Coach Chesswick
Constructive feedback for Anna Burtasova
💡 Strengths to keep building on
- Versatile opening choices: you handle both 1.e4 (Sicilians, Alekhine) and 1.d4 (Old-Benoni set-ups) comfortably, keeping your opponents guessing.
- Dynamic piece play: several of your wins feature timely pawn breaks (…d5, …c4, f5–f4) that create concrete targets.
- Resilience in sharp positions: even when material down you often generate counter-chances and practical threats, a sign of strong calculation skills.
🎯 Priority areas for improvement
- Clock management
• Five recent games (three wins, two losses) were decided on time. • Try the “30-20-10” rule: aim to have ≈30 s on move 20 and 10 s for the final phase, even if it means choosing a simpler continuation.
can help you spot the times of day when your time-scramble performance drops. - Handling early queen excursions
In the Alekhine loss your queen ventured to h5 and h4, giving Black tempi. Consider the safer plan 10.Nf3 and short castling first. - Endgame conversion
Several lost positions were still drawable (e.g. vs Supercampeon64). Review basic rook-endgame techniques such as the Lucena and Philidor positions – see Lucena position. - Pawn-structure awareness
In both Old Benoni games you allowed…d4or…d5breaks without a clear plan to meet the passed pawn. Spend a session on typical Benoni structures and prophylactic moves (a4, h3, Re1).
🔎 Snapshot: recent critical moment
The turning point of your latest loss came right after you played 18.Rc3 against Alekhine’s Defence. Black’s 18…Bg4! exploited the pin and dark-square weaknesses.
📈 Quick performance metrics
- Peak blitz rating:
- Win rate by weekday:
🗓️ Action plan for the next two weeks
- Daily: 15 min of tactic drills focusing on pins & double attacks.
- 3 games per day with 5 + 5 time control, annotate the first one without an engine before review.
- Watch one model game in the Old Benoni and one in the Taimanov Sicilian; build a mini file of three “typical plans” for each.
- End of week 2: play a training match (8 games) starting from a rook-and-pawn endgame to reinforce technique.
Stay curious and keep analysing – small, targeted tweaks will lift both your rating and confidence. Good luck, Anna!