Liz Ivanov

Recent blitz performance: what’s going well and what to sharpen

You're showing solid adaptability across a range of openings, and you’re able to keep pressure in the middlegame when you have the initiative. Your rating history suggests a positive longer-term trend despite some short-term dips, and you’ve been able to bounce back after tougher middlegame battles. Here are practical ideas based on the data you provided:

• You have good results with several flexible defenses, notably the Scandinavian, Alekhine, and French families. Leaning into these strengths can help you reach dynamic, yet manageable positions more often in blitz.
• Your ability to stay calm and avoid over-ambitious complications in draws shows maturity in blitz time pressure. Use that calm to coordinate king activity and rooks in the endgames you tend to reach.
• Endgames with rooks and pawns appear frequently in blitz; when you can, aim to simplify into rook endings where your pieces coordinate actively and your passed pawns have a clear path.
• In practice you sometimes face sharp middlegame battles that drift into tactical skirmishes. Keeping a reliable checklist for threats after each move will help you spot opponent ideas earlier and reduce risky exchanges.

Opening choices: where to lean and where to adjust

Your openings data shows strong results in these lines, which you can safely continue to deepen in blitz: Scandinavian Defense, Alekhine Defense, and French Defense each show win rates around two-thirds or higher in your history. These tend to lead to clear middlegame plans you can execute quickly under time pressure.

There are openings with lower win rates for you, such as Dutch Defense, where you tend to encounter more complex structures. If you’re not enjoying these lines in blitz, consider limiting your use or studying typical responses more deeply to reduce time spent on finding the right plan.

• Strong areas to continue building around: Scandinavian Defense, Alekhine Defense, and French Defense.
• Opportunities to refine: Dutch Defense and other highly tactical lines—prioritize learning one or two effective approaches against them.

Want to review a specific opening idea? You can explore targeted practice with the term openings, for example: Scandinavian Defense, Alekhine Defense, French Defense.

Rating trends and what they say about your practice

Short-term trend shows some declines in 1–3 months, while a positive long-term slope indicates you’re building strength over a longer horizon. In blitz, this pattern often means you’re testing new ideas and learning from mistakes as you broaden your repertoire.

• 1 month rating change: slight decrease. Focus: tighten your opening choice and reduce early material concessions when under time pressure.
• 3 month rating change: larger decline. Focus: improve decision-making under pressure and prioritize solid development over speculative tactics in the first 15 moves.
• 6 month rating change: notable improvement. Focus: keep expanding your strategic understanding and leverage that growth in midgame planning.
• 12 month trend: positive, suggesting improving overall strength. Continue periodic game reviews to convert more of your long-term gains into consistent blitz results.

Actionable training plan for the next 4 weeks

• Puzzle routine: 15–20 minutes of daily tactical puzzles to sharpen pattern recognition and quick calculation for blitz.
• Endgame focus: one weekly session on rook endings and king activity. Practice converting simple rook endings with pawns on different files to build confidence in blitz final phases.
• Opening consolidation: devote two short sessions per week to 1–2 favorite defenses (e.g., Scandinavian and Alekhine). Build a compact repertoire with 3–4 standard plans for each side so you can decide quickly in blitz.
• Blitz review habit: after each session, pick 1-2 critical moments from your last 5 games. Write down what alternative moves could have been better and why, then compare with an engine-free human perspective.
• Time management drill: in every game, aim to spend roughly a fixed amount on the critical middle game (for example, 20–25 seconds for evaluating 2–3 candidate plans) and rely on the remaining time to execute your chosen plan cleanly.

For reference, you can review Elizabeth's recent openings performance and profile to guide your study focus: Liz Ivanov.

Tracking progress and next steps

Plan a quick check-in after 4 weeks to compare your blitz results, especially your win rate in your three core openings and your efficiency in converting middlegame advantages to wins. If you’d like, I can tailor a specific practice calendar around the exact openings you enjoy most and the typical middlegame themes you encounter.