Lichess classical rating distribution

What does a classical rating rank among Lichess players?

The table reads each rating as a position. A player rated 1800 in classical, for example, is higher than 79.6% of the active players in that time control, and 20.4% are rated 1800 or higher.

What rating is the top 1, 5 and 10 percent in classical?

Reaching the top 10 percent of active classical players takes a rating of about 1925, the top 5 percent about 2025 and the top 1 percent about 2215. The thresholds are read from the counts of players in each 25-point step and rounded to the nearest 5.

Which rating band holds the most classical players?

The busiest 100-point band in classical is 1500 to 1599, with 13.3% of the players. Lichess starts every new account at 1500, so newcomers whose rating is still settling add to the crowd near that number.

How does classical compare with blitz, rapid and bullet?

Each time control has its own pool of players and its own rating, so the same number means a different rank. The median is about 1560 in classical, compared with 1530 in blitz, 1445 in rapid, 1640 in bullet.

Pick a rating on the percentile pages to see how it ranks in all four. For what a time control counts as on Lichess and under FIDE rules, use the time control calculator.

How were these percentiles measured?

Accounts that played a rated game on 1 September 2026, counted once per time control at the rating after their last game, bots left out. The hub page explains the method in full.