Whats a USCF rating and how do I get one?
A. A USCF rating is a national rating score by the chess federation. A chess rating is an estimate of your playing strength based on prior results. Before completing 20 games, your rating is provisional and changes drastically after winning or losing. Later, ratings change incrementally based on your result and the rating of your opponent. (You gain from 1 to about 40 points for winning a game.) USCF assigns ratings to members who play in official tournaments. Ratings range from 100 to around 2800. You can lose rating points as well as gaining them (unlike in bridge) but you cannot lose your USCF rating. Once rated, always rated. There are also separate ratings for various chess organizations from the international chess body, FIDE to Internet chess clubs. Chessplayers often worry or obsess over their rating, because it determines pairings, which tournaments they can play in and reflects their current playing strength, so much that one professional player compared losing 10 rating poin
