Arturs Neiksans GM

Hi Arturs!

Congratulations on another productive streak on the board. Your recent run of 5/6 in blitz (≈3 min) shows that you are in excellent tactical shape and that your “double-fianchetto / Reti-English” arsenal is giving most opponents serious practical problems.

What you are doing particularly well

• Opening versatility with 1.Nf3. In the span of six games you reached King’s Indian Attack structures, pure English positions and even a Dutch-type set-up against …f5. Opponents struggle to guess which middle-game plan you will choose.
• Dynamic piece play. Your wins against Lennis Martinez Ramirez and Sergey And. Korshunov feature timely pawn breaks (e4, b4, c6) and razor-sharp king hunts. The engines agree you were ahead on the clock and the board by move 25 in both games.
• Killer instinct when ahead. Once a passed pawn appears (24.d6!! vs Lennis93; 39.b6! vs Chessmatenokk17) you transition smoothly into “force-promotion mode” and rarely let the advantage slip.
• Peak form. You are currently playing near your season high of 2960 (2024-10-22).

Three improvement priorities

1. Time-management in drawn or lost endings.
   Your last loss vs Paddy2609 and the Chess960 time-forfeit both share a pattern: you reach a defensive endgame, hesitate, and flag. Even a simple increment would have saved both games, but in pure 3-minute you must either:
   • Trust your technique sooner (liquidate to a holdable rook ending), or
   • Recognise “dead-lost” earlier and switch to fast premove defence to keep practical chances.
   Drill suggestion: set up 3-vs-3 rook endings and play them out with 5 sec per side until you can hold 90 %.
2. Critical moment calculation.
   In the Queen’s Indian loss to xueshanbaolong you avoided 24…Bxd5 (equal) and allowed the b-pawn avalanche. Spend 30-60 sec at big branching points—even in blitz. A short “scan” checklist helps:
   1. Material balance?
   2. King safety?
   3. Passed pawns / pawn breaks?
   If two factors favour the opponent, burn an extra tempo to find a concrete resource.
3. Stopping pawn races on the flank.
   Your two recent defeats versus minority pawn pushes (a- & b-pawns) indicate a recurring theme: under-estimating outside passed pawns once queens are off. Work through five classic examples (e.g. Botvinnik–Capablanca, Hübner–Portisch) and play them against the engine; focus on blockade squares and creating counterplay in the centre.

Action plan for the next 2 weeks

Annotated snapshot: last win, move 21–32

(White = you, Black = Lennis93) – conversion technique after pawn sacrifice.

1. 25.a4! freezes the queenside knight and prepares Rg1-g4.
2. 29.Rg1!! shows great coordination; the g-file was the correct entry lane.
3. Despite only 60 s left you kept the initiative and induced time-pressure mistakes.

Keep sharpening the tactics, but give yourself those extra 2-3 critical seconds when the position demands it. A small adjustment in clock discipline should push you well beyond the 2900 blitz barrier.

Good luck and enjoy the grind!