Chess scoring

In chess, by far the most common scoring system is 1 point for a win, ½ for a draw, and 0 for a loss.

A number of different notations are used to denote a player's score in a match or tournament, or their long-term record against a particular opponent. The most common are:

FormatMeaningExample
A/BPoints scored (A) out of games played (B)"... Fabiano Caruana, is second, with 7.5/11."
A–BPoints for (A) – points against (B)"Fischer won the tournament... with a score of 18½–4½". The games played is the sum of the "for" and "against" scores, so in this case, Fischer scored 18½ points from 23 games played.
+W −L =DW wins, L losses, D draws"Fischer 6.5/9 (+5 −1 =3)", meaning Fischer scored 5 wins, 1 loss and 3 draws for a total of 6.5 points out of 9.
+A or −ANumber of wins minus number of losses"Fabiano came into the final round on an unbeaten +4". This refers to Caruana scoring 7 points in the first 10 rounds of the FIDE Grand Swiss Tournament 2021, which meant 3 points were scored against him, and 7 minus 3 is equal to +4.

Less common systems

See also

References