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How an adult improver achieves a 2200 rating

How an adult improver achieves a 2200 rating

Eli_Dollinger
| Apr 10, 2026
| 110
| 1

As of the writing of this post, my rapid rating is 2204. I started my chess journey as an adult and I'm going to discuss my recommendations. My biggest recommendation is that you play games with focus and intention. Afterwards you analyze the ga...

How to achieve a 2100 rating

How to achieve a 2100 rating

Eli_Dollinger
| Mar 10, 2026
| 67
| 1

As of the writing of this post, my rapid rating is 2102. In this post I'm going to focus to how to move from a rating of 2000 to a rating of 2100. If you wish to learn my thoughts on achieving a rating of 2000, I have a blog post regarding that on...

How to Manage Mental Fatigue in Chess

How to Manage Mental Fatigue in Chess

Eli_Dollinger
| Oct 25, 2025
| 175
| 0

Mental fatigue has a very large detrimental impact on your ability to play chess. To see that for yourself play a very long game session where you play many games in rapid succession (hours longer than a normal game session length for you). At som...

How to achieve a 2000 rating

How to achieve a 2000 rating

Eli_Dollinger
| Sep 29, 2025
| 614
| 0

I am an adult improver. There are pluses and minuses to that. A minus is that I’ll probably never achieve a title. A plus is that I am extremely aware of what methods have worked for me. As of the time of writing this article, my rapid ratin...

Back from Holidays

Back from Holidays

Eli_Dollinger
| Jan 8, 2024
| 166
| 0

For information about my experiment, please refer to my first post. I took a few weeks off because of the holidays. During that time, I found some very interesting research about Working Memory. Strong chess players appear to have better Working ...

Update On My Chess

Update On My Chess

Eli_Dollinger
| Dec 13, 2023
| 101
| 0

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 visual...

Back from a Break

Back from a Break

Eli_Dollinger
| Dec 4, 2023
| 167
| 0

For information about my experiment, please refer to my first post. I took a meditation break for 2 weeks. The first week I took off because I was sick, the second week I took off because I didn't want to exhaust myself before a tournament. I wil...

Results of my New Meditation

Results of my New Meditation

Eli_Dollinger
| Nov 13, 2023
| 122
| 0

For information about my experiment, please refer to my first post. Last week I tried a more chess-orientated meditation in addition to my normal one. It was very difficult. I was mentally weaker for a full week afterwards. It certainly affected ...

Trying Out a Change in my Meditation

Trying Out a Change in my Meditation

Eli_Dollinger
| Nov 6, 2023
| 111
| 0

For information about my experiment, please refer to my first post.  Despite trying to rest last week, I was not able to really accomplish that. The interesting thing about getting somewhat adept at meditation is that you tend to fall easily into...

Update on my Progress

Update on my Progress

Eli_Dollinger
| Oct 30, 2023
| 125
| 0

For information about my experiment, please refer to my first post. I decided to not do a long meditation session this week. I have been noticing some mental fatigue and I think I need a break. I'll probably do some shorter sessions throughout th...

Some Mixed Results

Some Mixed Results

Eli_Dollinger
| Oct 23, 2023
| 60
| 0

For information about my experiment, please refer to my first post. My meditation results this week was slightly worse than last week. I managed to meditate 23 minutes on my first try and after a short rest got another 2 minutes. The duration is ...

Big Progress for my 4th Meditation

Big Progress for my 4th Meditation

Eli_Dollinger
| Oct 16, 2023
| 68
| 0

For information about my experiment, please refer to my first post. I experienced a significant improvement in my meditation duration this week. I was able to meditate for 26 minutes. I rested 5 seconds then meditated for another 4 minutes. I was...

My Second Meditation

My Second Meditation

Eli_Dollinger
| Oct 2, 2023
| 103
| 0

For information about my experiment, please refer to my first post. I did my second meditation session on Sunday (10/1). I managed to focus at a reasonable intensity for about 9 minutes. After that my ability to focus was completely gone. However...

Starting the experimental trial

Starting the experimental trial

Eli_Dollinger
| Sep 25, 2023
| 159
| 0

For information about my experiment, please refer to my first post. I did my first meditation session on Sunday (9/24). I managed to focus at a reasonable intensity for about 10 minutes. After that my ability to focus was completely gone and my b...

My Chess Hypothesis

My Chess Hypothesis

Eli_Dollinger
| Sep 21, 2023
| 170
| 0

I decided to start up a blog as a way of keeping track of my progress. I will be testing out my ideas on chess education (using myself as a guinea pig). My current idea that I want to test is the effects of attention/focus training on chess perfo...

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