Ratings USCF

Two cases:

#1 : Getting magically "rated" 2000+ Pre-Tournament:

I've seen this done for international players who just "join" the USCF circuit ... their rating (verified of course) from another approved federation (FIDE, ECF etc.) can get ported over to USCF. 

One actual example is a former colleague of mine who was originally playing in Sri Lanka (FIDE 2200+) ... he played his first USCF tourney at our club with a rather huge "starting" rating.

http://www.uschess.org/msa/MbrDtlMain.php?13431563

Seems completely legit in this case.

However => If there's no evidence-based verification/justification and the rating gets pre-set subjectively for a kid who never played a rated tournament period, that sounds extremely shady and needs to get reported to the USCF right away (Speaking as a former local TD)

#2 : Getting a 2000 Rating from the Federation Post-Tournament based on your results/performance:

Of course it can happen in just one tournament! Said unrated player walks in, scalps 4 players in the 1600 range (winning 4-0) in a 4 round tournament and that's pretty much enough for the provisional rating formula of USCF to award him a 2000 rating (approx.!)

If you're not convinced, go to the USCF Ratings Estimator and plug in 4 x 1600s, a 4-0 score and set # of prior games = 0.

It is typical for players (who were strong before they played their first rated tourney game)  to start out "higher" and shoot up the ladder faster than weaker players because this "honeymoon" provisional phase (about 20-30 games) allows larger "jumps" in ratings based on a good tournament score.

I wonder if you can get a national master title with a provisional rating. For example lets say a player goes to a strong chess club during college, never has played a rated game, and there are a lot of strong players there, some in the rating range of 2000-2400 USCF. For arguments sake lets suppose that he gets really good and eventually is persuaded to play in a local rated tournament with some of those top players. 5 rounds, the players rated 2000, 2150, 2250, 2300, and 2400. He wins against the 2000, loses against the 2400, and draws the other 3 for a score of 2.5/5. He gets an estimated rating of 2220 with 5 games played ( maybe had a once in a life time tournament!). Is he eligible for the national master title? Seems like a potentially easier time to get the title to me if all goes well. Just curious. As for giving a rating with no gams played I have never heard of it before but I don't know much about that kind of thing. Maybe there is a TD here who could answer.

you have to maintain 2200 or higher rating for 25 games. once the provisional is over you are granted the title.

I think that makes sense redchessman, thank you for the info!

The 25 game requirement I believe is for FIDE not USCF.  I have a few friends locally here who got their master title the minute they topped 2200.  (They make a big deal about that in the club here).  No player starts with a rating, it is based on your results against other players.  Provisionally rated players will be rated +/- 400 points in relation to their opponent.  If they beat a 1600 in their first game, they will start off 2000.  If they have no games played in USCF, a TD cannot just arbitrarily assign a rating, they will be unr or unrated.  The TD may have assigned it just to fairly place the person in the correct group (like avoiding under 1600, etc) based on known strength or as someone said above it can be imported from foreign ratings (typically FIDE) but a TD cannot assign ratings.  Ratings are not given to people they are only akin to a win loss record.

To clarify, there is a 25 game requirement for provisionaly rated players only, so the player would have to be rated over 2200 at the end of the 25 games, not the entire time.