Matt Farina

Hi Matt!

Congratulations on your recent victories and on pushing your Daily peak up to 1389 (2021-01-25). Below is a mix of praise and specific, practical pointers drawn from your most-recent games.

What you already do well

• Tactical alertness. You frequently punish loose pieces (e.g. 17.Qxe7! against bastion_mortes and 32.Ne8⁺!! → 34.Rxf7#). Keep sharpening this strength with daily puzzle reps.
• Fighting spirit. Even in cramped positions you look for counter-play instead of drifting. That resilience converted several inferior middlegames into wins.
• Rook activity. In all three recent wins your rooks doubled or entered the 7th rank early—excellent habit.

Recurring problems & fixes

• Loose king in the middlegame.
  • Loss vs bastion_mortes: …g6 & …f6 weakened dark squares → 16.Bxh7⁺ collapsed your kingside.
  • Loss vs Zac Christensen: castled long after creating holes on b6/c5, then 32.Rd6# arrived.
  Fix: Before any pawn move in front of your king, ask “What light-/dark-square holes will this create?” and visualize the next three attacker moves.
• Early queen adventures & piece repetition.
  16.Qb4 → 17.Qxe7 netted a pawn, but vs stronger opposition the repeated queen moves will cost development. In losses your opponents’ queen+bishop battery (Bxh7+ themes) also shows how powerful a developed queen can be.
  Fix: Challenge yourself to keep the queen in the first two ranks until all minor pieces are deployed.
• Unfamiliar or off-beat openings as Black.
  You tried …b6/…c5 Owens and early …f6 Scandinavian setups. The resulting positions require precise play and you were out-calculated.
  Fix: Adopt one solid “first-serve” defence you can trust under pressure. Two suggestions:
   • vs 1.e4: the classical Caro-Kann you already know, but from the Black side.
   • vs 1.d4: a simple Queen’s Gambit Declined set-up (…d5, …e6, …Nf6, …Be7, castle).

Opening micro-advice

Targeted training plan (4-week sprint)

1. 15 min/day tactics
   • 5 mins on motif Bxh7+ (Greek gift) from both sides.
   • 10 mins mixed puzzles >1500 rating to push your calculation ceiling.
2. Opening drill – each weekend play three 10|5 games focusing only on your new Black system; analyse instantly.
3. Model game study – watch one annotated QGD or Caro-Kann classical game and copy key pawn structures into a notebook.
4. Review own games – after every daily game finishes, spend 10 mins tagging (✔ development, ✖ pawn weaknesses, ? missed tactics).

Progress tracker

Your results hour-by-hour and day-by-day will expose whether openings stabilise and whether blunder rate drops. Re-visit this page weekly:

Next steps

Keep embracing complexity, but anchor it in solid structures and safer kings. If you implement the small habit changes above, 1200+ will follow quickly. When you hit it, send me the game you’re most proud of – I’d love to see the progress!