How the rating is calculated
Every athlete has a rating, recalculated after each tournament.
01Principle
A win raises the rating, a loss lowers it. Beating a higher-rated opponent earns more than beating a lower-rated one.
The calculation uses Glicko-2, a variant of the chess Elo system, which gives every rating a margin of error: large at first, it shrinks with every match. On the site, the rating is called “Elo”, and the margin is shown as reliability, from 0 to 100%: the smaller the margin, the higher the reliability.
The upset is worth 8 times more than the expected result.
02Match simulator
Athlete A
Athlete B
With equal margins, a 200-point gap gives the higher-rated athlete about a 75% chance of winning. The larger the margin (lower reliability), the more the rating moves after a match.
03Starting rating
A new competitor starts at their belt's starting rating with a margin of error of ± 250 (reliability 46%). The gaps between belts were measured on thousands of matches between different belts (open class, mixed divisions): from one belt to the next, the higher belt wins about 6 times out of 10. A competitor whose belt is never known starts from the level of their divisions when they have one (beginner: white, intermediate: blue, advanced: purple), otherwise slightly above a white belt.
Promotion
On promotion, the rating gains 50 points and the margin of error goes back up to at least ± 100 (reliability 88% at most): the first matches at the new belt place it quickly. There is no forced jump to the new belt's starting rating: a recent promotee isn't yet at their new belt's average level.
04Example season
Rating of a fictional blue belt over six tournaments. Clicking a match flips its result and recalculates the rating.
Ranked from: Open de Lyon.
Matches from the same tournament are calculated together, from the ratings before the tournament. Without matches, the margin of error slowly grows and reliability drops.
05Matches taken into account
Win method
A win by submission, points or advantages has the same effect on the rating.
Walkovers and disqualifications
Walkovers are not counted. Disqualifications count as losses.
Open class
Absolute matches count like any other match.
Gi, No-Gi and combined
Three ratings are calculated separately: Gi, No-Gi, and a combined rating that includes all matches.
Age groups
Only adult and master matches are used. Kids and juvenile matches are not collected.
CFJJB results
CFJJB publishes brackets and podiums but not individual matches. Matches are reconstructed from this information.
06Conditions for being ranked
Everyone has a rating from their first match. To appear in a category's rankings (Gi, No-Gi or combined), all three are needed:
For black belts, the world rankings also require a connection to the international circuit (IBJJF, AJP, UAEJJF), Gi and No-Gi combined: 3 international matches, or 3 different opponents with at least 5. A closed circuit inflates its regulars' ratings, for lack of a comparison with the rest of the world. Country rankings don't have this condition.
07How accurate the ratings are
To check the ratings, we replay every match of the last 12 months knowing only what was known before it, and compare the prediction with the result.
Announced chances come true
When a favourite is given 70%, they should win about 7 times out of 10. Each line compares the chances announced before the match (shaded area) with the favourite’s actual share of wins.
Jiu-jitsu keeps a share of the unexpected: a mistake, a surprise submission, a referee call. Even well tuned, a rating can’t call every match; it tells who is more likely to win, and those chances are accurate.
Measured in the November 11, 2026 computation, recomputed every night.
08Club rankings
A club's score is the average rating of its 10 best ranked athletes in the chosen category (Gi, No-Gi or combined). A club needs at least 5 ranked athletes to appear. Athletes count for the club of their latest competition, and only ranked athletes count: an uncertain rating can't lift a club.
09Sources
Results come from IBJJF, AJP and UAEJJF (Abu Dhabi), Smoothcomp and CFJJB publications. When an athlete appears more than once, their profiles are combined if the name and club match, if the profile photo is the same, or if the name is identical, rare and from the same country.
IBJJF removes brackets from older tournaments, so some older matches may be missing. All ratings, including past ones, are recalculated whenever data is added.
An error in the results, a missing event?