Ratings & fair play

ChessHere uses Glicko-2, a rating system that tracks both your skill (the rating number) and the system's confidence in that estimate (rating deviation). After each rated game, both numbers update based on the result, your opponent's rating, and the time since your last game. Each time control has its own pool: bullet, blitz, rapid, classical, correspondence, and puzzles all rate independently.

Your rating is provisional during your first games in a pool, while the system has high uncertainty about your skill. Provisional ratings move in larger steps as the system zeroes in. Once you've played enough games — usually fifteen to twenty — your rating deviation drops below the threshold and the rating is no longer marked provisional. Provisional and established ratings count equally for matchmaking.

Rating deviation (RD) is the system's measure of confidence in your current rating. A new player has high RD — the system isn't sure where they belong. After lots of recent games, RD drops, meaning your rating is reliably calibrated. RD also rises when you don't play, reflecting that your skill may have changed. The Glicko-2 paper at glicko.net describes this in detail.

Your rating number doesn't drop, but your rating deviation grows over time when you don't play. Higher deviation means the system is less confident in your rating, so when you return, your first few games will move your rating in larger steps until the deviation drops back. There is no automatic rating-decrease for inactivity on ChessHere.

FIDE Elo is designed for tournament chess with a small fixed pool of titled players. Glicko-2 is better suited to the millions of online games per day, where players have wildly varying activity levels and skill changes can be fast. Glicko-2 tracks rating deviation, which lets the system adapt to new and returning players cleanly. The two systems use different numbers — your ChessHere rating isn't directly comparable to a FIDE rating.

ChessHere monitors every rated game for engine-like behavior using a combination of move-quality analysis, behavioral patterns, and timing signals. Suspicious accounts are reviewed by a small team before any action is taken. Confirmed cheaters are suspended and their rating contributions to other players' ratings are reversed. The system errs toward false negatives — letting borderline cases through — over false positives, to protect honest players from unfair flags.

Suspended accounts can no longer play rated games or join tournaments, and their existing rated game results within the suspicious period are reverted for opponents. You receive an email explaining the suspension and the appeal process. Appeals are reviewed by humans — if the suspension was a mistake, the account is restored and rating contributions are reapplied. False suspensions are rare but they happen, and the appeal route exists for that reason.

ChessHere allows one account per person. Multi-accounting — creating extra accounts to manipulate ratings, evade suspensions, or attack opponents — is a violation that leads to all related accounts being suspended. Family members sharing a household can each have their own account; the system tracks behavioral signals, not just IP addresses. If you accidentally registered twice, contact support and one will be merged or removed.