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:
- Two centre pawns out (e4/d4 or …e5/…d5).
- Knights to f3/c3 (or f6/c6).
- Bishops developed before moving the queen.
- 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
- Day 1–4: 30 puzzles/day focusing on forks & pins + play 3 rapid (10|0) games using the 10-move checklist.
- Day 5–8: Study one model game of the Italian Game daily and copy the first 10 moves vs the computer.
- Day 9–12: End-game flash cards (king opposition & rook mates) + 5 sparring end-games vs computer level 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!