Coach Chesswick
Hi cr7andlm10goats! đź‘‹
Quick snapshot
• Current Bullet strength: about 300-380 Elo
• Personal best so far: 376 (2025-05-27)
• Activity patterns:
What’s already working
- Fast hands. Most of your wins come from opponents running out of time. Your instinct to keep the clock pressure high is an asset in 1-minute games.
- Early central occupation. Moves such as 1.e4 2.d4 and quick
dxe5grab space and open lines for your pieces. - Open-file awareness. In several wins you doubled rooks on open files or invaded with
Rxe5/Rxd7to collect material.
Main improvement themes
-
Speed is good, but accuracy first. Roughly half of the recent losses were also on time—but only after positions had become tricky or lost.
🪄 Bullet tip: Decide on a candidate move quickly, but spend a half-second checking “What can my opponent do on the next move?” before you release the piece. -
Avoid premature queen adventures. Games against henry-florez and hugzsan show your queen hopping (e.g.
Qd1-h5-g5-…) while other pieces slept. Each queen tempo you give away becomes a free developing move for the opponent.
đź“Ś Challenge: For the next 20 games keep your queen on her starting rank until at least move 6, unless you have a forced win of material. -
King safety first. You often trade queens on d8/d1 early, leaving the king stuck in the centre (see 4…
Qxd1+Kxd1). Castle whenever possible; an uncastled king costs precious bullet seconds because you must constantly parry checks. -
Tactical vision. Missed forks and back-rank mates decided several games. Daily puzzle practice (5-10 minutes) will raise your pattern recognition and actually save time during games.
Key patterns to drill: knight forks, back-rank motifs, discovered checks.
Opening focus (next two weeks)
| As White | As Black |
|---|---|
Play the simple Scotch Game: 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 exd4 4.Nxd4. It follows classical principles and avoids early queen moves. |
Against 1.e4, answer with ...e5 and stick to the solid Philidor setup: …d6 …Nf6 …Be7 …O-O. Fewer tricky lines = faster decisions. |
Model end-game to review
From your win vs aimanelwakil. Notice how activity of rooks decides the game:
Training plan
- 10 puzzles/day focused on forks & mates in 2.
- Play 5 slow games/week (10|0 or longer). Review each game to spot blunders you missed in bullet.
- Keep a one-page opening notebook with your first 8 moves as White and Black. Re-read it before a playing session; this saves clock time.
Mind-set reminder
Fast is fine, but fast and accurate wins trophies.
Good luck, have fun, and see you over the board!
—Your Chess Coach