Amar Salihovic FM

Overall Performance and Rating Progress

Amar, your chess journey is showing promising progress. Over the last six months, you've increased your rating by over 1000 points, which is a significant achievement. Your recent monthly rating gains, with a 238 point boost last month and a 111 point gain over three months, reflect continued improvement and consistency in your play.

Your strength adjusted win rate of nearly 79% indicates you’re performing well against your current competition. This is a great foundation to build on and suggests your understanding and execution of the game have improved steadily.

What You're Doing Well

• Opening Repertoire: You have a solid performance in several openings, including a 100% win rate in the Italian Game: Two Knights Defense and the Colle System: Rhamphorhynchus Variation. Maintaining these strong lines is a good strategy as they suit your playing style.
• Consistency in Chess960: You've shown ability to handle Chess960 games effectively, which can greatly enhance your creative and tactical skills due to the varied starting positions.
• Time Management: In daily games, your good use of time, especially in complex positions, helps you avoid blunders under time pressure.
• Positional Play: From your recent wins, you demonstrate sound positional understanding and the ability to convert advantages – for example, successfully applying pressure and forcing resignation.

Areas for Improvement

• Handling Losing Positions: Most of your losses occurred several months ago and often involved early pressure from your opponents. It would be beneficial to study how to survive and counter in tricky opening lines, especially those you have less experience with like the Amazon Attack, which currently shows a 0% win rate.
• Expanding Opening Repertoire: While you have strong lines, diversifying your openings to include more variations where you have less success could give you more flexibility and reduce predictability.
• Tactical Awareness: Chess960 games can sometimes involve unexpected tactical shots due to the unique starting positions. Continue working on tactics puzzles to sharpen your spotting of critical moves faster.
• Endgame Technique: Reviewing your past games for endgame positions where you could improve technique might help squeeze more wins or salvage draws.

Next Steps and Recommendations

• Continue nurturing your strong openings while experimenting with complementary lines to surprise opponents.
• Spend time reviewing your losses, especially against opponents or openings that have challenged you, to understand recurring patterns or mistakes.
• Practice tactical exercises regularly, focusing on motifs common in Chess960 to maintain sharpness.
• Analyze endgames from your games and consider studying fundamental endgame principles to enhance your closing skills.
• Consider playing a mix of daily games for deep thought and quicker games to improve intuition and time management under pressure.

Keep Up the Great Work!

Your upward rating trend and positive win record show that your dedication is paying off. Celebrate your strong points and continue to challenge yourself with new openings and positions. Improvement is a journey, and you’re on the right path!