Average blitz on chess.com is 1029
Average rapid is 1096
https://www.chess.com/leaderboard/live
If that seems low it's because... well, it is low. Average for tournament players is more like 1500-1600. Average for FIDE players would be more like 1900-2000 (because until relatively recently you couldn't even get a FIDE rating without being rated over a certain amount, I think 2200).
Thanks for that. Hmmm..... I wonder if those averages have increased/decreased over the years? I don't suppose anyone tracks such things as trends over several years? Is there such a thing as a peak age in which to play - you'd think that averages improve with age but I guess there must come a peak when it starts to decline?
Thanks for that. Hmmm..... I wonder if those averages have increased/decreased over the years?
Good question, I don't know.
For chess.com, I found an old topic where someone answered this question the same way I did... i.e. they typed out the averages. IIRC the topic was about 3 years old, and the averages have risen slightly, maybe 50 points.
In the USCF, the average rating has gone down... but that's because so many kids are playing these days. The regular adult playing tournament average may have stayed the same.
Is there such a thing as a peak age in which to play - you'd think that averages improve with age but I guess there must come a peak when it starts to decline?
As I recall, pros seem to peak in their 30s and generally decline after that.
It's telling that the only players over the age 35 in the world top 15 are former world champions (Anand and Kramnik). Everyone else is 35 or younger. In the top 45 (everyone rated 2700 or over) there are 8 people older than 35 https://2700chess.com/
But since top 10 players push the limits of human chess, I think they're more susceptible to it than players like us. Of course youth helps... especially if the tournament schedule has your first round after breakfast and last round ends near midnight, for multiple days in a row, but for example in the USA it's not so uncommon to see newly minted state champions in their 50s and 60s. These are usually master-ish level people, 2100-2300.
And remember ratings aren't an absolute measure, it's relative to the other players. It's not like Olympic record times going down over the years for example. There are different reasons the average chess rating can raise and fall.
As a simple example, imagine chess.com rolls out a successful advertising campaign for beginners, and gets lots of people to join. Most of them lose a few games, then quit forever. This artificially injects points into the system which will cause the average to go up.
A website like chess.com also has e.g. cheaters who might win a lot of games then be banned. This artificially sucks points out of the system and would cause the average to go down.
If you look in stats it tells you what percentile you are in
I just wondered if there is such a thing as an average grade? Would any of the chess authorities or even chess.com have any idea at all what the average grade is of all graded players?