How good is a 3100 chess player?
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.
How strong is 3100 Elo?
Over99.99%of Chess.com blitz players are rated below 3100
Fewer than 0.01% are rated 3100 or higher: about 150 players.
4.1blunders per 100 live moves
8.1inaccuracies per 100 live moves
89%of only moves found
40%of games reach time trouble
What a 3100 actually does
| Measure | 3000 | 3100 | 3200+ |
|---|---|---|---|
| Blunders | 4.5 | 4.1 | 3.7 |
| Mistakes | 7.4 | 7.0 | 6.5 |
| Inaccuracies | 8.5 | 8.1 | 7.7 |
| Average centipawn loss | 32.5 | 31.0 | 28.6 |
| Plays the engine's top move | 45% | 46% | 47% |
| Finds the only moveshare of positions with one real answer | 88% | 89% | 90% |
| Game length | 47.2 | 48.9 | 49.7 |
| Live moves per gamemoves played while the game is not already decided | 33.6 | 35.1 | 35.8 |
| How they use the clock | |||
| Games in time troubleunder a tenth of the clock | 39% | 40% | 38% |
| Seconds per move | 3.4 | 3.3 | 3.3 |
| Instant movesplayed in two seconds or less | 61% | 62% | 63% |
| Clock left at move 8share of the starting clock | 93% | 93% | 93% |
| Clock left at move 15share of the starting clock | 78% | 78% | 78% |
| Clock left at move 30in games that get there | 39% | 39% | 40% |
| Clock left at move 50in games that get there | 15% | 15% | 16% |
| Moves played inside a scrambleown clock under a tenth | 8.9% | 9.7% | 9.4% |
| What the game looks like | |||
| Games that end decisivelywon or lost, not drawn | 90% | 89% | 88% |
| Reaches an endgame | 47% | 49% | 48% |
| Capturesper 100 own moves | 21.2 | 20.9 | 20.7 |
| Checksper 100 own moves | 6.9 | 7.0 | 7.1 |
How others play against a 3100
| Measure | 3000vs 3100 | 3100vs 3100 | 3200+vs 3100 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Score against them | 38.9% | 50.0% | 63.1% |
| Score after reaching +1 | 65% | 76% | 81% |
| Score after reaching +2 | 76% | 83% | 88% |
| Ever loses from +4 | 12% | 6% | 5% |
| Score from lost positionsgames where their eval fell to minus two | 18% | 22% | 30% |
Each column is how players of that rating do in their games against a 3100. The 3200+ column is everyone rated 3200 or above.
Where a 3100 blunders
| Measure | 3000 | 3100 | 3200+ |
|---|---|---|---|
| When in the game | |||
| Opening | 0.5 | 0.5 | 0.3 |
| Middlegame | 5.0 | 4.5 | 4.0 |
| Endgame | 8.4 | 7.6 | 7.3 |
| In what kind of position | |||
| Winning | 7.7 | 7.1 | 6.2 |
| Better | 2.4 | 2.2 | 1.7 |
| Balanced | 2.3 | 2.2 | 1.8 |
| Worse | 4.3 | 4.1 | 3.3 |
| With how much clock left | |||
| Over half | 2.0 | 1.7 | 1.4 |
| 25 to 50% | 5.6 | 5.0 | 4.4 |
| 10 to 25% | 8.2 | 7.5 | 6.7 |
| Under 10% | 12.9 | 11.9 | 11.6 |
| With which piece | |||
| Queen | 6.0 | 5.9 | 5.2 |
| Rook | 5.7 | 5.2 | 4.8 |
| Knight | 4.0 | 3.5 | 3.0 |
| Bishop | 3.6 | 3.2 | 2.9 |
| Pawn | 3.4 | 3.1 | 2.7 |
| King | 5.0 | 4.7 | 4.3 |
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.
When a 3100 blunders most
Blunders per 100 live moves
When in the game
Most in the endgame: 15 times as often as in the opening.
- 3100, Opening: 0.5
- 3100, Middlegame: 4.5
- 3100, Endgame: 7.6
In what kind of position
Most when winning: 3.2 times as often as when better.
- 3100, Winning: 7.1
- 3100, Better: 2.2
- 3100, Balanced: 2.2
- 3100, Worse: 4.1
With how much clock left
Most with under 10% of the clock: 7.0 times as often as with over half the clock.
- 3100, Over half: 1.7
- 3100, 25 to 50%: 5.0
- 3100, 10 to 25%: 7.5
- 3100, Under 10%: 11.9
With which piece
Most on queen moves: 90% more often than on pawn moves.
- 3100, Queen: 5.9
- 3100, Rook: 5.2
- 3100, Knight: 3.5
- 3100, Bishop: 3.2
- 3100, Pawn: 3.1
- 3100, King: 4.7
How much 3100-rated players differ
| Measure | 5% | 25% | 75% | 95% |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Blunders | 3.3 | 3.9 | 4.6 | 5.2 |
| Mistakes | 5.9 | 6.5 | 7.5 | 8.3 |
| Inaccuracies | 7.0 | 7.6 | 8.5 | 9.2 |
| Finds the only move | 85% | 87% | 90% | 92% |
| Seconds per move | 2.9s | 3.1s | 3.5s | 3.8s |
| Games in time trouble | 21% | 30% | 48% | 59% |
Each column is a share of 3100-rated players: a quarter are at or under the 25% figure, three quarters at or under the 75% one.
The move quality range a 3100 plays in
3000 to 3200+is how half of 3100-rated players play, going by how often they blunder
Nine in ten: 2900 to 3200+.
Of 100 players rated 3100, how many blunder
- like a 3000 or lower28
- like a 310053
- like a 3200+19
What separates a 3100 from a 3200+
| Skill, and what trains it | 3100 | 3200+ | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| Opening blundersthe first ten moves of your openings | 0.5 | 0.3 | 29% lower |
| Middlegame blundersa check-captures-threats scan every move | 4.5 | 4.0 | 12% lower |
| Sees the deeper wincalculating past the third move of a line | 64% | 70% | +6 pts |
| Composure after an errorresetting after you drop something | 2.9% | 2.7% | 6% lower |
| Endgame blundersrook endings and king activity | 7.6 | 7.3 | 5% lower |
| Trades down when aheadconverting an advantage by liquidating | 74% | 77% | +3 pts |
| Finds the forkknight and queen forks, both directions | 75% | 79% | +4 pts |
| Finds the defensive savedefending worse positions instead of collapsing | 75% | 76% | +1 pt |
| Takes the free materialspotting hanging pieces before anything else | 95% | 96% | +1 pt |
| Finds the quiet best movepositions where nothing is forcing | 80% | 80% | no gain |
What a 3100 plays
As White
- 1.e4 King's Pawn 45.5%, scores 59.2%
- 1.d4 Queen's Pawn 36.3%, scores 58.6%
- 1.Nf3 Réti / Zukertort 10.9%, scores 63.7%
- every other move 7%
Against 1.e4
- 1...c5 Sicilian Defense 40.5%, scores 57.2%
- 1...e5 Open Game 26.9%, scores 53.0%
- 1...c6 Caro-Kann Defense 11.7%, scores 57.7%
- every other move 21%
Against 1.d4
- 1...Nf6 Indian Defense 65.6%, scores 54.8%
- 1...d5 Closed Game 22.0%, scores 53.8%
- 1...g6 Modern Defense 2.6%, scores 70.5%
- every other move 10%
3100 on each site and time control
| Played on | Blunders | Mistakes | Inaccs | ACPL | Only move |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chess.com blitz 3+0 | 4.1 | 7.0 | 8.1 | 31.0 | 89% |
| Chess.com blitz 5+0 | ladder ends at 2500 | ||||
| Chess.com rapid 10+0 | ladder ends at 2600+ | ||||
| Lichess blitz 3+0 | ladder ends at 2900+ | ||||
| Lichess blitz 5+0 | ladder ends at 2500+ | ||||
| Lichess rapid 10+0 | ladder ends at 2600+ | ||||
A rating number only means something inside one pool. Full conversion tables
What punishes a 3100
Share of all blunders, by the idea that refuted them
Most often a piece left hanging: 16% of all blunders, against 17% at 2800.
- 3100, Piece left hanging: 16%
- 3100, Pawn or promotion: 10%
- 3100, Losing exchange: 10%
- 3100, Quiet move: 10%
- 3100, Pin or skewer: 7%
Frequently asked about 3100-rated players
Answered for Chess.com blitz 3+0, the choice at the top of the page.