.

Here's how my rating has changed in the past few weeks. This has mostly been influenced by changing the type of board I play on and using a faster PC. 

This is detrimental towards you actually getting better at the game. 
Losses are instructional -- especially if there is a style of play that you're weak against. What a hollow victory your rating is if it's aided by opening explorer too. In OTB tournaments you'd assumadly get crushed if you were put in with other 1600's. 

LOL!!

Here is a FOOL proof plan to JACK up your RATING. Are you READY for the SECRET to a MONSTER rating and a longer PEN is the way to get RESULTS and a rating over 2500! Are you READY for the SECRET?? It's so SIMPLE it sounds too good to be TRUE. Here it is: win games and you rating goes up.

Anyone who makes disparaging remarks will be blocked. Steven Gerrard, you are out of the World Cup!

Imagine what Carlsen's rating would be if he didn't refuse to play very low rated GMs. It would be much lower. He is blocking them!

I bet Kasparov Blocked Deep Blue

Agree. This is an interesting experiment, but nothing to do with chess.

Considering ratings are simply a ranking system, in the grand scheme this technique will never help you achieve an overall higher rating. Those under-rated players, if they are so, will of course surpass your rating, and deflate it to where it belongs by beating you once they're within your rating range. Along with this, if you do play them on your way up instead of blocking them, your lowered rating will place you against easier opponents serving to both "under-rate" you against higher rated opponents, and give you some easier wins against players near your new lower rating to return the lost rating points.

Rating is not all in life, in fact is only a number.

 I don´t care what is your rating if I can beat you every time.

either way ur pretty bad it seems...............................

I am not convinced I have played the same player on two separate occasions other than than having them as a friend. Hence, I would think the chance of you playing a person that has previously beaten you is minimal. Also, feel free to block me and use up one of your 200 blocked person slots!

For some a rating is much, MUCH more than just a number. It makes them stand above the crowd, provides eternal bragging rights, makes them feel a lot prouder of themselves etc. It's like standing on the shoulders of giants, looking over the mediocre 1200s and 1300s who just enjoy playing a chess match for fun and friendship and who couldn't care less about a number. But hey, we are all entitled to our strategies.

There is a very simpel strategy to get as high a rating as possible with your current playing strength.

Can you imagine a genius like Carlsen playing in a tournament filled with 2000 players? The chance that he will get maximum is pretty much 100% Though FIDE rating thinks that it his opponents will always have around 8% chance of getting the point. So he would easily improve to over 3000, but with playing alot of tournaments (After all, he won't get so many rating points every tournament).

So if you start playing 900-people, you would gain in rating. Good luck on improving a useless number :)

It seems that none has pointed out that

• This "strategy" is not actually working in skill-based chess, since the Elo ratings are devised so that winning against high-rated players is rewarded more as a compensation for winning less often
• The "progression" graph on page 2 hints to the fact that this rating was, in fact, not achieved in skill-based chess:

I agree.

 And i have to say I'm impressed by how imaginative people is when they want to increase their rating without study openings or work seriuosly to improve their weaknesses.

You know, if someone rated below you beats you with some consistency, it probably doesn't mean that they're underrated. It means that you're overrated, because you engage in egotistical rating-pumping methods.

If you only play people you can beat, sure your rating goes up but it certainly doesn't reflect on any chess skill.

I do agree with Pdubya and think its fairer to climb the ladder urself rather than trying to push others down e.g.Survuval of the fittest

Thanks Harry. I won't block you but I will block Yohan, who doesn't seem to get what the post is about.

What is this post about then?

Lol OP. Blocking people who disagree with your methods? I bet they can't sleep at night for all the plaguing remorse you've forced them to experience.

On topic: I believe it's a very convenient way of increasing your rating which doesn't truly reflect your own ability. I mean, right now my own rating is absolutely unremarkable but I plan to increase it the old-fashioned way: by playing every game I enter to the finish and learn from my losses - even if those losses are inflicted by players rated much lower than myself. 

As an aside, losses from players rated lower than you are probably more instructive than those from players rated higher than you... think about it: assuming there are no dodgy methods being used by the higher-rated players to increase their rating, it's almost guaranteed that they're gonna be better than you in some way, so it's not altogether surprising if they beat you (even if you played completely on form). On the other hand, being beaten by a lower-rated player draws attention to a deficit in your own skill and forces you to re-examine it. Plus there's always the possibility they used some kind of opening and/or combination you were unfamiliar with, which you can also learn from.