Coach Chesswick
Overall blitz progress and focus
Farzad, you’ve shown positive momentum in recent blitz activity, with steady improvement over several time frames. Your average performance around key openings suggests you can push above balance in the right lines. The next step is to consolidate your gains with a tighter, practical plan that fits your blitz pace and keeps you out of time trouble.
What you’re doing well
- You appear comfortable in sharp middlegame moments and keep activity with pieces developed toward flexible plans.
- Some openings are yielding favorable results when you steer the game into dynamic positions, particularly certain responses to e4 and d4 that lead to balanced, playable middlegames.
- You have shown the ability to recover from rough patches and keep fighting, which is essential in blitz where pressure mounts quickly.
- Your trend over several months indicates you are learning patterns and refining decision-making under time constraints.
Key improvement areas and practical steps
- Strengthen your endgame plan for blitz: when the pieces get reduced, have a simple, reliable plan (activate rooks on open files, use central pawns to create space) to convert chances rather than chasing complex lines.
- Improve time management: build a quick two-minute check routine per game (assess a few candidate plans in the first phase, then commit to a single plan after a confident evaluation).
- Enhance calculation under pressure: practice short, 3–5 move calculations with a focus on tactical motifs (forks, pins, skewers) and verify the main line before switching to a secondary idea.
- Pattern recognition and memory: reinforce 12–20 common tactical patterns and typical endgame palm-lines you encounter in blitz so you can spot them faster during a game.
- Post-game reflection: after every blitz session, pick 2-3 critical moments and write a brief note on what tempted you to choose a line and what you’d do differently next time.
Opening strategy and repertoire guidance
- Continue leveraging openings that have shown solid results in your games, and practice them in a focused way. This helps reduce decision fatigue in blitz and keeps you in comfortable plans.
- Choose a compact, two-color repertoire for the next few weeks. For White, you might favor a compact set of central plans that lead to clean middlegame positions. For Black, consider solid, straightforward replies to common white setups to minimize risky lines.
- Avoid overextending into highly complex branches in the early moves; aim for clear, strategic plans that you can execute quickly and confidently.
Two-week practical practice plan
- Daily 15 minutes of focused tactic puzzles to sharpen quick calculation.
- Three blitz sessions per week (20 minutes each) with a preselected two-repertoire plan for White and Black; review each game for one key decision point and one endgame simplification idea.
- One weekly long-form review: annotate and annotate aloud one of your recent blitz games, focusing on the critical turning points and the endgame transition.
- End-game drill once per week: practice standard rook ending techniques and king activity in opposite-colored pawn endings to improve conversion chances in blitz.
Tips to sustain improvement
- Sustain a calm approach: take a quick breath before deciding in tight moments to prevent rushing into suboptimal trades.
- Keep lines simple when under time pressure; if a line looks unclear, switch to a solid, safe plan rather than risking a tactical overreach.
- Make use of fast, repeatable drills that mirror blitz pace: short tactical sets, endgame patterns, and quick material-judgment exercises.
Would you like a tailored two-week drill pack?
If you want, I can assemble a compact set of timed blitz drills (tactics, endgames, and opening practice) aligned with your current openings and provide a simple daily routine you can run to maximize gains over the next two weeks.