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Many people say this, but as someone who traveled around to play TT for a while, this was not my experience, and I have seen at least one loud mouth get a reality check when he thoughthe could just leave Cali, beat up on playera and break a new rating high. The reality I saw was that other than juniors and adults who suppressed ratings by playing in leagues and then showing up at national tournaments underrated ( and this was rare at the 2000+ level for a few reasons), ratings were fairly similar. In fact the 2000 level is usually the level at which most players have either travelled enough or played widely enough nationally that the ratings are accurate. Ratings below that are the ones where there can be trouble and a lot of that comes down to the issues I mentioned and how long the player has been rated.It really depends where in the US.
A 2000 usatt rated player from the Bay Area is wildly different than a 2000 player from the Midwest.
In fact the ratings in California, New York and Maryland tend to be accurate because you find a good number of players at all playing levels (again if you exclude the juniors hiding in leagues to take rating jumps at Nationals). But usually, players at usatt 2000 and above meet at National events like Teams, US Open and Nationals and get fixed/adjusted after one big event. And the separation of adult and junior events has made the chicaneey at the adult level more obvious when it happens at the national events.
So long story short, it is below the 2000 level that players might be different if they game the system but above that, playing level largely converges ans a Midwest 2000 is almost as likely to be underrated because he might have one 2400 player in his area who he trains against but not have any 2100 players to show his true level and therefore stays 2000 until he travels and beats up on 2100 players.