# Rating snapshot: 3 October 2026

The adjacent elo-2026-10-03.json records aggregate counts only. It contains no player names or IDs. It supports the figures in "What Is the Average Chess Elo?" and "Is 2000 Elo Good in Chess?".

## Reproduce from the saved counts

Medians. For each Lichess cadence, sum frequencies to obtain N. Bin i contains ratings 400 + 25*i through 424 + 25*i inclusive. Accumulate frequencies and find the bins containing one-based ranks (N+1)//2 and (N+2)//2; report that bin, not an exact rating. For FIDE, the ratingCounts object maps each published rating to the count of eligible players; accumulate in ascending rating order and locate the same middle ranks. N=221400 is even; both middle ranks have rating 1700.

Means. FIDE: sum(rating*count)/N = 1734 (rounded). Lichess: estimated with each bin's midpoint (400 + 25*i + 12), giving about 1395 in rapid and 1484 in blitz. The true mean can differ by a few points because only bins are published.

Shares at or above a rating R. FIDE: sum of counts for ratings >= R, divided by N. Lichess: R is a multiple of 25, so it starts bin (R-400)/25 exactly; sum that bin and every higher bin, divided by N. Results quoted on the site, for example at 2000: FIDE 27,857 of 221,400 (12.6%); Lichess rapid 30,721 of 504,630 (6.1%); Lichess blitz 70,617 of 703,048 (10.0%).

## Sources and scope

- Lichess rapid and blitz: https://lichess.org/stat/rating/distribution/rapid and https://lichess.org/stat/rating/distribution/blitz, captured 3 October 2026. The page-init-data frequency arrays supply the data. Only displayed bins 400 through 2824 are counted; this is not a count of all registered users.
- Histogram eligibility (code inspected for the 22 September snapshot): https://github.com/lichess-org/lila/blob/a08067128f5284d5128f17783a786ab5fe94e0d0/modules/perfStat/src/main/PerfStatApi.scala matches the cadence in the ranking collection without the stable flag filter; entries expire seven days after an update.
- FIDE October 2026 standard XML list: https://ratings.fide.com/download/standard_rating_list_xml.zip (archive entry dated 2 October 2026), download page https://ratings.fide.com/download_lists.phtml. Retain rating > 0 and flag without I/i. Minimum retained rating 1400. Inactive and unrated records are excluded; no age or federation filter. Archive SHA-256 is recorded in the JSON.
- Chess.com publishes no downloadable rating distribution; no Chess.com average or share is claimed.

Run: python3 scripts/calculate-elo-snapshot.py <dir with rapid.html, blitz.html, fide.zip> public/research/elo-2026-10-03.json "October 2026 standard list, archive file dated 2 October 2026". No cross-platform conversion is claimed.