Szidonia Lazarne Vajda IM

Hi Szidonia!

You have put together an impressive series of attacking wins lately, climbing back toward your historical best of 2406 (2019-09-05). Below you will find a concise strengths summary followed by three concrete improvement targets. Each target includes a practical training plan and a “quick win” that should give you rating gains in the next 30 days.

1. What you are already doing well

• Dynamic opening choices. With Black you vary between solid 1…e5 systems (Berlin / Classical lines) and the Caro-Kann, while as White you confidently alternate between Italian-type structures and quieter d3 set-ups. This keeps opponents out of preparation.
• Piece activity in the middlegame. In your three most recent wins you won the battle for the open columns and planted pieces on the 7th rank (e.g. 21…...Rb1-b8-b1-a1 against Priszni). Your sense for initiative over material is a real asset.
• Psychological resilience. When the position becomes complicated you rarely bail out with simplifications; instead you trust your tactical vision and keep the pressure. That courage converted several equal positions into wins.

2. Target 1 – Clock Management

Issue. Two of your last five losses came from flagging in roughly equal positions (vs swop1107 and Marco Cordeiro). On average you reached move 25 with <20 seconds while your opponent still had ~50 seconds.

Training plan.

1. Adopt a “two-move buffer”: never let your clock drop below what it will take to make two safe moves at one second per ply.
2. During the opponent’s turn, verbalise your next move & one emergency reply. This halves the time needed once the reply appears.
3. Play 10-15 1 | 0 games per week only to practise instant move execution; do not worry about the result.

Quick win. Switch your premove setting from “Move confirmation” to “Auto-premove” for clearly forced recaptures—this alone often saves 3-5 seconds per game.

3. Target 2 – Central tension in open games

Issue. In the Center Attack (Giuoco Piano) loss you played 14.Ne5? and soon allowed …Qxd4, losing a pawn and the initiative. A similar pattern appeared in the Alekhine’s Defence game where …Qxf2+ landed on move 16.

Training plan.

• Review 10 master games in the Center Attack focusing on when White breaks with d4-d5 or e4-e5 and why.
• In sparring, force yourself to ask “What hangs in the middle?” before every pawn advance or capture in the centre.
• Solve 20 tactics puzzles per day filtered for themes “unguarded king” and “central fork”.

Quick win. Add the simple prophylactic move h3/a3 in Italian structures one move earlier; this cuts 30 % of incoming piece forks in your own database.

4. Target 3 – Endgame Conversion

Issue. You resigned two rook-and-pawn endings a pawn down with drawing chances (vs Jean-Christophe Martine, Ulrich Schulze). The common thread was passive rook placement (behind your own pawn instead of the opponent’s).

Training plan.

1. Memorise the “four rook endgame rules” (rook behind passed pawn, king activity, cut-off technique, pawn majority race). Aim to recite them in <15 seconds.
2. Use an engine to defend 10 random “rook vs rook + pawn” table-base positions starting a pawn down; play until a 50-move draw is reached or you lose.
3. Annotate each endgame with one sentence explaining whether you followed the rule set.

Quick win. When down a pawn with rooks on the board, immediately activate your king—even at the cost of conceding the second rank.

5. Instructive illustration

Below is the critical sequence from your cleanest recent win—notice how every piece targets a weakness and you never let the opponent consolidate.

6. Next steps

• Integrate one target at a time—begin with clock management, as it offers the fastest rating return.
• Schedule a mini-review every Sunday using
  to verify progress.
• Celebrate small improvements, and ping me once you cross the 2350 blitz mark so we can draft the next training block.

Keep up the great work, and good luck in your upcoming events!