Chess scoring

System of points scoring in the game of chess

This article is about points scored across a series of chess games. For the moves in an individual game, see Chess notation and Glossary of chess § game score.

In chess, by far the most common scoring system is 1 point for a win, ½ for a draw, and 0 for a loss.

A number of different notations are used to denote a player's score in a match or tournament, or their long-term record against a particular opponent. The most common are:

Format | Meaning | Example

|
|

A/B | Points scored (A) out of games played (B) | "... Fabiano Caruana, is second, with 7.5/11."[1]
A−B | Points for (A) − points against (B) | "Fischer won the tournament... with a score of 18½−4½".[2] The games played is the sum of the "for" and "against" scores, so in this case, Fischer scored 18½ points from 23 games played.
+W −L =D | W wins, L losses, D draws | "Fischer 6.5/9 (+5 −1 =3)", meaning Fischer scored 5 wins, 1 loss and 3 draws for a total of 6.5 points out of 9.[3]
+A or −A | Number of wins minus number of losses | "Fabiano came into the final round on an unbeaten +4".[4] This refers to Caruana scoring 7 points in the first 10 rounds of the FIDE Grand Swiss Tournament 2021, which meant 3 points were scored against him, and 7 minus 3 is equal to +4.

## Less common systems

[edit]

* Occasionally, in a match between two players in which draws do not count, the number of draws may be omitted, or mentioned separately. For instance, the World Chess Championship 1978 was won by Anatoly Karpov by a score of 6 wins to 5, with draws not counting. The match score is usually given as "6−5", or "6−5 with 21 draws".

* Sometimes a Three points for a win system is used: 3 points for a win, 1 for a draw and 0 for a loss. This is usually shown as the number of points from number of games played, for instance "10 points from 6 games" for 3 wins, 2 losses and 1 draw.

## References

[edit]

1. ^ FIDE Chess.com Grand Swiss: Firouzja and Lei triumph in Riga, FIDE, 8 Nov 2021
2. ^ "From Morphy to Fischer", Israel Horowitz, Batsford, 1973
3. ^ Fischer – Petrosian Candidates Final Match, Chessgames.com
4. ^ Firouzja wins Grand Swiss | Caruana in Candidates, chess24.com, November 8, 2021

* v
* t
* e

Chess

Outline|

* Chess theory
* Chess titles
* Grandmaster
* Computer chess
* glossary
* matches
* engines
* software
* Correspondence chess
* FIDE
* Glossary
* Online chess
* Premove
* Internet chess server
* list
* Rating system
* world rankings
* norms
* Variants
* List
* World records

Equipment|

* Chess set
* chessboard
* Dubrovnik chess set
* Staunton chess set
* Chess pieces
* King
* Queen
* Rook
* Bishop
* Knight
* Pawn
* Fairy
* Chess clock
* Chess table
* Score sheets

History|

* Timeline
* Versus de scachis
* Göttingen manuscript
* Charlemagne chessmen
* Lewis chessmen
* Romantic chess
* Hypermodernism
* Soviet chess school
* Top player comparison
* Geography of chess
* Africa
* South Africa
* China
* Europe
* Armenia
* Spain
* India
* Notable games
* List of chess players
* amateurs
* female
* grandmasters
* Women in chess
* Transgender people in chess
* Chess museums
* Bobby Fischer Center
* Gökyay Association Chess Museum
* World Chess Hall of Fame

Rules|

* Castling
* Cheating in chess
* Check
* Checkmate
* Draw
* by agreement
* Fifty-move rule
* Perpetual check
* Stalemate
* Threefold repetition
* En passant
* Pawn promotion
* Time control
* Fast chess
* Touch-move rule
* White and Black

Terms|

* Blunder
* Chess notation
* algebraic
* descriptive
* PGN
* annotation symbols
* symbols in Unicode
* Fianchetto
* Gambit
* Key square
* King walk
* Open file
* Half-open file
* Outpost
* Pawns
* backward
* connected
* doubled
* isolated
* passed
* Swindle
* Tempo
* Transposition
* Trap

Tactics|

* Artificial castling
* Battery
* Alekhine's gun
* Block
* Checkmate patterns
* Combination
* Decoy
* Deflection
* Desperado
* Discovered attack
* Double check
* Fork
* Interference
* Overloading
* Pawn storm
* Pin
* Sacrifice
* Queen sacrifice
* Skewer
* Undermining
* Windmill
* X-ray
* Zwischenzug

Strategy|

* Compensation
* Exchange
* the exchange
* Initiative
* first-move advantage
* Middlegame
* Pawn structure
* Hedgehog
* Isolated Queen's Pawn
* Maróczy Bind
* Minority attack
* Piece values
* Prophylaxis
* School of chess

Openings|

| Flank opening|

* Benko Opening
* Bird's Opening
* Dunst Opening
* English Opening
* Grob's Attack
* Larsen's Opening
* Zukertort Opening
* King's Indian Attack
* Réti Opening

|

King's Pawn Game|

* Alekhine's Defence
* Caro–Kann Defence
* French Defence
* Modern Defence
* Nimzowitsch Defence
* Open Game
* Four Knights Game
* Giuoco Piano
* Italian Game
* King's Gambit
* Petrov's Defence
* Philidor Defence
* Ponziani Opening
* Ruy Lopez
* Semi-Italian Opening
* Scotch Game
* Two Knights Defense
* Vienna Game
* Owen's Defence
* Pirc Defence
* Austrian Attack
* Scandinavian Defense
* Sicilian Defence
* Alapin
* Dragon/Accelerated Dragon
* Najdorf
* Scheveningen

Queen's Pawn Game|

* Budapest Gambit
* Colle System
* Dutch Defence
* English Defence
* Indian Defence
* Benoni Defence
* Modern Benoni
* Bogo-Indian Defence
* Catalan Opening
* Grünfeld Defence
* King's Indian Defence
* Nimzo-Indian Defence
* Old Indian Defense
* Queen's Indian Defence
* London System
* Richter–Veresov Attack
* Queen's Gambit
* Accepted
* Declined
* Slav Defence
* Semi-Slav Defence
* Chigorin Defense
* Torre Attack
* Trompowsky Attack

Other|

* List of openings
* theory table
* List of chess gambits
* Irregular
* Bongcloud Attack
* Fool's mate
* Scholar's mate

Endgames|

* Bishop and knight checkmate
* King and pawn vs. king
* Opposite-coloured bishops
* Pawnless endgame
* Queen and pawn vs. queen
* Queen vs. pawn
* Queen vs. rook
* Rook and bishop vs. rook
* Rook and pawn vs. rook
* Lucena position
* Philidor position
* Strategy
* fortress
* opposition
* Tarrasch rule
* triangulation
* Zugzwang
* Study
* Tablebase
* Two knights endgame
* Wrong bishop
* Wrong rook pawn

Tournaments|

* List of strong chess tournaments
* Chess Olympiad
* Women
* World Chess Championship
* List
* Candidates Tournament
* Chess World Cup
* FIDE Grand Prix
* Other world championships
* Women
* Team
* Rapid
* Blitz
* Junior
* Youth
* Senior
* Amateur
* Chess composition
* Solving
* Computer chess championships
* CCC
* CSVN
* North American
* TCEC
* WCCC
* WCSCC

Art and media|

* Caïssa
* Chess aesthetics
* Chess in the arts
* early literature
* film
* novels
* paintings
* poetry
* short stories
* Chess books
* opening books
* endgame literature
* Oxford Companion
* Chess libraries
* Chess newspaper columns
* Chess periodicals

Related|

* Arbiter
* Chess boxing
* Chess club
* Chess composer
* Chess engine
* AlphaZero
* Deep Blue
* Leela Chess Zero
* Mittens
* Stockfish
* Chess problem
* glossary
* joke chess
* Chess prodigy
* Elo rating system
* Mechanical Turk
* Simultaneous exhibition
* Tie-breaking in Swiss-system tournaments
* Solving chess

* Chess portal
* Category

*[v]: View this template
*[t]: Discuss this template
*[e]: Edit this template