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I have been playing on lichess for a while and it strikes me how low ratings are compared to other rating systems. This is not to say that players are weaker, I have quite the opposite feeling, but ratings are Glicko, rather than Elo, and this the number of players is reasonably low, so this prevents inflation but still...

I am wondering what a typical low-2000s FIDE player's rating is on lichess. (I assume that higher rated players don't play online chess?) Thanks!

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    higher rated players do play online, just usually on ICC. Of course there are still alot of higher rated players who play on a variety of sites.
    – CognisMantis
    Commented Mar 17, 2015 at 0:10
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    They perform way better than non-fide rated players
    – Salvador Dali
    Commented Oct 14, 2015 at 3:20
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    I'm definitely an outlier of sorts, but my lichess rating is ~2400 blitz/bullet, and my FIDE rating is ~2100. My biggest complaint with lichess is that it's very difficult to find other high rated players that are playing blitz at any given time and to some degree I end up playing lower rated players which probably overly inflates my rating to some degree.
    – Andrew ♦
    Commented Oct 14, 2015 at 21:38
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    I think lichess is a bit inflated, my rating there is 2100 (blitz and classical) but e.g in chess.com it's 2000. Furthermore in chess.com I should play very cautios otherwise I'll lose w.h.p to a same rated player (+-50) but in lichess I can have fun and try random sacrifices and still save the game, while in chess.com giving up a pawn or two or exchange sacrifice without concrete calculation or clear strategical achievment(w.r.t. my understanding), very often causes to lose. Note that in lichess I'm even 100 more rated than chess.com.
    – Saeed Amiri
    Commented Dec 14, 2015 at 15:17
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    Please see these two questions: chess.stackexchange.com/questions/13156/… chess.stackexchange.com/questions/13324/…
    – ferit
    Commented Jan 19, 2016 at 20:08

7 Answers 7

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I went through the list of LiChess classical top 200 players and collected the FIDE ratings of LiChess classical ratings of anyone who I could verify on FIDE's website as actually having a FIDE rating:

LiChess FIDE    LiChess username    Name

2585    2265    ClassyPlays         Thibault Dudognon [FM]
2389    1869    nikkon2006          Nikita Konstantinov 
2373    2274    PchelkinVK          Andrey Ermolaev [CM]
2357    1780    LeProfessionnel     Xavier Bohaer   
2329    1963    Callmoon            Lina Nassr [WIM]
2299    2249    Peristeria          Marcus Schmuecker   
2290    2214    Crocodilu1976       Adrian Stanca   
2278    1899    TonoyanRob7         Robert Tonoyan  
2271    1900    CamelClutcher       Daniel Herman   
2269    1985    Chess-For-All       Alexey Pugach   
2242    2242    weichi              Eugeny Pankin   
2241    2208    kirillgenius        Kirill Shcherbinin [CM]
2241    2247    Cizar               Srboljub Zaric  
2236    2065    pepellou            Jose Doval Gonzalez 
2235    2093    Suleymanov_Marat    Marat M. Suleimanov 
2232    2155    Son_Of_Caissa       Hrvoje Vlahov   
2228    2358    VadimCernov         Vadim Chernov [IM]
2221    2010    emiliooo            Emilio Profili  
2219    2274    Josip_buje          Josip Bulic [FM]
2214    1455    diarbovi            Diego Armando Bonilla Viamonte  
2206    1878    hebertvr            Hebert Valera   
2199    1958    MrsBlunderqueen     Jan Oltmanns    
2193    2215    aconeni             Ondrej Toman    
2193    2187    teddyhh             Julio Fernandes 
2187    2190    yichen              Yichen Han  
2181    2298    jolle23             Johan Hultin [FM]
2171    2270    Konnov_Oleg         Oleg Konnov [FM]
2164    2138    FrankDischinger     Dischinger Frank [FM]
2162    1754    moldscaien1357      Dimitrios Makridis  
2145    1898    shayanaghaie        Shahram Aghaei

(I use the current FIDE rating, not the one listed on the LiChess profile; this affects 6 players. One player had a FIDE profile page, but no rating: LiChess (2174); FIDE.)

We see some major differences in several cases, so we cannot expect a simple relationship between the two. However, perhaps it's fair to conclude that a typical low-2000s FIDE player could likely reach a 2100+ LiChess classical rating. However, I feel like it depends heavily on how seriously they play on LiChess.

Here's a plot of the above data, with a linear regression. It's an incredibly weak correlation.

enter image description here

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    Note that by choosing the top rated lichess players, you are introducing a selection bias which will cause the lichess ratings to be relatively higher than they are.
    – Jeremy Salwen
    Commented Dec 1, 2020 at 5:42
  • Downvote. See the answer by Sint. You may visit a chess club. Ask high rated players there what's really going on online. Your answer doesn't account for cheating, sandbagging and many other pernicious online activities. You cannot get any more wrong than this. Another point is wrong too. There's a very strong correlation, not weak.
    – user32756
    Commented Jul 21, 2022 at 22:21
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I am 2300-2450 on lichess blitz, while my FIDE rating is 2300-2350.

There is a correlation but there is a large body of players on lichess that are not FIDE rated.

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    Same here: currently 2300 FIDE and a blitz rating commonly fluctuating between high 2300s and low 2400s.
    – TMM
    Commented Jul 22, 2017 at 13:18
  • Same here. FIDE and Lichess ratings are more or less similar. I believe top Lichess players use certain things to have their Elo sky-rocket. Random players should have been chosen to make correlations, not the top Lichess players, and not the players with vested interest in beefed up ratings. At the very top, some players are afraid to beat famous grandmasters. They might receive bans. And that would serve them right. However they just tank their ratings in such encounters. I saw it personally. They often offer a draw and are afraid to finish you off and start to play like patzers.
    – user32756
    Commented Jul 21, 2022 at 22:15
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The rating system used by Lichess is called Glicko and is different from the FIDE one, called Elo system.

This post on Lichess forum gives some insights about the topic:

https://lichess.org/qa/6/how-does-the-rating-system-work-on-here

The most important thing in the answer, in my point of view is this last paragraph:

It's best to think of ratings as "relative" figures (as opposed to "absolute" figures). By this I mean: within a pool of players, their relative differences in ratings will help you estimate who will win/draw/loss, and how often. Saying "I have X rating" means nothing unless there are other players to compare that rating to.

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I do agree that ratings seem a bit lower on lichess than on other websites, and actually I find this system much more stable. I am just over 2000 on FIDE elo and about the same on lichess (~2100 classical, ~2000 bullet). I have to say that it is the only place where I got a ranking reasonably near to my real ranking.

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IMO, Lichess ratings are a little bit inflated. My rating at lichess topped at ~1750 while my FIDE rating is ~1500. In comparison , chess.com is a little bit less inflated. My Standard (30 min) there is ~1600 which is about the same for the top player I could beat at my level.

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    It's not inflated, it's altogheter a different system while FIDE uses Elo, lichess uses glicko, and even then you have to compare the values of the parameters chosen by each implementation.
    – Santropedro
    Commented Dec 25, 2017 at 19:43
  • @Santropedro agree
    – Brandon_J
    Commented Jan 15, 2019 at 16:31
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They are roughly the same, but different per type (speed v correspondence). This article from chess.com was really informative. I'm guessing the two sites are relatively comparable: https://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/fide-ratings-vs-chesscom-ratings-explored

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Of course, lichess is extremely inflated. Just look at Penguingim1's bullet rating; it is like 3100. In fact, it was almost 3200 at one point. Yet, in real life, Penguingim1 is only rated 2450 or so USCF (which is higher than FIDE).

There isn't really a good or direct translation, but perhaps you can estimate. I would say a rough conversion factor between lichess and FIDE would be like 1 FIDE unit = 1.19 classical lichess units. For example, I know one guy who is 1800 FIDE but 2150 on lichess classical. If you multiply 1800 by 1.2, you get 2160; very darn close!

P.s. I agree that higher rated chess players don't play much chess online. Just look at the player leaderboards on lichess; there isn't 1 single GM in the top 10s for lichess, but every single player top 100 FIDE is GM titled.

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    there are plenty of GMs in the faster time controls. Online chess, is particularly prone to computer cheating in longer time controls. Combine that and a different emphasis, I would say that faster games are more the hub, that classical. On lichess and probably other online chess sites also.
    – Richard Fredlund
    Commented Aug 15, 2019 at 15:24

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