Rating Calculations

Are ratings calculated from your tourney result in comparison to the entire player pool, like certain high-level tourneys?  Or are they calculated just from the games you actually play?

i.e., if you win your first two games in a 5-round USCF-rated tourney on chess.com and then withdraw, do they calculate based from the results of those two games alone, or based on 2 points out of 5 result and the median rating of all players?

Thanks.

No, it's just the games you play.

based only on those two games. I do not believe any high level tournaments do it based on the player pool, only individual games played

All US Chess tournaments are rated game by game. If you withdraw, then that does not impact your rating.

I guess I meant getting norms, which are based on your overall tourney score in relation to the total rating-title pool.  I've been getting some strange results from some of my chess.com uscf tourneys, it seemed to me, which is why I asked.

Norms are based on having a better performance than your expected results based on the post event ratings of your opponents.

http://www.glicko.net/ratings/titles.pdf

But as far as I am aware, norms are only for regular rated OTB play.

If you're seeing weirdness, one thing to keep in mind is that the chess.com rating which is shown when you play the game is not the same as the USCF online ratings. Like, if you beat me right now in online blitz, I'd show up as 1608 when you played me, but my USCF online blitz rating is only 1346, and that's what would be used when calculating your own online blitz rating.

Yes, I'm aware, and it's not that.

So in uscf tournements, the rating adjusts whether you win or lose. Even if you withdraw the tournement that you are playing in at even the last second you withdraw then you can't play and nothing impacts your rating. Usally, this is how it works.