How low can a rating be?

Are there any limits to the chess rating?

The short answer is yes, the longer answer is no. Chess rating's ceiling is limited by the system that is used to determine it and the players involved.

In terms of an absolute ceiling, as long as the right combination of players seperate themselves above the rest and then begin beating each other, while one clearly dominates the rest, except for a close second, unless the system includes a built in safe guard to keep the numbers within a certain confines. This actually makes me think of when Kasparov and Karpov were above all comers and Kasparov having at the time, the highest ever rating.

Currently, the lowest possible USCF rating is 100. (I don't think it's always been that way, though.)

So that explains how a 1800 (exact) could lose all three games in a quad and still have the same rating. I had seen this and thought that he must have played so many games that the losses did not affect their rating.