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Why are there different ratings in live chess?
Why are there different ratings in live chess?
Updated over 7 months ago

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

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