I'm better than my rating...

you are only better than your rating when you already played many chess games and you just recently join (as beginner) a tournament. After many tournaments, the rating is somewhat accurate.

I once resigned during the early stages of opening because the opponent was taking for ages to play. I got too bored. 

Everybody looks at their ratings--------if yu give up on a boring game  that is just an excuse you were losing lol.

because if they believe that you are NOT better than your rating, the implication is tha THEY are WORSE than their rating for losing to you.

Thing is, often people dont play many OTB games. I hadn't played OTB in a loooonnnggg time, but I kept studying and playing chess. When I went back to OTB I was rated 1370? I knew I was much better than this. I played in the lower section and won every game. I went up to 1560 afterward. It was my best tourney but I knew I was going to perform well. So sometimes if you haven't played in a while, or often, things can change. But if you're playing every week, dont tell people you're higher than your rating. XD

I can think of one exception.  I played in a couple youth tournaments before I graduated, but since comming to college my USCF membership has become expired.  I've improved my rating here by about 100 points since I've played in a tourney and so I'd like to think that I would play a bit better than my current OTB rating of under 1000 if I were to become active again.

People obsess over ratings too much. Its simply a number which estimates playing strength. It can be a good estimate or a bad estimate. At the end of the day though... its a number. It has no bearing on the result of the game, if you play better you will win. Its as simple as that.

It should also be noted some regions will have slightly inflated or deflated ratings when compared. This is due to internal leagues for that region or chess club.

For example... At age 18 my rating was around 1400. That year Monmouth Played Cardiff in the WCU Junior Cup. The Cardiff team had at least 200 grading points advantage on every single board. Monmouth won the match 3.5-0.5.

This is the same year I quit chess because my club folded and I missed out on Wales u/18 selection based entirely on my low rating. I quit for 6 years, I didn't play a single competative chess game in this time. When I started to play again my new rating jumped to almost 1900. That is an almost 500 point increase! My grade has remained stable at this level in the last grading list.

I have learned to have a healthy skepticism when it comes to grades since.

I played the first two tournaments badly, because I wasn't used to OTB chess and got a very low rating. In the recent games I often beat opponents who were about double of my rating and had to kind of apologize after the game.

" This is due to internal leagues for that region or chess club."

Like 1200 USCF in New York being around 1400 USCF in Idaho or whatever?  I can see that happening before the computer age, but with the internet and Amazon widely available to everyone (therefore the "I don't have that book at my local bookstore" excuse doesn't hold water any more) the regional variances in playing strength and rating would have narrowed. Well at least theoretically. 

"I quit for 6 years, I didn't play a single competative chess game in this time. When I started to play again my new rating jumped to almost 1900."

That's an exceptional and understandable case, but most people who claim to be better than their rating usually aren't.  People fool themselves into thinking they're ready for xyz book that won't help them (maybe I fall into this trap?) before grasping necessary basics. 

Even good players may dream or be careless sometimes:

However we all have bad habits we need to weed out if we're to advance. 

lol +1

I'm afraid the start of this thread is nonsense. Given how poorly this site works, it happens very frequently that people are in a winning position, disconnected and then run out of time before they can reconnect. That being the case, it's entirely possible that some players should be better (or worse) than their rating.

As long as the very frequent bugs aren't fixed, the premise "you're as good as your rating" just doesn't hold.