One Chess Rating to Rule Them All—But Haven't We Been Here Before?

Chess already has three different rating lists, not including national rating systems, several world championships, and no shortage of arguments about which title is the most important.

Now it has another way of settling the debate. Or, at least, trying to.

The organisers of the new Total Chess World Championship Tour have unveiled a universal rating system designed to measure players' strength across classical, rapid and blitz chess.

And the first rankings have produced a familiar name at the top.

GM Magnus Carlsen leads with a combined rating of 2830, seven points higher than his FIDE classical rating (see the latest live ratings here) and comfortably ahead of his old rival GM Hikaru Nakamura on 2779 and GM Nodirbek Abdusattorov on 2774.

GM Alireza Firouzja is fourth on 2765, while man of the moment GM Javokhir Sindarov, who has his head down right now preparing to challenge GM Gukesh D for the classical world title next month, completes the top five on 2753.

Meanwhile, Gukesh, who has struggled for form this year, has a Total Chess rating of 2686.

The rankings offer an intriguing snapshot of modern chess, in which the reigning classical world champion is not necessarily the player considered strongest across all formats.

But they also raise a question: does chess really need another rating system?

How does the Total Chess rating work?

The new system has been developed by game theorist Dr Mehmet Mars Seven of King's College London, working with Norway Chess founder Kjell Madland.

It takes a player's existing FIDE classical, rapid and blitz ratings and combines them into a single number.

Crucially, it does not simply calculate their average.

Because the Elo rating system is logarithmic, the formula first converts each rating into a measure of playing strength, averages those values and then converts the result back into an Elo rating.

For example, Carlsen's October ratings of 2823 classical, 2801 rapid and 2860 blitz produce a combined rating of 2830.

Gukesh's ratings of 2710, 2686 and 2659 produce a Total Chess rating of 2686.

According to the organisers' calculations, the difference means Carlsen would be expected to score approximately 70 points from 100 games against Gukesh in a hypothetical contest combining the three formats.

It is a mathematical estimate, of course, rather than a prediction of an actual match.

Didn't the Grand Chess Tour already try this?

Yes. And this is where the story becomes particularly interesting.

Back in 2017, the Grand Chess Tour introduced its own Universal Rating System, or URS, combining classical, rapid and blitz results into a single ranking.

Developed by a team of statisticians, it was used to help determine invitations and seedings for the Tour.

The ambition was much the same: to establish a more complete picture of playing strength at a time when elite chess was becoming increasingly dominated by faster formats.

But although the system found a role within the Grand Chess Tour, it never displaced FIDE's established ratings or became the universally accepted measure of who was best. Right now, its webpage seems defunct: https://universalrating.com/ratings.php.

Almost a decade later, Total Chess is having another go.

Its mathematical approach is different, and the organisers have published the methodology for public scrutiny.

But the underlying challenge remains the same: persuading players, organisers and fans that a single combined number is more useful than the three ratings they already understand.

Is the Total Chess rating official?

Not yet.

The Total Chess Rating is independent of FIDE's official classical, rapid and blitz lists. FIDE will observe the system during its pilot period, but has not formally adopted it.

The organisers are inviting public feedback ahead of November's 24-player Total Chess pilot tournament in Budapest, which will combine Fast Classic, rapid and blitz.

The full FIDE-approved World Championship Tour is scheduled to begin in 2027, with the ambition of crowning a World Combined Champion.

There are still questions to answer.

Should classical, rapid and blitz carry equal weight? Can one number meaningfully compare players whose strengths vary considerably between formats? And will the new rankings prove any more influential than the Grand Chess Tour's earlier experiment?

For now, at least, the answer to one question remains the same, as it has for more than 15 years: Carlsen is still the world's strongest player.

Total Chess has simply found another way of saying so.