Imagine you are 1900 Elo. You are paired against a 1500 Elo junior. You play carefully, equalize after every complication, and split the point.
Over the board it feels like a “correct” draw against an equal practical opponent. On the rating sheet it is a penalty of -8.4 Elo points.
You did not blunder, but your number still drops.
This is no longer rare noise. It is the new normal.
🧵1/8
The Elo formula sees a 400-point gap and expects you (the 1900 Elo player) to score 92 %.
Reality: the players are equal strength and draw → 50 %.
You perform according to your real strength, but lose 8.4 rating points because you failed to meet the formula’s expectation.
That gap between expected score and actual score is the adjustment cost. Repeat it across many games and the pressure concentrates on rating favorites.
🧵2/8
When we look at rating changes by age cohort (2021-2025):
Youth (<18) = clear positive trend
Prime (19–34) = slightly positive
Established (35–49) = slightly negative
Seniors (50+) = steep decline
The system is mechanically transferring points from adults to juniors. You are not being punished for bad play. You are paying the “deflation tax.”
🧵3/8
I ran a recursive travel-adjusted model on ~189k cross-border classical games from 2025.
Vietnamese players outperform their ratings by 101 Elo. Chinese by 100. Uzbeks by 96.
Conversely, Swiss and Austrian players underperform by –64 Elo when facing foreign opposition.
A 1900 in Hanoi carries competitive strength a 1900 in Vienna does not. Same number. Different skill.
🧵4/8
Elo’s math was designed for a closed pool of 500 elites in 1970.
Today, it manages a turbulent pool of 500,000+ players.
The mechanism built to stabilize ratings is now quietly extracting points from established players to “subsidize” rapid growth in new markets.
🧵5/8
Between 2021 and 2025, the FIDE pool expanded by 47% (165k new classical-rated players).
In federations like India, digital training has decoupled skill from rating. Juniors enter at a discount and “short” the local pool, driving deflation that eventually spills over borders.
Just take a look at the distribution of ratings for players born in 2007!
🧵6/8
GM @LevAronian in the foreword to The Rating Revolution:
“Vlad strips away the biases to show us what is really happening to our ratings. He tackles pressing questions regarding rating deflation […] This work is a product of Vlad’s genuine dedication and his sincere desire for the truth.”
You are not imagining the unfair pairings or the stuck rating.
The data confirms it.
🧵7/8
If this thread explains why the distortions happen, the full book shows how to fix them without throwing away Elo’s foundations.
→ Free preview (the article this thread is based on) + book vladchess.com/rating-revolut…
Poll: Have you lost rating points to an underrated junior in the last year?
What’s your story? Reply below. I read every one.
Thanks for reading!
🧵8/8
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