# Chess scoring

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System of points scoring in the game of chess

This article is about points scored across a series of chess games. For the moves in an individual game, see [Chess notation](/source/Chess_notation) and [Glossary of chess § game score](/source/Glossary_of_chess#game_score).

In [chess](/source/Chess), by far the most common **scoring** system is 1 point for a win, ½ for a [draw](/source/Draw_(chess)), 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:

Format Meaning Example A/B Points scored (A) out of games played (B) "... Fabiano Caruana, is second, with 7.5/11."[1] A–B Points for (A) – points against (B) "Fischer won the tournament... with a score of 18½–4½".[2] 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 =D W 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.[3] +A or −A Number of wins minus number of losses "Fabiano came into the final round on an unbeaten +4".[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

- Occasionally, in a match between two players in which draws do not count, the number of draws may be omitted, or mentioned separately. For instance, the [World Chess Championship 1978](/source/World_Chess_Championship_1978) was won by [Anatoly Karpov](/source/Anatoly_Karpov) by a score of 6 wins to 5, with draws not counting. The match score is usually given as "6–5", or "6–5 with 21 draws".

- Sometimes a [Three points for a win](/source/Three_points_for_a_win) system is used: 3 points for a win, 1 for a draw and 0 for a loss. This is usually shown as the number of points from number of games played, for instance "10 points from 6 games" for 3 wins, 2 losses and 1 draw.

## See also

- [Chess piece relative value](/source/Chess_piece_relative_value)

## References

1. **[^](#cite_ref-1)** [FIDE Chess.com Grand Swiss: Firouzja and Lei triumph in Riga](https://www.fide.com/news/1425), [FIDE](/source/FIDE), 8 Nov 2021

1. **[^](#cite_ref-Horowitz_2-0)** "*From Morphy to Fischer*", [Israel Horowitz](/source/Israel_Horowitz), Batsford, 1973

1. **[^](#cite_ref-3)** [Fischer – Petrosian Candidates Final Match](https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?tid=79446), [Chessgames.com](/source/Chessgames.com)

1. **[^](#cite_ref-4)** [Firouzja wins Grand Swiss | Caruana in Candidates](https://chess24.com/en/read/news/firouzja-wins-grand-swiss-caruana-in-candidates), [chess24.com](/source/Chess24.com), November 8, 2021

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Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Chess scoring](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_scoring) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_scoring?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.