Coach Chesswick
Rapid games — quick summary
Nice uptick: your rating trend and recent results show strong, consistent improvement. You're winning complicated middlegames, converting small advantages and playing confident endgames. Keep polishing a few repeating weaknesses and you’ll keep climbing.
Highlights — what you’re doing well
- Opening consistency: you repeatedly play the g3 / English-style systems and get comfortable structures — you get good piece coordination early. (See your English setup and plans: English Opening.)
- Rook activity and simplification: in the win where you put a rook on the seventh rank then traded into a winning king+rook endgame you showed textbook technique — using active rooks and exchanging when it favors your pawn structure.
- Tactical vision in sharp lines: you convert tactical motifs (queen sacrifices/trades and mating threats) to win material — good intuition to spot forcing sequences and simplify when ahead.
- Practical play under pressure: you often convert into technical positions and finish games (including a time win), which shows good practical sense and endgame conversion skills.
Concrete examples
- Nice rook play and exchange sequence vs frankypy891 — you put Rb7 then traded into a winning endgame and patiently improved your king and rooks. Review that line in the embed below to see the plans you used:
- Good queenside play vs hariharasubramaniyan — you opened lines, won on the king’s safety and used queen-rook cooperation to win material and force resignation.
Main weaknesses to fix
- Tactical oversights in complex middlegames — in the loss to kikishaa you allowed Bxa1 (a clean tactical strike) and then the initiative swung away. Work on double-checking hanging squares and tactical motifs before simplifying.
- Back-rank / loose-square awareness — several middlegame positions show vulnerable back-rank ideas and loose pieces. Treat back-rank threats and undefended pieces as part of your mental checklist.
- Time management in critical phases — you often reach the endgame with very little clock; that increases risk. Build simple move plans in the opening to save time for calculation moments later.
- Occasional passive piece placement — when you miss activity (piece on rim or blocked bishop) opponents find counterplay. Prioritize piece activity over small pawn gains unless you concrete prove the trade-off.
Practical drills and study plan (weekly)
- Tactics: 20–30 puzzles/day focused on forks, pins, skewers and tactical motifs that appeared in your games (discoveries and back-rank mates). Use mixed themes and review mistakes.
- One loss analysis per day: take the loss vs kikishaa (the full game in your library) and find the one move where the eval flips — annotate why the tactic worked and what checks you missed.
- Endgame: 2× 30-minute sessions/week on rook endgames + king and pawn endgames. Cover Lucena, Philidor, and basic opposition basics — these will increase conversion and save time in practical play.
- Opening: tidy your g3/English move orders — practice typical plans vs …d5/…e5 and against King's-Indian setups (when opponents play ...g6/…Bg7/…Nf6). Add 1–2 sidelines to your repertoire so you don’t get surprised.
- Play control: 2 rapid games (15+10) per training day to practice using increment; keep a short post-mortem (5–10 min) and note recurring mistakes.
Short-term checklist (before your next session)
- Review the loss to kikishaa and mark the tactical moment that decided the game.
- Do 25 tactics (mix forks/pins/back-rank) and focus on accuracy, not speed.
- Study one rook endgame (Lucena or Philidor) for 30 minutes.
- Prepare one anti-KID idea for your g3 system — a small move-order trick or early h3 plan.
Longer-term goals
- Reduce tactical blunders by 30% in the next month (track with puzzle accuracy & post-mortems).
- Gain confidence in rook endgames so you convert 80% of technical endgames — this will improve your closing rate and reduce time-pressure blunders.
- Keep building the repertoire where your win-rates are highest (your English/Drill and Nimzo‑Larsen lines are producing results).
Quick notes & resources
- If you want, I can produce a 4-week training schedule tailored to your streaming days and practice time.
- Common keywords to search in your study: back-rank, rook on the seventh, Lucena, tactical motifs (pin, skewer, discovery).