Initial rating

An initial rating is the first number that FIDE, the International Chess Federation, officially publishes for a player who was previously unrated. It is not simply the performance from the player's first tournament or a provisional estimate shown by an application.

Publication requires results from at least five games against already rated opponents. They need not all come from one event: FIDE may pool results from consecutive rating periods spanning no more than 26 months. The calculated number must be at least 1400.

The current method adds two hypothetical opponents rated 1800 to the real opponents and treats both results as draws. It then combines the opponents' average rating with the player's total score percentage through the official rating-difference table, rounds to the nearest whole number, and caps the initial rating at 2200. Those opponents are only a mathematical device and are not games actually played.

After the first number is published, later results update it under the ordinary procedure. Inactive player status is a separate matter that can arise later after a year without games rated by FIDE.