When do provisional ratings become regular ratings?

[King54]

Hello everyone. My name is Dylan. I am just curious as to know when a Provisional rating becomes a regular rating? What is the number of games necessary to have your rating become regular? I have played 25 rated games now and am just wondering. Thank you!!!

[kevin_bachler]

The answer to your question, and a little more.

“Regular Ratings” are those under the “Regular” or “Standard” Rating system, as opposed to “Blitz” or “Quick” or “Correspondence”. What you mean to ask is when do provisional ratings become established ratings?

Mark Glickman, the Chairperson of the Ratings Committee, maintains a page with information on the rating system at:

glicko.net/ratings/

If you look at this file: glicko.net/ratings/rating.system.pdf it has the current ratings specifications for US Chess.

The first point of the specifications outlines things as:

1 Structure of the Rating Algorithm
Before an event, a player is either unrated, or has a rating based on N games. Ratings are stored as floating point values, such as 1643.759 and 1431.034. Official ratings are expressed as rounded to the nearest whole number (1644 and 1431 in the above example). A player’s rating is termed “established” if it is based upon more than 25 games.

So provisional ratings become established after 25 games.

[jwiewel]

One caveat (doesn’t apply to you) is that the rating will remain provisional if all of your games were losses. I’ve seen 46-game ratings that were still provisional because the player had not yet had a rated win or rated draw.

[martinak]

@kbachler

So provisional ratings become established after 25 games.

Are you sure it doesn’t become established after the tournament that includes your 26th game? I.e. once you have more than 25 games.

[kevin_bachler]

@martinak

@kbachler

So provisional ratings become established after 25 games.

Are you sure it doesn’t become established after the tournament that includes your 26th game? I.e. once you have more than 25 games.

Ratings are processed tournament by tournament, not game by game. So saying that your rating becomes established after 25 games, is pragmatically equivalent to what you wrote.

[martinak]

@kbachler

So provisional ratings become established after 25 games.

@martinak

Are you sure it doesn’t become established after the tournament that includes your 26th game? I.e. once you have more than 25 games.

@kbachler

Ratings are processed tournament by tournament, not game by game. So saying that your rating becomes established after 25 games, is pragmatically equivalent to what you wrote.

Not if your 25th game is the last round of a tournament.

[wilecoyote]

It may be worth noting that the distinction between “provisional” and “established” ratings is much less than it used to be. Way back in the day, a provisional rating was the average of the opponent’s rating plus 400 for a win, minus 400 for a loss. Currently, the rating system uses a “special formula” for a player’s first eight games; thereafter, the player’s rating is computed in the same manner as any other rating. The main difference is that the K factor is larger for players with very few games, making their ratings more volatile.

(For the (other) nitpickers in the audience, the special formula continues to apply after eight games if the player has either won all his games or lost all his games. In that case, as soon as the player has a different result in a game, the regular formula applies.)

[Smythe_Dakota]

@kbachler

Ratings are processed tournament by tournament, not game by game. So saying that your rating becomes established after 25 games, is pragmatically equivalent to what you wrote.

@In response

Not if your 25th game is the last round of a tournament.

That’s probably why Kevin said “after 25 games” rather than “at 25 games”.

@wilecoyote

It may be worth noting that the distinction between “provisional” and “established” ratings is much less than it used to be. …

The distinction could still be important if the OP is considering playing in one of those rare events where provisional ratings don’t count, e.g. where provisional players would be forced into the Open section and not allowed in the Under-xxxx sections, or something like that.

Bill Smythe

[kevin_bachler]

@wilecoyote

It may be worth noting that the distinction between “provisional” and “established” ratings is much less than it used to be. Way back in the day, a provisional rating was the average of the opponent’s rating plus 400 for a win, minus 400 for a loss. Currently, the rating system uses a “special formula” for a player’s first eight games; thereafter, the player’s rating is computed in the same manner as any other rating. The main difference is that the K factor is larger for players with very few games, making their ratings more volatile.

(For the (other) nitpickers in the audience, the special formula continues to apply after eight games if the player has either won all his games or lost all his games. In that case, as soon as the player has a different result in a game, the regular formula applies.)

Yep. It’s really not a big deal or a nit worth picking. It’s after 25 games. One does better to play over a Capablanca game than to count how many rated games they’ve played to date.

[DonThe2nd]

So if the OP plays one more rated game then his rating will be established, unless all of his games were losses.

On a related note, is your own rating adjustment counted any differently if your opponent’s rating is provisional? I’ve had instances where my post tournament rating would change after my opponent’s rating inexplicably dropped and he was either unrated or a provisional player with very few games played.

[relyea]

@DonThe2nd

On a related note, is your own rating adjustment counted any differently if your opponent’s rating is provisional? I’ve had instances where my post tournament rating would change after my opponent’s rating inexplicably dropped and he was either unrated or a provisional player with very few games played.

I don’t understand. Do you mean on a re-rate? It is my understanding that the algorithm does unrateds first, then provisionals ((at lleast those under the special rating formula), then everybody else. It may have changed, though. Still, players with very few games are much more likely than players with many games to be strongly effected by a re-rate.

Alex Relyea

[jwiewel]

@DonThe2nd

So if the OP plays one more rated game then his rating will be established, unless all of his games were losses.

On a related note, is your own rating adjustment counted any differently if your opponent’s rating is provisional? I’ve had instances where my post tournament rating would change after my opponent’s rating inexplicably dropped and he was either unrated or a provisional player with very few games played.

If events are initially rated out of order then the periodic re-rate will put them in the correct order. That would change it so that the second tournament (initially rated first) would be changed to use the post-first-tournament-rating and the first tournament (initially rated second) would use the original rating and not the one modified by the second tournament.

If an error is discovered (wrong ID, forfeit erroneously rated as a played game, other wrong result) then the game is corrected and a rerate done to fix the problem, with a rerating cascade then done to fix any other tournaments that had rating changes dependent on the changes in the erroneous tournament.

[wilecoyote]

@DonThe2nd

So if the OP plays one more rated game then his rating will be established, unless all of his games were losses.

On a related note, is your own rating adjustment counted any differently if your opponent’s rating is provisional? I’ve had instances where my post tournament rating would change after my opponent’s rating inexplicably dropped and he was either unrated or a provisional player with very few games played.

As no one has yet answered the question in this post, I will. No. There is no difference in a player’s rating adjustment based on whether the opponent’s rating is established or provisional (or even unrated at the start of the event).