Quick summary
You played solid, ambitious blitz but a couple of recurring practical problems cost you the recent games: time management in critical moments and allowing a dangerous passed c‑pawn / pawn race in the endgame. Your openings (especially the Caro‑Kann and Four Knights lines) keep giving you comfortable middlegames — see the game below — so the work should focus on conversion and practical defense under time pressure.
Key game (reviewable)
Here’s the most decisive game where Black’s advanced c‑pawn created decisive counterplay. Replay it to see the critical moments and the pawn race that followed:
Game viewer:
Opening: Caro-Kann Defense
What you did well (patterns to keep)
- Opening preparation: you get comfortable middlegames from your chosen lines — particularly the Caro‑Kann — and consistently reach playable, active positions.
- Piece activity: you seek active squares for knights and keep rooks ready on files, which generates tactical chances in the middlegame.
- Willingness to simplify when coordinated — you trade when it helps you avoid opponent threats (good practical sense when ahead in material).
- Strong intuition for creating imbalances — you put pressure on opponents and force them to solve hard problems in little time.
Recurring issues to fix
- Time management under blitz pressure — you repeatedly reach critical positions with very little time. That reduces calculation quality and increases tactical mistakes.
- Pawn‑race / passed pawn handling — in the decisive game you let a c‑pawn advance and become a committed queening threat. Once that pawn ran, it was hard to stop without heavy concessions.
- Converting or neutralizing counterplay — when you have the initiative you sometimes allow one counterchance (pawn break or passed pawn) that becomes decisive.
- Tactical oversight in complicated queen/knight endgames — keep an eye on forks, knight outposts and queening squares in endgames with few pieces.
Concrete, short drills (next 2 weeks)
- Tactics 15–20 min daily — focus on pawn breakthroughs, promotion tactics, and knight forks. (Use tactical sets that emphasize pawns queening and blockade motifs.)
- Endgame 3× per week — 20 minutes: pawn races, king+knight vs king, and basic rook/pawn vs rook patterns. Practice stopping passed pawns and using the king aggressively to blockade.
- Blitz sessions with a constraint — play 5×3 blitz but force yourself to keep 10+ seconds per move on average early/middlegame (practice pacing).
- One slow annotated review per week — pick a loss and annotate it move by move (5–10 minutes) to train decision‑making under pressure.
Two practical rules to apply immediately in blitz
- Count pawns before every major trade. If the trade releases a passed pawn for your opponent, think twice or prepare a blockade first.
- When the opponent has a potential passed pawn on the c‑file (or any flank file), try to keep a piece (king or knight) near the queening path; trading down into an endgame where the pawn can march is risky unless you can stop it.
Suggested post‑game checklist
- Before you press the clock: 1) Any immediate captures creating a passed pawn? 2) Any checks/forks available to opponent next move? 3) Where will the king be in 5 moves?
- If your clock is under 30 seconds, simplify only if the resulting endgame is known and safe — otherwise keep tension and avoid forced pawn races.
Follow‑up offer
Want me to annotate one of the losing positions move‑by‑move and show precise alternatives? I can prepare a short annotated variation set that shows the exact defense to stop the c‑pawn and a practice routine tailored to your openings (e.g. Caro-Kann Defense and Ruy Lopez lines).
Also — I can add a link to the opponent profile if you want a targeted preparation file: megamansss or Anatoly Moskvin.