Update On My Chess

For information about my experiment, please refer to my first post.

As a follow-up to last week' idea of improving endurance, I've tried to maintain a meditative state while living life. It is exhausting but I think it's valuable.

I did a visualization-based meditation (I rehearsed lines on a mental chess board), and I went 12 and a half minutes, which is an improvement over last time.

I have decided to transition away from correspondence games for the moment and focus on other rating categories. Correspondence is fun but it doesn't transfer that well to more traditional time controls (blitz, rapid, classical), which is what I want to focus on right now. I got my blitz up to an all-time high and have started to play more online rapid games. There are some endurance issues with the rapids but playing more will help that (in addition to the meditation I'm already doing).

My USCF ratings were recently updated due to my recent tournament, and I got a nice rating bump. I went over my games again and they were sloppy. In my first game, my attack was completely unsound. In my second game, my winning position was not converted in an optimal way. Some of that sloppiness will go away with more practice at proper time controls. 

My games at the chess club went well. I played 2 rapid games against a significant opponent (1 win, 1 loss). 1st game I was white and he played a Sicilian. I over pressed and lost. 2nd game I was black and played a QGD. He over pressed and lost. Considering my first tournament game, I need to be much more careful about not over pressing. I don't know my opponent's rating, but someone else at the club (rated 2050) described my opponent as a strong blitz player. So, my opponent probably has a decent rapid rating.  

My USCF Classical Rating: 1713 (provisional)  

My USCF Rapid Rating: 1667 (provisional)