I saw a tiktok about some girl who was the daughter of two grand masters. Went deep into a rabbit hole of the world of Chess but I still cannot for the life of me understand this point system ?
In: 30
ELO is a mathematical system used to determine the relative strengths of players in Chess (and other games)
ELO is in part used to determine who the best players are, and therefore who gets invited to the bigger events.
When you win a game you move up in score, when you lose you move down.
But the amount you increase or decrease by is relative to the strength of your opponent.
If you are very high rated if you win against a low rated opponent your score barely moves, but if you lose against a low rated opponent you lose a bunch of ELO because you aren’t supposed to lose against such a weak player.
Similarly if you are a weak player but win against a high rated opponent your ELO will go up by a lot.
The downside of ELO is that it pigeon holes players into always playing against the same people. Playing lower rated players is seen as too much of a risk for higher players as losing rating will result in them being uninvited from events and results in a loss of income from those players. If you aren’t constantly invited to big Chess events then you aren’t making money from prizes or appearance fees.
Table top games (like Warhammer 40k) experimented with ELO for a while and abandoned it because it forced players to always play against the same opponents and gave no variety in games.
>For comparison a total noob player (like me) is below 500
>800-1200 is an average player
>Professional Chess streamer Andrea Botez is 1709 which is still considered ‘amateur’, while her sister Alexandra is 1988 and Anna Cramling is 2022 and both hold a Womens FIDE Master title. In the greater Chess world they are in the 95th percentile and can make most players look like a total amateur by comparison, but are still considered ‘low rated’ compared to the Grandmasters.
>Levy Rozman (Gotham Chess) by comparison is 2322 and an International Master and there is a very noticeable gap between Anna/Alexandra’s skills compared to Levy.
> Grandmasters like Pia Cramling (Anna’s Mom) 2443 and Ben Finegold 2400 are on an entirely different level again
> Players above 2700 are often referred to as “Super Grandmasters” because they are on another level again. Streamer Hikaru Nakamura 2775 makes most chess players look like chumps by comparison.
>While the current competitors for the World championship rated #2 and #3 in the world are Ian Nepomniachtchi (Nepo) at 2795 and Ding Liren at 2788
>As of this post the highest ELO score is Magnus Carlsen at 2853
>This shows just how good Magnus is, as being a full 50 points clear of the #2 player is just absurd.
> While engines like Stockfish are considered to be rated 3000 or higher
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