Gerardo Salazar

Hi Gerardo, here’s your personalized improvement plan!

Quick Snapshot

• Peak Blitz Rating so far: 811 (2025-01-04)
• Favourite Black opening: Owen’s Defence (1…b6)
• Favourite White opening: Queen’s-Pawn / Colle structures
• Typical playing schedule  → 

What You’re Already Doing Well

1. Consistent Opening Set-up. Repeating the same openings gives you practical experience and confidence.
2. King Safety Awareness. In many of your wins you castle quickly and avoid early mating nets.
3. Converting Material. The finish against mrsamair showed patience in a winning queen endgame.

Priority Improvements

1. Time Management (highest impact)

Four of your last five losses were on time in equal or better positions. Your average remaining clock when you lose is under 5 seconds. Being forced to blitz out moves also leads to missed tactics.

• Play some games with a 3 + 2 or 5 + 3 increment so you can practise finishing won positions calmly.
• Use a simple “touch-move, think on opponent’s time” routine: decide on a reply while their clock is running.

2. Tactical Alertness

Most critical mistakes come from hanging pieces or missing one-move threats (e.g. 37…Rc8?? in your loss to Mustafasabouri).

• Solve 10–15 rated puzzles daily. Focus on motifs such as forks, pins and back-rank mates.
• After each game, replay it with “Show Mistakes Only” to spot the exact blunder move.

3. Opening Fundamentals

Owen’s Defence is playable, but you often exchange Bb4xc3 too early and give White the <bishop pair> for free. Try the following guidelines:

• Delay …Bb4 until your king is safe; if White plays a3, retreat to e7 or d6 instead of taking.
• Against 1.e4 b6 2.d4, consider the solid setup …e6, Bb7, Nf6, c5 aiming for pressure on d4.
• With White, your Colle system is fine, but add the simple tactic Bxf7+ ! pattern to punish …e5 premature breaks.

4. Endgame Technique

You reach winning queen or pawn endgames but sometimes let them drift. One instructive mini-drill each day:

• Practise basic mates (K+Q vs K, K+R vs K) until you can execute them in 20 seconds.
• Play endgame sparring on lichess tablebase trainer: start from 6-piece positions for 5 minutes each.

Illustrative Moment

In the time-forfeit loss to Mustafasabouri the critical position arose after 21.g4:

Take 30 seconds during review to ask: “Is the capture forced? What does the counter-play look like?”

Two-Week Training Plan

1. Daily: 15 puzzles → play 3 blitz games with increment → analyse one game fully.
2. Every other day: Watch one 10-minute video on <endgame fundamentals>.
3. Weekend: Play one 15 | 10 rapid game and annotate it yourself before engine check.

Motivation Corner

You have already proven you can conduct long winning conversions (see your 68-move queen endgame vs mrsamair). Sharpen tactics and manage the clock, and 800+ will come naturally.

Good luck, keep the pieces coordinated, and enjoy the journey!

CoachBot ♙