Climber

2026

Up and to the right. Your rating ended the year well above where it started - this was your breakout year.

What a Climber is

A Climber is a player on the way up. Maybe it was study, maybe more games, maybe the openings finally clicked; the year ended with a rating clearly higher than it began. Climbers often remember the exact game where things changed. The story lets you see the whole line at once: the slow start, the plateaus and the jump that made it a breakout year.

How Chess Year spots it

Chess Year finds the rating pool where you played the most rated games, for example Lichess blitz or Chess.com rapid, and compares your rating in the first game of the year in that pool with your rating in the last. A gain of 150 points or more qualifies as Climber, and a bigger gain makes it stronger: 300 points is twice as strong as 150. You also need at least 20 games in the year.

What your story shows

The rating card draws your line through the year with the start, the peak and the finish marked. The highlights card may find your biggest upset, the rated win against the opponent rated furthest above you, which is often a milestone on the way up. The personality card shows a pawn and a queen: the pawn that made it to the last rank.

Close relatives

A Climber who also plays a lot can score as a Grinder, and a Climber who plays mostly bullet can come out as a Bullet Brain; the strongest trait wins. Only the main pool counts, so a player who improved in rapid but played most games in blitz is measured on blitz. Rating drops never make a personality - the card stays kind.