Rating Gain Calculator with 3 Input Variables

Today I have published the official ChessGoals Rating Calculator. The rating calculator is based on three input variables:

1. Age
2. Level
3. Hours per week on chess

There are two outputs given by the calculator:

1. Expected annual rating gain
2. Range that 50% of players will fall into

This data is based on approximately 400 ChessGoals.com survey respondents. 

Creation

I have spent probably dozens of hours trying to create a rating gain calculator that gave reasonable values. Initially I was attempting to build a linear regression model looking at different combinations of age, level, and hours spent. I kept running into a common problem that on the extremes the model would predict values that were quite far off the actual data.

Eventually I came around to the idea that I could take a look at similar players to build a prediction. These ChessGoals Similarity Reports are included in a study plan consult.

The similarity reports figure out who the closest players are to the input variables and predict the median, 25th percentile, and 75th percentile for rating gain. The rating calculator is based on 5 age categories and 6 rating categories, which equals 30 possible combinations. For each of the 30 combinations, there is a different formula mapping hours per week to annual rating gain.

Caveats

This is based on survey data, and even though I did a lot of work checking values the data cannot be perfect. Also, these players chose on their own to take the survey so there is some bias in who these people are compared to the full chess population. With that said, these values should give an approximation to what a player can expect to gain if they are tracking their progress.

Looking to Improve?

Currently on the website we have 12-week Premium Study Plans that are all 50% off for Labor Day Weekend.

Next Steps

1. Play around with the calculator values. You can also download or make a copy of the Google Sheet if too many users are trying to edit the cells at one time. 
2. Check out the ChessGoals Chess.com Club where others track their progress in the forum.
3. Check out the ChessGoals website for free and premium study plans. Subscribe to emails for a free study plan worksheet.

Is there a burn-out level for your age and rating? Most players actually start to gain less points annually after around 15 hours per week spent on chess.

Please post your feedback in the comments!