Magnus Carlsen was once asked at what rating you should stop being embarrassed about your rating.
His answer? 400 Elo.
Your chess rating improvement journey starts the moment you pick up the pieces. And while a lot of chess enthusiasts (especially on the internet) tie both your and their own rating to their chess identity, they're missing out on one key detail of what those numbers actually tell you.
The truth? Your rating isn't a verdict. It's a signpost. It tells you exactly where you are, what's holding you back, and what to work on next.
I'm not going to tell you that knowing these levels instantly makes you a chess master overnight. After all, why would we spend our time talking about the journey if the shortcut made it pointless? Nevertheless, most rating levels have their own predictable obstacles, and the patterns are well-known. Once you understand what stage you're at, fixing it becomes a whole lot easier.
Let's break it down.
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Stage 1: Finding Your Footing
Level 1: The Complete Beginner (0–699 Elo)
Welcome to the world of chess! This is where everybody starts, and there is absolutely zero shame in it (quite the opposite, in fact!).
At this level, games tend to be a glorious chaos of hanging pieces and missed checkmates. Moves tend to make total sense in your head until you see your opponent's next move. You're still building the most basic mental model of what chess actually is. Not just the rules (which are mostly easy to learn), but the logic underneath them.
What's holding you back: You don't yet have a reliable sense of danger. Pieces get left undefended not because you're reckless, but because tracking everything on the board at once is genuinely hard when you're new. Your brain hasn't built the patterns yet.
What actually helps: Forget words like "opening theory" and "long-term strategy" for now (trust me!). The most valuable habit at this stage is to ask yourself these questions before every move:
- "Can my opponent take anything of mine for free after this?"
- "Is my king safe?"
- "Are my pieces developed?"
Just these questions, every single move. It sounds simple, but it will do more for your chess rating improvement at this stage than any YouTube opening guide ever could.
If you're eager to learn more, learn some basic patterns to force a checkmate. Your goal is to grab more pieces than your opponent and use your massive advantage to force a checkmate.
Level 2: The Improver (700–1099 Elo)
You've graduated from pure chaos. You're no longer dropping pieces every other move. You can feel when something is wrong, even if you can't always articulate why.
At this stage, players start picking up their first real chess habits. Some of them are good; some are terrible. This bracket is where a lot of people get stuck in a loop of learning about chess without making meaningful progress at chess.
What's holding you back: Tactical blindness. You're probably losing most of your games to blunders, either your own or your opponent's. Your games aren't really being decided by strategy just yet. It's still largely a puzzle-solving contest, where your wins and losses are determined by who makes the second-to-last mistake.
What actually helps: Puzzles, puzzles, puzzles.
Fifteen minutes a day of tactical puzzles will do more for your rating at this level than anything else. You're basically training your brain to recognize danger patterns faster, and that's exactly what separates someone in the 700s from someone in the 1000s.
In modern times good puzzles aren't hard to come across, and a quick google search should lead you in the right direction. I've personally enjoyed the free tactics trainer provided by Chesstempo, but other options work just as well.
A good chess elo tracker can also be a surprisingly useful motivator here. Watching your rating trend upward in response to consistent puzzle practice is genuinely satisfying, and it keeps you accountable.
Besides you having to do the puzzles, you need to analyze your mistakes throughout the process. Actually thinking about where you go wrong is a game-changer compared to mindlessly clicking moves and hoping for the best.
Level 3: The Friend-Crusher (1100–1399 Elo)
Now we're talking! You've overcome the fundamental hurdles of the game. You beat your friends and family in casual games without breaking much of a sweat. You understand basic tactics, develop your pieces, and don't hang your queen on move four.
Congratulations. You are officially the family chess expert.
Signs you're here:
- Beats friends and family in casual games without breaking a sweat
- Has overcome the fundamental hurdles of the game
- Understands basic tactics and doesn't blunder pieces away constantly
- Probably has strong opinions about the Sicilian Defense despite never having studied it properly
What's holding you back: You've likely hit your first plateau (I know I did!). You can handle tactics, but your positional understanding is still pretty shaky.
You play good moves in sharp positions, but in quiet positions where there's no immediate tactic, you kind of just move pieces around and hope.
What actually helps: Start paying attention to why moves are good or bad, not just that they are.
After each game, pick two or three moments where things went sideways and ask yourself, without looking at the engine first, what you were thinking and what you missed. Only then check your thought process with the computer. This habit, done consistently, is what unlocks the next level. Every strong player I've ever talked to traces their real improvement back to this: sitting with their games instead of just moving on to the next one.
Stage 2: Getting Competitive
Level 4: The Competitor (1400–1699 Elo)
Here's where chess starts to feel like a real game of ideas rather than just a tactical firefight. Players at this level have a genuine understanding of the game. They control the center, develop their pieces, and castle their king. They also know basic endgame principles, and some even know a thing or two about theory!
They're also, frankly, pretty tough to beat for most casual players.
What's holding you back: Consistency. You can play a brilliant game and then turn around and lose to a 1300 two rounds later.
The ceiling at this stage isn't knowledge. It's steadiness. Impatience creeps in. You start a promising attack, it doesn't immediately work, and instead of adjusting you just go all-in and hope.
What actually helps: Slow down, not just in terms of time control, but also how you think about each position. Before committing to a plan, take a moment to ask: "What is my opponent threatening?" It sounds basic, but a lot of games at this level are still decided by one player simply not noticing what the other one was up to.
If you're tracking your own games, this is also the level where it becomes most useful for spotting patterns in your losses. Are you losing most games in the opening? The middlegame? Are you usually better until move 25 and then things fall apart? The data tells a story. Pay attention to it.
Level 5: The Expert (1700–1999 Elo)
You are good at chess. There's no other way to put it. If you've made it here, you've put in serious time and effort, and it shows. This is also the point in which most players will struggle to move forward, even with dedicated training.
At this level, games are decided by subtleties. Deep positional understanding, prophylactic thinking, knowing when to trade pieces and when to keep the position complex. Sometimes, players of your level are capable of winning games despite the opponent not making a clear, tactical blunder.
What's holding you back: The gap between 1700 and 2000 is often described as one of the hardest to cross. Part of that is psychological. Players here know enough to understand how much they still don't know, which can be paralyzing (Dunning-Kruger effect, anyone?). You also have a tendency to over-rely on calculation, ignoring the value of intuition built from pattern recognition.
What actually helps: Study complete games from strong players, not just opening theory or tactics. Understand not only what opening move is usually played, but why it is played.
If you haven't already, it's time to take the step into competitive chess in real life. Without experience in over-the-board, classical chess, it will be immensely difficult to fill your knowledge gaps. While playing live games will always be good for your improvement, you've now reached the point where you can't go on without it.
Pay attention to the quiet moves: the regrouping, the prophylaxis, the pawn structure decisions. That's where the real chess education happens at this level, and why people at the following levels tend to crush you.
Level 6: The Master (2000–2099 Elo)
You're becoming dangerous! You've reached the point most intermediate players dream of getting to. You play at a level that most chess players will never reach. Your opening knowledge is solid, your tactical vision is sharp, and you have a genuine feel for the game.
At this stage, chess rating improvement becomes intensely individual. Generic advice stops working. What separates the 2000 from the 2100 is usually something very specific to that player's style: a particular weakness that requires targeted work to fix.
What's holding you back: Probably something you already suspect. A certain type of position you don't handle well. A time pressure problem. A tendency to go for flashy sacrifices when the clinical approach would be better (or vice versa).
What actually helps: Get specific. Use learning tools to find the exact patterns in your losses. At this level, "study more tactics" isn't the answer. The answer is figuring out your specific problem and going after it with targeted, deliberate practice.
Stage 3: The Elite
Level 7: The Candidate Master (2100–2299 Elo)
You are now firmly in territory that most people who play chess for their entire lives will never reach. Strong players can look at your games and immediately recognize the work of someone who understands chess at a deep level.
At this stage, the improvement journey becomes a full-time commitment for those who pursue it. The margins between players shrink. The preparation required for each opponent grows. The mental demands of high-level competition are as real as the technical ones.
Level 8: The Legend (2300–2499 Elo)
You've been awarded titles. Your games get studied. You've played in serious tournaments against serious opposition and held your own.
Chess at this level is a different world from where most of us live. The depth of preparation, the accuracy of calculation, the sophistication of positional judgment. It's something else entirely. And even so, you feel incompetent compared to the players you face at the top of the leaderboards.
The Championship Contender (2500–2799 Elo)
Grandmaster territory. Fewer than 2,000 people on the planet hold this title. You are, by any reasonable measure, one of the best chess players in the world.
The Magnus Carlsen Level (2800+ Elo)
And then there's this. The rarefied air at the very top of the chess world. A handful of players, at any given time, who represent the absolute ceiling of human chess ability.
The rest of us are just out here trying not to blunder our queen.
What Your Chess Rating Is Really Telling You
Here's the honest answer: your rating tells you where you are, not who you are.
A lot of players carry their rating around like it's an identity. They feel embarrassed if it's low, defensive if someone questions it, and strangely crushed when it drops, even temporarily. That relationship with your rating will slow you down.
Your rating is just data. It's a snapshot of where your chess currently lives. And the most important thing about a snapshot is that it changes.
The players who improve consistently share one trait: they use their rating as information rather than identity. They look at it and ask, "What is this telling me about where I need to work?" rather than "What does this say about me as a person?"
Use a chess elo tracker to follow your progress over time. Take Take Take pulls in your games from chess.com and Lichess automatically and shows your rating trend alongside the games of friends and players you follow. Watching your progress in that context, against people you actually know, makes the numbers easier to stay honest about.
Don't panic when your rating dips. It always does during periods of genuine growth, because you're trying new things and they don't always work immediately. Look for the trend over weeks and months, not the result from last Tuesday's blitz session.
Most importantly, remember what Magnus said. Even he didn't think 400 Elo was worth being embarrassed about. So wherever you are right now? You're on the journey. That's the whole game.
The Take Take Take app is available now on iOS and Android.