Coach Chesswick
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
- 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.
- Off-beat openings. Grob, Horwitz, early h-pawns—opponents lure you into using three tempi to “refute” them and you fall behind in development.
- 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.
- 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!