The first initial rating is arbitrarily decided by the tournament director. S/he has the right to give any rating above 100. Some TDs are awarding fixed rating to any newcomers: 100, 300, and etc. Some will decide based on your first tournament performance. If you are signing up a section that has very high average rating, and performing half and half, they will award you the average rating or anything similar right away. Even if you have lost all your games, they will still give you a rating close to the lowest rating in the section, in the consideration that you know what you are signing up so you should be around that strength level.
We often see unrated players in a high rated section. Do not be surprise that they won the section. Most time they come from other countries, such as India, China or Europe. They are already strong players, just with no USCF ratings.
Therefore initial rating can have big difference, depending on the TDs, sections and initial performance.
Anyway, USCF considers that your rating will be stabilized after 25 games. Before that, the rating are marked as provisional. No matter what is your initial rating, your rating will be adjusted to real level with the ELO formula based on your performance in future tournaments. If you start low, you may have many rating jumps in future. If you start high, you may even see your rating slipping down for a while. So wait until you have played 25 rated games.
We often see unrated players in a high rated section. Do not be surprise that they won the section. Most time they come from other countries, such as India, China or Europe. They are already strong players, just with no USCF ratings.
Therefore initial rating can have big difference, depending on the TDs, sections and initial performance.
Anyway, USCF considers that your rating will be stabilized after 25 games. Before that, the rating are marked as provisional. No matter what is your initial rating, your rating will be adjusted to real level with the ELO formula based on your performance in future tournaments. If you start low, you may have many rating jumps in future. If you start high, you may even see your rating slipping down for a while. So wait until you have played 25 rated games.
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