |
| King attack | 5% | 5% | 5% | 5% | 6% |
| Pawn or promotion | 2% | 2% | 4% | 6% | 10% |
| Deflection | 4% | 3% | 4% | 4% | 4% |
| Trapped piece | 3% | 3% | 2% | 2% | 1% |
| Quiet move | 6% | 7% | 8% | 8% | 8% |
| Forced defense | 3% | 4% | 4% | 5% | 6% |
| Other | 7% | 9% | 12% | 14% | 16% |
| What caused it | |||||
| Missed a threat | 36% | 38% | 36% | 36% | 25% |
| Never looked at the reply | 27% | 24% | 21% | 19% | 9% |
| Misjudged the position | 13% | 16% | 17% | 15% | 13% |
| Played it too fast | 19% | 17% | 17% | 15% | 14% |
| Miscalculated | 4% | 3% | 4% | 4% | 3% |
| Low on time | 1% | 2% | 4% | 10% | 36% |
| Misjudged an exchange | 1% | 1% | 1% | 1% | 1% |
Questions about Lichess ratings in rapid 10+0
- Lichess rapid 10+0: What is a good Lichess rating?
- It depends who you measure against. Half of all Lichess rapid players are rated below 1379, so anything above that is already rated above most of the site, and 1912 is ahead of nine players in ten. A stricter bar is much rarer: only one in 680 is rated 2500 or more.
- Lichess rapid 10+0: What is the average Lichess rating?
- The average Lichess rapid rating is 1391, and the middle player is rated 1379, almost the same, because the ratings are spread evenly on either side of the middle. Half of all Lichess rapid players are rated between 1109 and 1674.
- Lichess rapid 10+0: What percentile is my Lichess rating?
- Lichess ranks its blitz players and its rapid players separately, so it depends on the time control. Among Lichess rapid players, 17% are rated below 1000, 61% below 1500, 94% below 2000 and 99.9% below 2500. Each rating's own page leads with its exact share.
- Lichess rapid 10+0: What is a beginner, intermediate and advanced Lichess rating?
- There is no agreed line, only a rule of thumb, and it is usually given in Chess.com ratings: beginners under about 1000, intermediate players around 1500 and advanced players from about 2000. The Lichess rapid 10+0 ratings that play like those three are about 1300, 1700 and 2000. On that scale, 42% of Lichess rapid players are rated below 1300 and 94% below 2000. What changes between the three is easier to pin down: a 1300 blunders on 17.1 of every 100 live moves and loses 6.0% of games in the opening; for a 1700 it is 11.3 and 3.1%, and for a 2000 it is 8.2 and 1.2%.
- Lichess rapid 10+0: How accurate are players at each Lichess rating?
- Closer together than the ratings suggest on the best move, and far apart on what the other moves cost. A 600 plays the engine's top choice on 23% of moves in Lichess rapid 10+0 and a 2500 on 47%, because most positions have more than one reasonable move. The average loss a move falls from 107.7 centipawns to 30.4, and most of that is the big errors going: blunders fall 89% over those ratings and inaccuracies 5%.
- Lichess rapid 10+0: How many blunders do players make per game?
- About 3.1 a game at 600, 2.4 at 1500 and 1.2 at 2500 in Lichess rapid 10+0, a smaller difference than the gap in strength suggests. The rate falls much further, from 38.7 of every 100 live moves to 4.2, but stronger players' games stay undecided for longer, so there are more moves left to get wrong.
- Lichess rapid 10+0: At what rating do players stop hanging pieces?
- They never stop completely. A piece simply left hanging is 30% of all blunders at 600 and still 13% at 2500 in Lichess rapid 10+0. Blunders themselves get rarer, so that comes to about 11.7 hung pieces in every 100 live moves at 600 and 0.5 at 2500. When a piece is there to be taken, a 600 takes it 62% of the time and a 2500 96%, so the same slip is more likely to be punished as ratings rise.
- Lichess rapid 10+0: Is a Lichess rating the same as a Chess.com rating?
- No. Each site rates its players against its own pool, and the two pools are not alike: a Lichess 1500 plays like a Chess.com 1259 in rapid 10+0. Chess.com numbers run lower for the same play until about 2100, where the two scales meet, so no single number converts every rating. Every rating converted, both ways: Chess.com vs Lichess ratings.
- Lichess rapid 10+0: Is a blitz rating the same as a rapid rating on Lichess?
- No, they are two separate ratings, each ranked among the players of its own speed. Half of Lichess's blitz players are rated below 1447 and half of its rapid players below 1379, so the same number ranks a little higher in rapid. The same number does not stand for the same play, though: move for move, players rated 1500 in blitz 3+0 play about as well as players rated 1364 in rapid 10+0. Every rating at both speeds: blitz vs rapid ratings.