Now, I play in USCF tourneys with a respectable rating. But, this rating has become one of my primary, if not THE primary reason i go. I played chess originally at tourneys because it was fun but ratings added an entirely new level of stress to the mix. Are ratings the only reason that we play this game?!

People play OTB chess in large part because the games are rated.  The main reason people have joined USCF since they started rating games is to get a rating.

Of course the game itself, and the competition, should be big factors, but people certainly do care about ratings.

I'm sure there are many more reasons why people play chess. My rating here is 1969 but over at IECC I'm about 1569 and still active there despite the way lower rating. Of course I'm interested in improving my rating wherever I play, but I'd probably play chess even if there were no ratings at all.

Well, the ELO ratings were introduced around 1970, and people had played chess for quite a long time before that.

USCF began rating tournament games in 1950 using the old Harkness System (who also devised one of the early tiebreak systems for Swiss events) and adopted the system proposed by Elo in 1960. The British also began using a rating system for amateur tournament games in the same time frame, although it was completely different from the USCF systems.  It was the popularity and practical usefulness of these ratings systems which led FIDE to adopt the Elo system.

Everyone is rated anyway, by the games they play.

If some guy is winning everyone else at the club then you "rate" him by saying: "that guy is pretty damn good". Having an Elo rating just makes it a lot more accurate and objective than that.

There's nothing wrong with the truth. Having a higher chess rating doesn't make you a "superior" person, it just means something about your chess play.

Also here's something I only noticed recently: You know how in class there is a band for the As, a band for the Bs, Cs, Ds, etc.? So there will always be students who get Ds no matter how good all the students get?

This isn't necessarily the case in chess. If everyone was good enough, everyone could have a rating over 2000. It would be relative to the people on 2400, and their rating would be relative to the people on 2800. So ratings are really not that cut-throat.

Improving your ratings is like leveling up in an MMORPG

It's rewarding to see an evolution, everybody likes to receive an aknowledgement for their hard work and the ratings are sort of an aknowledgement.

Well, a rating is a polaroid picture of your playing abilities at one given time. It's nice to hear you are using it to monitor your progress and to motivate yourself in the process.. Don't get discouraged to quickly. Set reasonable and reachable goals and work hard. Good luck, mate.

Elo ratings weren't introduced in 1970, having been around for about ten years, and Elo rating lists were published in the USCF organ in those years. These included international lists that Elo worked up from international tournaments.

FIDE adopted the Elo system about 1970. I believe the first one was in late 1969--wikipedia may be off a little when it says the first FIDE list was in 1970.

Also fwiw, "ELO" is just as acceptable as "Elo" in official chess terminology.

One thing that I am certain of is that calling it "Elo" without further qualification is incorrect, since after all there is a distinction between a person who invented something and the invention.

Imagine: "My Fezzik is low."

"He has a huge Fezzik."

The first thing I read was "He has a huge Fezzik."

a huge  ...what?

Couldn't resist that one.

Thomas Crapper would agree.

Well, while I DO have a "Huge Fezzik," that's hardly the point...

What I'm trying to say is that we seem to only play the game to get rated. It's certainly a larger factor than the fun involved. I mean, if ratings went away, would we still play, or pledge our allegiance to Checkers?

I enjoy this humorous thread more than the other one on religion,