How good is 800 chess rating and how to blow past it?

800 chess rating monkey

How good is 800 chess rating? It’s not too bad! But it could be better! Let me tell you exactly what it means to be rated 800 in chess. And I’ll give you some tips on how to improve past 800 rating along the way.

How good is a 800 chess rating?

An elo rating of 800 in chess means that you kind of know what you’re doing! You can explain the rules to new players, and you can show them some tricks. But of course, you still have a lot of room left for improvement in all aspects of chess.

Chess rating (elo)LevelHow you play
< 800NoviceYou hang your queen 4 times per game
800 – 1099BeginnerYou play pretty well and then you blunder your queen. You know only 2 openings.
1100 – 1399IntermediateYou can play all the common openings, but you blunder forks when you get tired.
1400 – 1699Advanced intermediateYou donโ€™t blunder pieces away anymore. If you lose itโ€™s because you played inaccurately and you lost a pawn.
1700 – 1999AdvancedPeople need to come at you with very challenging positions if they want you to make an inaccuracy.
2000 – 2299ExpertYou hold your own in almost any position. Your biggest enemies are stress and fatigue.
Table: what your chess elo rating really means (based on ratings on Chess.com)

Is 800 elo a good chess rating?

800 is a good chess rating for a beginner playing rapid on Chess.com. It’s a rating that shows that you’re not a newbie anymore. But of course you can still improve your chess rating a lot with some serious study and practice.

Also read: Chess rating converter: Chess.com to Lichess to FIDE

What does a 800 elo chess rating mean?

The math behind the elo rating system works out in such a way that every difference of 100 elo points corresponds to a 65% chance to win. So for example if a 800 elo player plays against a 700 elo player, the 800 elo player has a 65% chance to win.

You can read what this means for you if youโ€™re an 800 elo rated player.

Elo player 1 vs elo player 2Win chance for the 800 rated player
800 vs 50085%
800 vs 60075%
800 vs 70065%
900 vs 90050%
800 vs 90035%
800 vs 100025%
800 vs 110015%
Table: What the math behind your elo chess rating says about how good you are at 800

How many people have a 800 chess rating?

Approximately 42 millions people in the world have a chess rating of 800 or more on Chess.com. Thatโ€™s about 70% of all chess players, and about 0.3% of all people on earth.

And about 4 million people have a chess rating between 800 and 899.

In the table below you can read what percentile of people have 800 elo on Chess.com, Lichess, FIDE and USFC.

Chess rating (elo)Chess.com percentileFIDE percentileLichess percentileUSFC percentile
2000 to 209998%90%99%96%
1900 to 199996%84%99%94%
1800 to 189994%77%98%91%
1700 to 179990%70%96%87%
1600 to 169984%61%94%82%
1500 to 159977%52%90%77%
1400 to 149970%47%84%72%
1300 to 139961%42%77%67%
1200 to 129952%37%70%62%
1100 to 119947%25%61%57%
1000 to 109942%15%52%52%
900 to 99937%7%47%48%
800 to 89930%3%42%43%
700 to 79922%1%37%37%
600 to 69915%1%25%31%
Table: Chess rating percentiles distribution shows what’s a good chess rating on Chess.com, Lichess, FIDE and USFC

Also read: What is a Good Chess Rating? (with Percentile Calculator)

How long does it take to get to 800 chess rating?

How long it takes to get 800 chess rating is very different for different players. Some people start at 800 rating immediately through talent. Other players will struggle to ever get to 800 chess rating.

If you’re stuggling to get to 800 chess rating you’re probably not training very effectively. And I’m sure that you’re not using all the premium tools of a Chess.com Diamond membership. With these resources almost anybody can get 800 chess rating within a week or two.

Chess ratingHow long to get this rating (with Chess.com Diamond)How long to get this rating (without learning resources)
10001 week2 months
11002 weeks3 months
12004 weeks6 months
13006 weeks9 months
14002 months1 year
15002.5 months2 years
16003 monthsProbably never
Table: How long it takes to get to 1000 – 1600 chess rating with and without learning resources

Also read: Chess.com Diamond Review: Is Chess.com Diamond worth it?

How to easily get to 800 chess rating (and blow past it)

The quickest way to get to and past 800 chess rating is to become a Diamond member on Chess.com.

There are almost no 800s in the Diamond club, because everybody skyrockets their rating towards the 1500s and above.

I bet that if you’re an 800 or below you can for sure gain 300 rating in 2 weeks if you sign up for a Chess.com Diamond membership.

Chess.com membershipRating increase (within 2 weeks)
Basic (free)+0
Gold+50
Platinum+100
Diamond+300
Table: How many elo points you will gain in 1 or 2 weeks with which chess.com membership

Why can you improve so much when you join the Diamond club?

Because you get a bunch of great study tools: game reviews, coach explanations, insights, lessons and puzzles.

Chess study toolRating increase (within 2 weeks)
Playing games like normal+0
Chess puzzles+25
Chess lessons+25
Game review+50
Coach explanations+100
Insights+100
Table: How many elo points you can gain when you use the different features of Chess.com

These tools use artificial intelligence to analyze your chess games. They tell you for every move how good it was and what the best move would have been. And they even recommend lessons based on your common mistakes and playing patterns.

10 years ago only guys like Magnus Carlsen had access to this kind of technology. Now you can get it too. I’m confident this will have a huge impact on you and your chess rating. And you can even try it out for free for 7 days with the link below.

Get the Chess.com Diamond membership here (7 day free trial)

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