Provisional rating

Provisional / established is based on RD. Once your RD gets below a certain level, your rating is considered established. I think the setting on lichess is 110. Your RD goes down when you play and up when you don't play. It takes consistent play to earn and keep an established rating.

Are you sure that inactivity thing is the case? I see a lot of profiles where someone has 100 games in a variant, but they haven't played in a while, but they don't have a provisional rating. From experience, it's difficult to get a provisional rating again once you've shed it.

For example: @AstanehChess's three-check. Or, do you have to play another game, and then you get slapped with it?

I think the rating becomes provisional again if you play a lot of games against much weaker/stronger players because that increases rating deviation. Im not sure though :/

#14 Yes, that creates a lot of deviation in your rating, which makes the algorithm unsure that it's correct, etc. And if it's extreme, it may go above the threshold to make your rating provisional again.

Yes, I'm sure. RD definitely goes up when you don't play. However, it is up to the site whether it turns your rating back into a provisional or other type of rating. On other sites, it's much easier to find this information. It's not so easy on lichess, unfortunately. On other sites (FICS for example), the threshold is 80, and if your RD goes below 80 and then back above it, your rating is considered "estimated" rather than provisional or established.

Thank you for the information! There might be a cap to the RD added for inactivity on lichess.

Oh I see thanks for the answers1

#11 is right. I dug through lila's code and found the RD threshold.

github.com/ornicar/lila/blob/e4760befcc49766e1b3c2a3f21396e2998677d67/modules/rating/src/main/Glicko.scala#L44

The actual check occurs on line 20 in the same file.

He's right about the threshold, yes.