L2C 019: GM Jesse Kraai - Our First Ever Guest

We are humbled to have GM Jesse Kraai on the podcast. Many of you will probably know him as a Grand Master in Chess, or as an excellent instructor on chess improvement, or as one of the three sensei's that started the ChessDojo. We have been working in the Dojo for the past year and working directly with Jesse for the past 4 or 5 months. We asked all your chess questions that we received on our Instagram, facebook, and email. Plus we added a few of our own.

We barely scratched the surface and hope this is the first of many podcasts with Jesse.

Did you have any questions after the episode? Let us know at [email protected]. Also, if you have any thoughts, topics and/or guest ideas, or solutions, please let us know.

Welcome to the board.

We hope you enjoy the show!

For a link to the podcast, please use: https://tinyurl.com/GMJesseKraai

#chess #chesstournament #chesstournaments #TaoofChess #mostExcellentRoadTo1500 #OurBumpyRoad #roadto1500Elo #roadtoDecentChess #DCP #decentChessPlayer #chessInstruction #adultimprover #adultimprovers #chessClub #clubChess #tournamentChess

L2C 016: Book Review: The Tao of Chess - part 1

We started a new book review series with a Chess 101 book called The Tao of Chess. While it is a book centered on many of the most common chess principles that you may or may not have heard. What we did find though was that while this can be thought of as a fairly simplistic study into chess, it has as surprising amount of depth, and at this point it is very, very likely that we aren't even comprehending the full depth within this book, yet. In this part 1, we cover the first chapter that deals with the chess board itself. We hope you enjoy and this helps your game. What did we miss? Did we get something wrong? Let us know at [email protected] If you have any thoughts, topics and/or guest ideas, or solutions, please let us know. Welcome to the board. We hope you enjoy the show! For a link to the podcast, please use: https://tinyurl.com/Late2Chess14 Also, if you'd like any topics, guests, or have any questions, please let me know at [email protected]

If you have any thoughts, ideas, or solutions, please let us know. Please.

Welcome to the board.

We hope you enjoy the show!

For a link to the podcast, please use: https://tinyurl.com/Late2Chess016

Also, if you'd like any topics, guests, or have any questions, please let me know at [email protected]

L2C 018: Tournament Recap of the 25th Annual Mountaineer Open

We are releasing this one out of order, again, but we received so many emails about the hoped for summaries, we thought we'd do it as fast as we could.

On this episode, we go into the Dr's tournament this weekend. Plus a surprise or few.

What did we miss? Did we get something wrong? Let us know at [email protected]

Welcome to the board. We hope you enjoy the show!

For a link to the podcast, please use: https://tinyurl.com/2026MountaineerOpen

Also, if you'd like any topics, guests, or have any questions, please let me know at [email protected]

L2C 017: Emergency/Bonus episode - The Good Doctor's Pre Tournament Prep for This Weekend

We are releasing this one a bit early and out of order, but it needed to be done. On this episode, we go into the Dr's preparation for his upcoming tournament this weekend. We may be able to get updates throughout the weekend and that would not make any sense without releasing this one first, so here it is.

The tournament is in Morgantown WV. If you are in the area, please stop in and say hi.

What did we miss? Did we get something wrong? Let us know at [email protected]

Welcome to the board. We hope you enjoy the show!

For a link to the podcast, please use: https://tinyurl.com/PreTourneyPrep

Also, if you'd like any topics, guests, or have any questions, please let me know at [email protected]

L2C 015: Our Most Excellent Road to 1500 and Beyond - Part 2

A bit faster than we expected, but here is part two in our series "Senior Chess: Bill & Dr Pop Pop's Excellent Adventure to 1500 Elo. At the last minute, Bill's schedule opened up and he played in his first over the board live tournament of 2026.

The tournament was in central Pennsylvania and , well you have to listen for more details, lol.

Also, if you want to go into your "Road to....", drop us a line. Who knows. It may become a thing. Wait, if you say it's going to be a thing, it can never become a thing. Oh well, lol.

What did we miss? Did we get something wrong? Let us know at [email protected]

Welcome to the board. We hope you enjoy the show!

For a link to the podcast, please use: https://tinyurl.com/Late2Chess015

Also, if you'd like any topics, guests, or have any questions, please let me know at [email protected]

L2C 014: Our Most Excellent Road to 1500 and Beyond - Part 1

It started as a discussion centered around a homage to Gotham Chess's Road to GM or Dina Belenkaya's Road to IM series. We know we aren't good at chess, yet. So, we brainstormed some really terrible names. It started with "Road to"...., like Road to Mediocre Chess, Road to Decent Chess, Road to Not Terrible Chess, Road to Average Chess.... Then we went a bit more positive with Road to Our Best Chess. Then we went a bit off the current path with Road to Chess Glory or the Nursing Home. Perhaps we were losing the thread a bit. A few of the more shareable ones were then Road to 1500 Elo, The Bumpy Road to 1500 Elo etc. Then the good Dr Pop Pop came to an epiphany and what we are kind of going forward with "Senior Chess: Dr Bill & Dr Pop Pop's Excellent Adventure to 1500 Elo. Is it magic? Have an opinion or a better idea. Let us know at our [email protected].

So, what is this all about? It's about our individual roads to improving at chess, hopefully to 1500 and maybe beyond. Bill low key thinks 2000 is possible. But what does he know, lol.

Also, if you want to go into your "Road to....", drop us a line. Who knows. It may become a thing. Wait, if you say it's going to be a thing, it can never become a thing. Oh well, lol.

What did we miss? Did we get something wrong? Let us know at [email protected]

If you have any thoughts, topics and/or guest ideas, or solutions, please let us know.

Welcome to the board.

We hope you enjoy the show!

For a link to the podcast, please use: https://tinyurl.com/Late2Chess14

Also, if you'd like any topics, guests, or have any questions, please let me know at [email protected]

L2C 013: The Magic of Development (in Chess)

Dr Pop Pop and Bill discuss one of the key tenants of good chess: Piece Development. Bill views it as one of the magical principles of chess and tries to convince our good doctor.

What did we miss? Did we get something wrong? Let us know at [email protected]

If you have any thoughts, topic and/or guest ideas, or solutions, please let us know.

Welcome to the board.

We hope you enjoy the show!

For a link to the podcast, please use: https://tinyurl.com/Late2Chess13

Also, if you'd like any topics, guests, or have any questions, please let me know at [email protected]

L2C 012: OTB Review – Bill Played a Tournament and Then at the Club

Bill was able to get out and play in a tournament on Friday and then went to the Harrisburg Chess Club for a few friendly games. DrPopPop interrogates Bill with a fairly deep review of how the tournament went on Friday. The good news, Bill lost only 1 Elo rating point. The bad news, he lost all three games. Takeaways include do not play angry or do not try to force things in chess. Then he drove over to the Harrisburg Chess Club and played three unrated games. This was a bit better and overall, Bill played better. We then ended the episode with a discussion of what went well, what went wrong, and we then formulated a plan to improve. We have added these to our goals. It looks like 2026 will be great. Also, DrPopPop went into a year in review for him. It has been quite a year since it only really started in the summer. Bill is going to have a tough time trying to keep up with him at the pace he is improving.

Also, we go over a recent change that was suggested to Bill to both improve his game and eliminate a source of blunders online and we end with another example of DrPopPop's endgame issues and a new project.

If you have any thoughts, topic and/or guest ideas, or solutions, please let us know.

Welcome to the board.

We hope you enjoy the show!

For a link to the podcast, please use: https://tinyurl.com/Late2Chess12

Also, if you'd like any topics, guests, or have any questions, please let me know at [email protected]

L2C-11: Nerves In Chess with Dr Pop Pop

On this episode, we talk about the common issue that many face, nerves in chess. For some reason, we both are more nervous ot play online than over the board/live. Why? No idea. Does it help our games? Definitely not. Are we the only ones? Not by a long shot. How to deal with it? We have some thoughts and ideas but this is still a work in progress for both of us.

If you have any thoughts, ideas, or solutions, please let us know. Please.

Welcome to the board.

We hope you enjoy the show!

For a link to the podcast, please use: https://tinyurl.com/Late2Chess11

Also, if you'd like any topics, guests, or have any questions, please let me know at [email protected]

L2C-11: Time Sucks (to avoid) In Chess Improvement

Dr Pop Pop returns to talk about things that we have learned (the hard way) that do not offer the best nor most time efficient path towards improving our chess games. This is not to say that these items aren't helpful or can't help someone improve their game and knowledge, but these are items that if you are under around 1,000 Elo may not help you to progress as fast as you would like.

Welcome to the board.

We hope you enjoy the show!

For a link to the podcast, please use: https://tinyurl.com/Late2Chess10

Also, if you'd like any topics, guests, or have any questions, please let me know at [email protected]