Eduardo Figuerres

Quick summary

Eduardo Figuerres — nice, solid blitz patch. You show good opening discipline, steady piece development, and resilience in chaotic positions. Your rating trend is gently upward and your strength adjusted win rate is just over 50 percent, which means your play is fundamentally sound. Below are focused, practical suggestions to turn more small advantages into clear wins in blitz.

What you are doing well

• Opening discipline and development: you consistently castle early and get pieces out to useful squares instead of rushing pawns.
• Center control and pawn structure: you play e4/d4 ideas and follow up with logical pawn breaks. This gives you long term positional chances.
• Resourcefulness in time scrambles: you win and salvage games on the clock, showing good practical instincts under pressure.
• Good performance in a few specific openings like the Caro-Kann Panov and the Scandinavian. Keep those as reliable go-to lines.

Main areas to improve

• Time management — several games ended because the opponent flagged or you flagged while the position could have been decided. In blitz, finishing moves and tempo allocation matter. Spend a little more time on critical moments and play faster in quiet positions.
• Converting advantages — you often reach promising positions but do not always press to a decisive finish. Practice basic conversion patterns in simplified material (rook+king vs rook, queen vs rooks, outside passed pawns).
• Tactical alertness around pawn storms — games where the opponent launched a g or h pawn storm (for example the game that ended after an advancing g-pawn) show you can be surprised by direct kingside attacks. Watch for sacrificial breakthroughs and weak light squares.
• Endgame technique — because many wins come from opponents flagging or resigning early you should sharpen simple endgame technique so you keep wins when the opponent defends accurately.

Concrete examples (review these positions)

• Recent short win — review this game to see how your steady development paid off: Win vs chesskid970. You opened with a solid setup and the opponent abandoned after you won the central knight. You can replay the final sequence here:
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• Win on time but with active play — this one shows good pressure on the kingside: Win vs yewinaungyangon. Look at how you opened lines with pawn pushes and used piece activity to create threats.
• Loss due to g-pawn storm — the opponent generated a fast kingside attack and you lost momentum: Loss vs thedailyblitz. Check the moment when the opponent started pawn advances and consider defensive moves that create luft and restraint.
• Time loss vs a strong technique game — review to see where you spent too much time and failed to simplify: Loss vs jonver123.
• Tactical slip that cost you the game earlier — watch the sequence in the longer game below and note where an exchange sequence left you worse: Loss vs leoncioadonis.

Short training plan (next 2 weeks)

• Daily 10 to 15 minutes tactics: focus on mates, forks, pins and discovered attacks. Stop the timer after each puzzle and explain to yourself why the tactic works.
• Five practice blitz games with 3+2 increment, concentrating on spending less than 10 seconds on obvious, equal positions and 25-40 seconds on critical decisions.
• Study one opening idea 20 minutes: keep your current safe systems (Scandinavian and Panov-style Caro-Kann). Learn typical pawn breaks and one or two tactical motifs for the main line.
• Endgame micro-session once every 3 days: 10 minutes on basic rook endgames and king+pawn endings (Lucena/Philidor ideas).

Longer term habits

• Review losses immediately after the game, but only for 2 to 5 minutes. Ask: where did the initiative flip? Could I simplify? This builds quick pattern recognition.
• Keep a short opening notebook of 3 to 5 recurrent positions and the typical plans for both sides. In blitz the plan is often stronger than exact memorization.
• Play occasional longer time controls (15|10 or 10|5) to practice conversion and endgame technique. Those lessons transfer back to blitz.

Practical checklist to use during blitz

• Before your move: count opponent threats (checks, captures, forks) — 5 seconds.
• If position is equal and no threats, make a developing or prophylactic move quickly.
• If you have more than a small edge, simplify towards an endgame or force trades to reduce counterplay.
• When ahead on the clock, keep pressure rather than rushing. Use the clock advantage to convert safely.

Next steps / quick plan

• Today: run a 15 minute tactics session and review the two recent wins briefly (win and win).
• This week: play ten 3+2 games with the checklist above and keep a single-line opening note for your most-used setup.
• In two weeks: reassess. If you are still losing on time often, switch to more incremented blitz or do more time-management drills.

Motivation

Your overall data shows strong foundations and a steady upward slope. Small changes in time management, endgame technique, and a short tactical routine will yield tangible rating gains in blitz. If you want, tell me which of the recent games you want a deeper move-by-move postmortem on and I will walk through the key moments with specific candidate moves.