Levon Aronian shared his opinion on the Elo rating system. Aronian believes the system should be updated, and belives that retaining rating while inactive is bad for chess.

Levon Aronian

Levon Aronian

American GM

“From chess professionals’ perspective, we definitely need Elo reform.

That’s something that we need because the fact that you can be inactive for a long time and not lose any rating is kind of counterintuitive. It’s not good for the development of the sport, especially in a view that you want to promote the young active players. And then you have some people who are just not playing at all but retaining their rating. That’s not the way to go, I think.

I think for any candidate, they should definitely come up with some measures for inactivity. Let’s say by default, if you don’t play 10 games a year — more or less like two tournaments — then you lose about 20 rating points.

If somebody decided to retire — their rating stays the same unless they want to come back and then it’s all calculated. Just so you can gracefully retire. But if you’re not retiring and keeping your spot and practically not playing, but keeping your image, that’s not good for the sport.”

Currently, 35 players have a rating of 2700+ including 3 inactive players. Garry Kasparov (2812) ranks 2nd in the world, Vladimir Kramnik (2753) 12th, and Sergey Karjakin (2750) 14th. In 2025, No. 1 Magnus Carlsen played 16 games across 4 tournaments, and in 2026, 17 games across 2 tournaments.

Credit: Michal Walusza / FIDE