Glenn Ingham

Quick summary

Nice work — you’re creating real wins from tactical play and passed pawns, and you show good opportunism in the opening. Your strength-adjusted win rate (~48%) says you win almost as often as you lose against similar opposition. Recent short-term rating drops are painful (–229), but your trend slope numbers suggest you're capable of turning things around with focused practice.

Game highlights (concrete examples)

Here’s one of your clean wins — good tactical finishing and a promoted pawn that decides the game:

• Win vs sisuphos: You pushed a passed pawn to promotion and finished with a mate on the h-file. That shows strong pattern recognition for passed pawns and mating nets. (
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• Loss vs tinootik: the game ended with your opponent’s rooks very active and you lost on time. You had chances earlier but repeated tactical and time-management issues left you vulnerable to heavy-piece penetrations.

What you’re doing well

• Opening opportunism — you spot tactical shots early (queen grabs, quick piece trades) and convert material advantages.
• Passed-pawn technique — promotion in your win shows you can push and convert connected passed pawns under pressure.
• Good results in a few openings (Scotch, Philidor, Amazon Attack) — you should keep and refine those lines.
• Practical finishing — you hunt mating nets effectively when the opponent’s king becomes exposed.

Recurring problems to fix

• Time trouble / flagging: several lost games end on time. When your clock starts to run low, you tend to complicate rather than simplify. Practice playing with increment and build a simple “low-clock” checklist (trade queens if safe, avoid long complications, play auto-safe moves).
• Back-rank / rook activity: in the loss vs tinootik the opponent’s rooks became dominant. Watch for weak back ranks and open files — get a luft or keep a rook defending when heavy pieces can invade.
• Risky queen excursions: Qxb7/Qxc7-type wins work a lot, but leaving your queen out can let the opponent gain time with tempo moves. Before grabbing material ask “Can my king be attacked?” and “Do I lose development?”
• Opening variety vs bad matchups: you have a few openings with 0% win rate (Sicilian, Scandinavian). Either avoid these as Black/White or learn one safe mechanical line in them.

Practical blitz fixes (actionable, immediate)

• Clock plan: when under 1 minute, switch to a “practical moves only” mode: 1) check for opponent tactics, 2) trades to simplify, 3) longest-living piece to active square. This reduces blunders and flagging.
• Pre-move policy: allow pre-moves only in clearly forced recaptures or when you have ample time. Bad pre-moves cost games.
• Opening streamlining: keep 2–3 reliable opening systems you know well. Double down on ones with high win rates (Scotch, Philidor, Amazon Attack).
• Endgame basics: drill rook + king vs rook and basic rook endings 10 minutes a week — many blitz losses come from not converting or holding simple rook endgames.

Concrete 3-week improvement plan

• Daily (15–25 minutes): 10–15 tactics puzzles focusing on mating nets and rook tactics; 5–10 minutes of bullet/blitz with increment to practice time control.
• 3× per week (30–60 minutes): review 1 loss and 1 win. Write three moments: turning point, a missed tactic, and a time-management error. Keep notes.
• Weekly (1 session): 30–45 minutes of endgame drills — king+rook vs king, basic pawn endgames, and active rook play.
• Opening homework: pick one Black and one White line to study deeply (keep to ones where your WinRate is good). Learn main traps and one-sentence plans for the resulting middlegames.

Drills & study resources

• Tactics: daily puzzles (focus on forks, discoveries, back-rank motifs). Goal: 30 correct in a row on positions you miss less often.
• Endgames: 10 forced mates and 5 rook endgames per week. Convert a basic winning rook+pawn position vs best defense.
• Practical play: play 10 incremented blitz games (3+2 or 5+3) and force yourself to never drop below 30 seconds — use the low-clock checklist.

Small adjustments that pay big dividends

• Before grabbing material ask: “Does this expose my king or development?” (prevents queen excursions turning into traps).
• When ahead, exchange queens if opponent’s counterplay is strong — reduces swindling chances.
• Use a single “go-to” defensive rook setup: keep a rook on the 7th or double rooks on open files to limit opponent rook activity.
• Label one or two signature openings as “must-know” and put them at the top of your study list.

Next steps

Pick one concrete change this week — for example, “no queen grabs unless I’m +2 or I have safe king shelter” — and stick to it for 10 games. Track results. If you want, send 3 more recent games (especially ones you lost on time) and I’ll give move-by-move pointers and a short annotated mini‑report.

• Want a move-by-move post-mortem for one loss? Reply with the game link or PGN and I’ll annotate the key moments.
• If you prefer drills, tell me whether you have 10, 20 or 30 minutes/day and I’ll tailor the week plan.