onigoroshi:  I think as far as BKR is concerned, you need to hover around 2000 (1800-2000) for average.  I could be wrong.  Judging from your other BKRs, I'd say you'll likely get to that level easily.  Send an invite and I'll play a few with you and we'll see where you are and where you need to go. ;)

onigoroshi: My BKR in chess is 993 yet until joining brainking I had never lost a game. The people on here are a lot beter then the average player. Once I get more time(unfortunetly probably not for another 2 years when I finish school) I plan to read every book on chess i can find and improve my BKR.

onigoroshi:
I think somebody between 1400-1599 could win practically all their games against an average player off the street. Even as a youngster in Jr. High School, I could give many of my friends big odds like that of a Rook or even Rook + Knight after reading and studying chess literature for about a year. At that time I could not have been much more than a 1200 level player. My first USCF rating wasn't until I was a Freshman in High School and that was in the mid 1400s. The rating went higher later, but that of course took a lot of time and effort, maybe more than I should have put into it!

There are quite a few modern tactics books out there beyond Reinfeld. Jacob Aagard did one in his series of five instruction books. I personally think playing through complete games is also helpful and any game collection of aa famous chess player from Morphy to Kasparov would be helpful. "The First Book of Morphy" might be a good place to start. The games of older players are a little easier to understand and the mistakes often were a bit more obvious before defensive technique became more refined.

panzerschiff: you're right of course, I was beating my friends and even performing simul exhibitions before I even played in tournaments and my first rating was a whopping 1068. Today it is much higher just as yours (although admittedly lower than yours, panzerschiff). It is difficult to state simply what is the difference between the master and the amateur, I still consider myself an amateur just because I don't have any Title other than "High Class B" which isn't brag-able like "master" or even "expert". judging by recent successes and failures my hard work is paying off (I train about an hour a day on average). I can't wait for that day when I can say, "I'm a Chess Master". I'm still going to lose an unprecedented number of games but I'll be losing to Titled players and not feel so bad. ;)

onigoroshi:
I had a chance to check my library and the exact title of the Aagard book is "Excelling at Combinational Play". It has nice tactical exercises plus detailed explanations about them in the solutions area. Paata Garindashvili also wrote a good tactics book called "Imagination in Chess". Both of these should be in print and being published by Everyman and Batsford Presses should not be too hard to obtain. Being a library director, and an old reference librarian before going to the administrative level, it is always nice to be able to recommend books.

Yes and Colonel Crockett, just keep the play and study up. You are young enough and if you want that Master title you should obtain it. When I was in my early 20s it was one of my passions as well and I used to spend easily 3 or 4 hours a day on chess study, and more if you consider all the correspondence games. However I was the bookish sort and book study isn't necessarily the best way for chess improvement, although it suited my personality.