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Avatar of trigs

how many games does one have to play in order to get an accurate rating? 30? 50? 100+? just curious.

Avatar of Mygame5377

100+

Avatar of zlhflans

I think 10 games completed will give you a fairly accurate rating.

Avatar of trigs

i feel like it may be a lot more games because it depends on the rating of your opponent (and like me, you might start out playing people around 1200 even though you might not be close to that rating in actuality).

Avatar of rollingpawns

For OTB in US and Canada it's officially 25 games and I think, it's quite right number. For online 25 could be not enough, though gives you an idea about your level, probably 50 should be OK.

Avatar of TheMoonwalker

I have played 44, and i feel i havent got a correct rating yet...

Avatar of RyanMK

I've played 628 games and my rating still fluctuates 100+ points at times, depending on how well I'm playing.

Avatar of Hugh_T_Patterson

Part of the fluctuation problem may have to do with the ratings adjustment. If you play people with higher ratings, the point gain is greater than people with lower ratings or similar ratings. Mathematically, this can throw a monkey wrench into the equation.

Avatar of Billium248

If you're talking about your FIRST x number of games, it won't be accurate until you have some wins and losses.  If you start off with a long win streak, your rating will balloon real fast until a loss comes along to put things in better perspective.

As Chess.com describes in their explination of ratings, you have 2 ratings.  1) your REAL rating, and 2) your OFFICIAL rating.  With every win, loss, or draw, your OFFICIAL rating will change to try and more accurately reflect your REAL rating (which no one can know for sure).  But your OFFICIAL rating is not the only rating which changes over time.  The more games you play, the more Tactics Trainers that you do, etc. the more your REAL rating will change as well.  The OFFICIAL rating will always be trying to keep up regardless of how many games you've played.