A Guide to Chess Levels

There are chess players and there are expert players and then there are masters .. You have also heard about the GrandMasters. So, what is the scale of expertise involved here ? is there an objective rating and ranking ? Lets see ..

There is an international rating system for Chess which calculates the rating of any international player. This is the Elo Rating (by FIDE) and you probably heard of this already. It is similar to ATP ranking for Tennis players.

And while the world champion Carlsen is approximately at 2850 Elo, top 100 players are somewhere between 2700 and 2850. The best chess engines currently are at 3100 Elo while the neural-net based AI monster from Google's DeepMind labs clocked approximately 4000 Elo rating from the few games available.

Nonetheless, what most of us are bothered about is our strength and how much can we go up to in next month, year or 3 years. For that, you need to know a rough benchmarks for each levels, across all aspects of the game like Openings, Tactics, Strategy and Endgames. I try to explain it here:

Level 0	0 - 200 Elo (Starter)	How pieces move and capture The concepts of mate, check and stalemate Initial position, castling, capturing en passant &pawn promotion Board geometry Value of pieces
Level 1	Elo 200 — 600 (Beginner)	Mating in 1 move in positions with few pieces on the board Finding unprotected pieces and picking best captures Mating a bare king with two major pieces Chess notation Scholar's mate and how to counter it
Level 2	Elo 600 — 1000 (Budding)	Mating in 1 move in positions with many pieces on the board Mating with king and queen or rook Spotting and defending unprotected pieces The rule of the square and what it means in the endgame Double attack, fork, pin. Basic opening principles (piece development)
Level 3	Elo 1000 — 1200 (Developing)	Spotting simple opportunities to use the motifs: discovered check, undermining Spotting and protecting pieces in danger Defending against mate in 1 move Basic principles of chess endings king+pawn vs king Passed pawns The names and first moves of some openings
Level 4	Elo 1200 — 1400 (Amateur)	Finding simple decoy, deflection and interference combinations Finding forced mates in 2 moves Main principles of playing rook+pawn vs rook Occupying open lines The center The names and first moves of all main openings
Level 5	Elo 1400 — 1600 (Club Player)	Finding medium difficulty decoy, distraction and interference combinations Spotting and calculating complex mates in 2 moves Defending against mate and other threats “Good” and “bad” pieces Favorable and unfavorable exchange Strong and weak squares Aims and basic theory of common openings Basic principles of pawn and rook endings (opposition, rook behind passed pawns etc)
Level 6	Elo 1600 — 1800 (Strong Player)	Complex combinations on decoy deflection, interference, undermining Spotting forced mates in 3-4 moves Endings with same-squared or different-squared bishops Key positions in rook, bishop and pawn endings Typical pawn structures: isolated and dangling pawns, their advantages and disadvantages Typical maneuvers Solid knowledge of all main lines in chosen openings
Level 7	Elo 1800 — 2000 (Expert)	Spotting and devising multi-move combinations Main strategy principles and maneuvers Advanced knowledge of opening and endgame maneuvers Base skills used in middlegame Analyzing piece positions to evaluate the situation on the board and devise simple plans Knowing typical combinations and plans in played openings
Level 8	Elo 2000 — 2200  (Master)	Solid understanding of middlegame and typical combinations in various openings Discerning the opponent’s plans and building counter-plans Preventive measures and maneuvering in different stages of play
Level 9	Elo 2200 — 2400 (FIDE Master)	Deep understanding of all stages of play Modern trends in opening theory Employing dynamic and static positional factors when devising a plan Mastery in all endings
Level 10	Elo 2400 - 2500 (International Master)	Currently, India has about 123 IMs while the world has over ~3800 IMs
Level 11	Elo 2500 — 2600 (GrandMaster)	India has 65 GMs while there just about 1655 in the entire world
Level 12	Elo 2600 — 2700 (Strong GrandMaster)	14 India GMs can be called Strong GMs while the world has close to 200
Level 13	Elo 2700 — 2800 (Super GrandMaster)	3 Indian players make it to the Super-GM club while 37 overall in the world
Level 14	Elo 2800 — 2900 (World Championship Contender)	Currently, only 2 in the world, but maybe not more than 4 or 5 max at any given time

Are you interested in knowing your level ? 

Find it instantly by taking this online chess self-test at chessking.

(However, it is a bit experimental and over-estimates your strength if you are good at tactics. In my opinion, you can deduct 2-3 levels from the Test output to get your real level)

The folks at ChessKing are kind enough to also offer you 3 or 4 chess lessons free, appropriate for your chess level. Just "expand" your level at the link and it will show available lessons for you.