Richard Russell FM

Hi Richard!

You have an enterprising style that has already taken you to a very respectable peak of 2448 (2021-01-19). Below is a focused review of your recent games, followed by an action-oriented training plan.

What you are doing well

• Dynamic openings. King’s Indian, Dutch and Sicilian set-ups suit your taste for double-edged play and lead to positions where you can out-calculate many opponents.
• Tactical alertness. Your recent win vs ronaldoabarcatorres featured the attractive sequence 37…Rah8 38.Qd1 Qh7 39.Bc2 hxg4 40.fxg4 Rxh3 (diagram after 40…Rxh3) that exploited every tempo on the h-file.
• Practical fighting spirit. You defend stubbornly when worse and often turn games around, especially in complications.

Patterns that keep costing you points

1. Clock management. Five of your last seven losses (and your most recent one to apple_rom) were simply on time. Even several wins, such as the KID game above, ended with your clock under 5 s while still up material.
2. Off-beat openings. Grob, Horwitz, early h-pawns—opponents lure you into using three tempi to “refute” them and you fall behind in development.
3. Pawn over-extension. Repeated …f5/…g5 in the KID or early …c5 in Queen’s Gambit positions leave holes you must later cover in a rush.
4. Technical conversion. Several won rook endings (e.g. vs Davinho123) slipped away when the cleanest plan was a simple pawn push instead of flashy checks.

4-week improvement plan

Week 1 – Time discipline

• Play 10 games with a 3 + 2 increment and force yourself to keep >30 s by move 25. Abort the game if you drop below—build the habit first.

Week 2 – Anti-system repertoire

• Create a one-page file with simple, low-maintenance set-ups versus Grob, Bird, London & 1…e6/…c5 Horwitz. Drill them in the opening explorer for 20 min each day.

Week 3 – Pawn-structure clinic

• Review 15 of your own games; whenever you advanced a wing pawn (…h5/…g5/…a5) mark the position and ask: “Could I achieve the same goal by improving a piece instead?” Aim to label at least five pushes as “unnecessary.”

Week 4 – Endgame conversion

• Daily 20-position set of basic rook endings (Lucena, Philidor, & side-pawn techniques). Solve them with a running clock: 60 s per study.

Progress tracking

Use the built-in insights tool and keep an eye on:

• – your performance late at night visibly dips after 30 games.
• – aim for ≥60 % on “training days” compared with “experiment days.”

Final thought

Your ability to create winning chances is already master-level; closing the deal on the clock and in the endgame is the fastest path to the next rating band. Stay disciplined, follow the weekly targets above, and I expect another peak soon. Good luck and enjoy the grind!