Chrisbbacon258

Hi Chrisbbacon258! 🥓

What you’re already doing well

• Active piece play. In several wins (for example against Tom Singleton) you quickly placed your bishops and knights on aggressive squares and created threats early.
• Tactical alertness. You spot basic forks, pins and back-rank ideas and often finish games with checkmate combinations.
• Practical fighting spirit. Even when down material you keep looking for counter-play instead of resigning too early. That resilience is a great habit.

Biggest improvement areas

1. Opening fundamentals

The first 8–10 moves should obey four simple rules: control the centre, develop quickly, castle, and keep the queen safe. In several losses you:

• Delayed castling (e.g. vs. SnazzyJewel) and your king was chased to f3/f6.
• Advanced flank pawns (…a6, …h5, b4) before completing development, weakening dark squares.

Recommended drill: play the following “10-move checklist” in every game until it’s second nature:

1. Two centre pawns out (e4/d4 or …e5/…d5).
2. Knights to f3/c3 (or f6/c6).
3. Bishops developed before moving the queen.
4. Castle as soon as it is legal.

2. Blunder prevention

Roughly 70 % of your defeats come from a single undefended piece or an overlooked check. Adopt this quick scan before every move:

1) What is my opponent’s last move threatening?  
2) If I move here, what pieces of mine become loose?  
3) Are there any checks, captures or forks I might be missing?

Practise with 5–10 daily puzzles on Chess.com’s “Puzzle Rush survival”; stop only after solving three puzzles in a row with zero mistakes.

3. End-game technique

When queens come off you often push pawns randomly and let the opponent queen first (see the SnazzyJewel game). Study two must-know endings this week:

• King & pawn vs king – the opposition concept.
• Basic rook checkmating pattern (rook + king vs king).

Then replay this winning sequence until you can mate from memory:

Quick stats snapshot

• Your peak Blitz rating so far: 720 (2020-07-02)
• Hourly win-rate trend:
• Best day of the week:

Next 14-day training plan

1. Day 1–4: 30 puzzles/day focusing on forks & pins + play 3 rapid (10|0) games using the 10-move checklist.
2. Day 5–8: Study one model game of the Italian Game daily and copy the first 10 moves vs the computer.
3. Day 9–12: End-game flash cards (king opposition & rook mates) + 5 sparring end-games vs computer level 4.
4. Day 13–14: Review your last 10 games, note why each piece was lost, and write one sentence about how to avoid that error.

Mind-set tips

• Treat each move as a mini-puzzle; never move “on instinct” before asking the three blunder-check questions.
• If you lose, pick one critical moment and analyse only that, instead of re-hashing the whole game.
• Celebrate small wins – correctly spotting a tactic or castling on time already means progress!

Final encouragement

Your current level shows solid attacking instincts; blending them with tighter defence will push you past 800 quickly. Stay disciplined with the checklist, keep solving tactics, and share your next milestone game — I’m excited to see your progress!