What does it take to get to 2000 USCF?

I’ve won some titles and tournaments that were important to me, but being able to say that my USCF rating starts with a 2 is something more universally important than most of my tournament victories. 

Ratings do mean a lot, in my opinion, because they give a very good idea how to match players in tournaments. I know for sure if a person's rating is truthful no cheating,  my chances of winning against a 2000 player are very very slim!  So matching up players in certain rating divisions is a good way to give player of all rating a chance, other wise lower rated players would just loose interest in even playing the game!

Funny how a forum from 2011 is still active... sorry for the irrelevance xD

I recently achieved 2000 USCF. It's just experience, openings, strategical devices, tactics, etc. There will come the day when something clicks and you go from 1800 to 2000 instantly.

I havent achieved 2000 OTB but then again I dont play much OTB anymore and dont intend to. Its hard for me to get excited about playng in most OTB events. Most of them have the same problem most online events have in that there isnt anything special about winning them.....you win a little bit of prize money and gain some rating points.....thats it. I guess that can be meaningful to some but the thing is I have won so many class prizes over the years that I dont get any special joy from winning them anymore and its a great disappointment when I dont.. That said there are a few events that I can still get excited about. The Georgia State Championship since winning that one comes with the title of Georgia State Champion, Amateur team championship since winning that one qualifies for the national team championship and would give me and my team he chance to become national champons, US open since if I win that I can qualify for the US championship. I can see you all rolling your eyes on that last one, but the possibility no matter how small makes it interesting to me. Maybe there are a few more....maybe the world open for the large prize fund involved but in general its a more rewarding experience for me to play training games with titled players which often costs less than playing in some random OTB tournament. I also enjoy playing in the team 45+45 league on FICS where my rating is 2000 on the money. I would like to increase my rating there to about 2400. The number isnt imporant to me but 2400 would be about what it would take to play board one in the highest division on fics and it would give me a lot of pleasure if I can achieve that. Another thing that motivates me more than achieving some number is what happens on the chess board.......like if I can demonstrate the endgame technique of a master in converting the full point with the bishop pair against two knights or playing a model game in some opening or successfully employing a positional sacrifice of some sort. I guess these are the sort of things one needs to do to get to 2000 and beyond but actually doing these things is more rewarding to me than achieving the number if that makes sense.

What does it take to get to 2000 USCF?

What it means is that you are an expert with a floor of 1800. Only those of us with floors at 1700 can truly appreciate our failure to reach this level, especially when we have been one or two wins away.

i did a study on the average uscf if anyone's interested on my blog and it's a lower than what the number shown on uscf profiles is because that number only takes into account currently active players and is for that. the actual average is around 750 for folks who do get rated because they're a lot of scholastic players who play while they're in school but unfortunately don't keep with it. as for hitting 2000 and how to get there, i reckon the more one trains the more learns and sees. i know at about 1700 or 1800 right now my play can spring up to almost that when i'm doing tactics puzzles/have got enough sleep and am in the right state of mind where i'm not rushing and am thinking about things in terms of best moves and not reacting on instinct. like i see more stuff when i'm thinking creatively and the puzzles help me to more and to do/see better things in games. and if i wait a minute more to look for a better move i do pretty good usually because i'll see the situation more for what it is then because of that. like idk but 2000 i reckon in time /if i keep working at it. because i've got up about 200 points since getting back into playing a year and a half ago and am now 50/50 about with 17's and 25 percent with 18's and 1/6 ing often against 1900's and 2000's whereas before i was probably about 1500 or 1600 and at my best 17. I play in the members club on here too and i think that helps a lot too because i get to pretty consistently/pretty often play against people in the upper levels that are working out the kinks in their games. like i see their patterns and can instinctually start to see how to respond after playing them some because i see how they attack me and i attack them and how they avoid things and counterattack.

Good response KGreen,  not reacting to instinct, and working puzzles is a good suggestion. I have taken up to 1 hour trying to figure one puzzle out, not looking at the correct answer.  I know that is way too long but finally figuring out the solution still makes me feel rewarded.