percentiles?

What does percentile mean next to your rating?

I'm not a statistician, but a percentile is one of 100 units into which any given population can be broken for reporting purposes.

If your rating is in the 75th percentile, your rating falls within a group higher than 74% of the other players in the population.

I could be off by a percent or so, or may not have described it well, but that should be the gist of it.

That's about it. Strictly speaking, if you're in the 75th percentile you're better than 75% of the population. That's why you never see a percentile value of 100 - you are also part of the population, and you can't be better than yourself.

That said, not everyone uses percentiles in their strictest sense, so you could still be correct. Either way the difference is just a technicality.

Or if you want it explained as if you were 5.

Imagine 100 levels. Level 1 is the lowest, and level 100 is the highest. Each player is assigned a level depending on their rating. The lowest rated group of players are at 1, and the highest rated players are at 100.

If your percentile is about 50, then you're in the middle. Half of the players have a rating worse than yours, and half have a rating better than yours.

If you're at 75, then most players have a rating less than yours. About 1 out of 4 will have a higher rating.

Thanks guys))

Chess.com breaks down percentiles to tenths. They also list top players as at the 100th percentile. Obviously, with 947 higher rated players, this player is not rated above 100% of the site's members, but that is rounded to the nearest tenth.