In chess, by far the most common scoring system is 1 point for a win, ½ for a draw, and 0 for a loss.
A number of different notations are used to denote a player's score in a match or tournament, or their long-term record against a particular opponent. The most common are:
| Format | Meaning | Example |
| A/B | Points scored (A) out of games played (B) | "... Fabiano Caruana, is second, with 7.5/11."[1] |
| A–B | Points for (A) – Points against (B) | "Fischer won the tournament... with a score of 18½–4½".[2] The games played is the sum of the "for" and "against" scores, so in this case, Fischer scored 18½ points from 23 games played. |
| +W −L =D | W wins, L losses, D draws | "Fischer 6.5/9 (+5 −1 =3)", meaning Fischer scored 5 wins, 1 loss and 3 draws for a total of 6.5 points out of 9.[3] |
| +A or −A | Number of wins minus number of losses | "Fabiano came into the final round on an unbeaten +4".[4] This refers to Caruana scoring 7 points in the first 10 rounds of the FIDE Grand Swiss Tournament 2021, which meant 3 points were scored against him, and 7 minus 3 is equal to +4. |
