Characterizing Rating Levels

 I don't see how anyone who works with tactical puzzles much could ever think that any 1600-1700 player "rarely" misses tactics. They might feel like they're not missing them, but they are. 

Nice post. My categorization : 600-800 = just learned to move the pieces and how to make a simple checkmate. Has no tactical knolodge and leave pieces hanging. 800-1000 =>will try scholar mate in every game, knows how to fork with a knight. Don't follow the opening principles 1000-1200 => start following opening principles, stop trying scholar mate or similar tricks in the opening. Are more tactical aware, and don't leave pieces hanging, but tend not to pay attention to the opponents threats. 1300 => follows the opening principles. Start to pay more attention to the opponents threats and tactics. Start to understand some basic positional concepts, like open files and outposts, but don't really know how to use them. I am 1300 now, so I can't say what come next.

looking up an opening in the middle of a game is totally cheating

For some reason on this chart my knowledge is about 1350 as I know a few openings and forks and mates in 1 but my rating is 250 ._. bruh

For me i think this was some of it, but is a lot more

Below 800: not consistently seeing or looking for forks, skewers and pins. not developing in the center, not castling, not taking back even material/taking back when possible, pushing pawns in front of castled king, not watching for basic mating attacks on weak squares (h7, h2, f7, f2 often) and corridor checkmates, learning how to do a rook and king checkmate/avoid stalemate

800-1000, seeing forks, skewers and pins more regularly/consistently that i and my opponent can do, looking for tactical ideas that will get me up material, trading off material once up and not when down, learning how to manuever pieces into positions/places where i can attack them more, learning how to finish an end game position/stopped past pawns, make my own past pawns and use them to my advantage, learning how to hold being up a pawn and not losing it, learning basic development theory and developing all my knights and bishops regularly into the game and using them to pin/fork pieces. learning/playing with one opening consistently enough to see/learn the positions that come from it/beginning to learn how i want to respond and play in response to other types of openings potentially and try to avoid them (d4 and e4 namely, i started playing caro kann to avoid e4, e5 but kept d5 for a long time and would end up in cramped positions i didn't like with qgd)

1000-1200: Learning not to end up down a pawn on trades and lose in the endgame from that, becoming immune to dropping pieces/making blunders/while seeing and finding opponent's mistakes/opportunties to launch a tactical attack. learning how to finish a game/keep the material advantage. trading primarily to do so, but still learning endgames and not knowing or understanding much about weak/strong squares and pieces. pet opening/positions desired from it becoming a thing, but not responses to all types of opening moves yet, developing/playing in the center and for it but not necessarily knowing how to control/keep it yet.

1200-1400: i'm not really sure, i kind of skipped this phase merged it with the phase after and the phase below. i think during this period i just got more consistent with my play so that i wasnt messing up consistently and was seeing/playing better. i only recently got this otb in regular but was a lot higher then that/still not at my peak possible/likely in regular otb. i'd say this is where the game begins getting harder though and one starts getting annoyed/frustrated because one isn't quite good yet but isn't bad either. i started playing with openings i think maybe around this point and 1400-1500 more and trying out weird wild stuff to try and get different stuff/find tactical breaks/possibilities that my opponents would miss because they were more used to regular normal stuff then flank pawn openings and van geet. and it worked some but also basically disobeyed all the regular principles/ideas that are arguably important in any form of longer chess than blitz/bullet. but started doing those about this point i think/figuring out bongcloud positions and how to castle without getting to castle and stuff like that, while learning the positions/patterns that higher level players would use/play to control the center and the board

1400-1600: i came back in after hiatus around this level i think on the low end and got higher by learning/choosing an opening to consistently control the center and switching over from saragossa to english quickly went up a lot of points. i also got more consistent, learned some endgame skills/positions/understanding a lot more, as well as middle game ideas/plans and began to do what my opponents would to win, using and making passed pawns, and attacks on castled kings and over the course of a year maybe or a year and a half climbed up into the next level where i'm at now which is

arguably the 1600-1800 range, where i've learned what are strong/weak pieces and how to launch an attack, make a plan and outthink/outguess what my opponent is likely to do/plan moves to try and stop it. i'm still not good at knowing how to control the center always/how to use waiting moves/certain endgame techniques/positions but am consistently active in my positions now instead of passive and fighting for the center/to break thru to get attacks while defending as actively as i can. learning some endgame theory still though/how to trade down into winning positions from the middle game and don't know how that breaks down too well always but know some winning positions/combos/can spot them in a game making me dangerous to players at a and expert level. i get about 1/3 against 1800 level players and 1/6 against both 1900s and 2000s. i also learned the power of the bishop pair, diagonals, open files, open diagonals, rooks on the 7th, weakness of isolated pawns, forever knights and knights vs bishops in games and positions in terms of what you do and don't want when a lot more and why it matters what your opponent has and what the board position is, when it comes to what you want, i also learned how to stalemate (at least sometimes) against king and single pawn, and how to stop/deal with rook pawns. got a lot more to learn but on a good day am up in 1800 USCF level, and on a regular one around 1600-1799.

This is largely discriminated. In lichess, I'm at 780-800 and I can do endgames, I know some of the e4 and d4 openings, and I love tactics.

*use tactics