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I have a USCF rating of just over 1600 and in any given tournament that rating is usually just a bit short of the median rating of all players in the tournament.

However, the USCF website shows me as being the 84th percentile of players nationwide.

I'm thinking this discrepancy is probably due to the USCF sample including enormous numbers of scholastic players who play a few games and never again?

How might one characterize a 1600 rating to a non-chess player and where does it realistically rank against serious players, in terms of percentile?

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To a non-chess player, most chess players can be categorized into just a handful of levels:

  • Masters
  • Extremely Good Players
  • Very Good Players
  • Good Players
  • Novices

To such a person, you would be considered a "Very Good Player". You will easily beat any "Novices" or people that are only competent at the basics of quality game play ("Good Players"). "Extremely Good Players" will be able to beat you most of the time, and "Masters" will be able to beat you all of the time.

Please note that I didn't simply make up these terms. I've listened to non-chess players talk about chess a fair amount, and these are the terms they typically use.

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There are some rating distribution graphs in an answer to this question. One shows the distribution for only active players with established ratings. The shape seems to be a double bell curve, with one curve for scholastic and one for adults. The 1600-1699 range appears to be right around the peak of the "adult" bell curve, with more players there than anywhere else.

One interesting way of looking at it is what your expected win percentage would be against a master. A 600 point difference between 2200 and 1600 would indicate that you'd be expected to score about one point every 32 to 33 games. Or you could compare yourself against the currently highest rated player in the USCF, Fabiano Caruana, with a rating of 2879. A 1600 player would be expected to score one point every 1577 games against him.

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In the old FIDE system, to my knowledge, a sort of informal classification was 1600-1800 = strong amateur 1800-2000 = low level expert (National masters or candidate masters) 2000-2200 = masters (FIDE masters and low IM) 2200-2400 = strong IM to weak GM 2500-2700 = Strong GM 2700+ = "Super" GM

In context of the general populus, you will beat most of the people around you

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    Expert is informal "title", that usually is attributed 2000-2200. 2200 already qualifies for first formal title, that is CM, while some national titles start already a bit earlier. 2300 is then FM, while IM needed to reach at least 2400 at some point and score norms (or win some tournament that gives titles directly). Similiar for GM, just at 2500. "Super" GM is again informal and usually reserved for the very top.
    – Matija Sirk
    Commented Mar 7 at 9:06

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