when i win a game i sometimes get 10 points 20 points 100 points its all differ why is that?

You mean rating points?

The higher the rating difference, more points you get/lose.


While provisional (under 20 rated games) big jumps are possible, after that you can lose or gain 32 points at most.



Here are the exact formulas:

This message has been edited. Last edited by: ebutaljib,

Basically, when you first start chess master, you make an account. The computer doesn't know what your rating is, so it gives you a default. Well, if you play at around 2400, its going to be a long time before you get your default rating of 1200? up to what you should really play at right? so the first few games, when you win a opponent much better than you, it will bump you up a good hundred points or so, this way it'll only take a few games to get close to your real playing level. And as you do get close to your real playing level, the game designers wanted the score to stay accurate, so after the first 20 rated games, you can only gain 32 points at most, and usually less.

Yes, more games you play, more does that number approximate your real strength, so the maximum gain/loss of rating points in a single game decreases very fast. For example you can gain maximum 800 points in the first game, but only maximum 80 points in the 10th game.


While provisional you can only play opponents that are maximum 400 points higher rated than you. After that Chessmaster allows you to play against anybody, but in reallity players that are too much apart shouldn't play rated games (in such cases FIDE calculates as if the players were 350 points apart).


So if you would play your first game with opponent that is exactly 400 points higer rated and win, you would gain 800 points. Lets say that in the next game you will again play an opponent that is 400 points higher rated (and would win again), then your rating would climb "only" 400 points. After that (assuming that you would always play exactly 400 points higher rated opponent and would always win) your rating would increase 267, 200, 160, 133, 114, 100, 89, 80, 73, 67, 62, 57, 53, 50, 47, 44, 42 and 40 points.

After that standard rating formula is used where you can gain maximum 32 points (if you play opponents that are more than 800 points above you )



P.S.: While provisional, don't play opponents that are more than 400 points lower rated than you, because you will lose points even if you win