USCF Ratings Question

I figured I would just ask you guys this...

Hypothetically speaking (as I haven't done this YET ), let's say that I were to play 40 games in various USCF sanctioned tournaments and I did terrible. Now, let's say my rating ended up being 1100 after those 40 games.

My question is: Would it be hard to increase my rating from that point on, just because I did so poorly in those first 40 games? Or would it be realtively easy, once I got better, to work my way up?

After your rating's non-provisional (25 games in) below the 2100 level they change quickly if you perform much better (or worse) than expected. Changes of 50-100 points in one weekend are not uncommon--so I wouldn't worry about that.

No. It wouldn't be hard. Your rating would move up or down based on your wins/ losses and just as important-the ranking of your opponents. You can go to the uscf website and play with the ratings estimator. Here you can put in the rankings of your opponents or "hypothetical opponents" and your overall score from a given tournament. Then it will give you an estimated new rating so you can see the effects it would have on your rating.

Thanks guys, that answered my question perfectly.

Here's my ratings graph if your interested.

http://main.uschess.org/datapage/ratings_graph.php?memid=13134141

Definitely. Thanks for letting me look at it. That helps explain a lot as well. Did you start out after your provisional period in the 700s?

No, that was my first provisional rating. My first regular rating was 1030ish. Your rating over time will look like a stock. Overall you will go up, with small fluctuations here and there. Of course, don't get caught in the housing bubble :)

I'll try not to - thanks for the advice lol.