Live Chess has three different ratings based on different time controls:
Bullet rating - For games under 3 minutes.
Blitz rating - For games over 3 minutes but under 10 minutes.
Rapid rating - For games 10 minutes and longer.
We keep these rating separate because of the largely different skills involved in playing shorter or longer games.
The per-move bonus time (increment) is significant - not just the base minutes.
The system assumes an average game-length of 40 moves to estimate the total length of time available to each player; the result is what determines which rating is affected by a given time control:
A time control of 2 |12 therefore results in a Rapid (not Bullet or Blitz) game like so:
2 minutes + (12 seconds x 40 moves = 480 seconds) = 10 minutes
As a reference, here are some examples of presets available in Live:
Time Control | Estimated Length | Game/rating type |
5 | 0 | 5 minutes | Blitz |
10 | 0 | 10 minutes | Rapid |
2 | 12 | 10 minutes | Rapid |
3 | 0 | 3 minutes | Blitz |
4 | 4 | 6.5 minutes | Blitz |
15 | 10 | 22 minutes | Rapid |
1 | 5 | 4.5 minutes | Blitz |
1 | 0 | 1 minute | Bullet |