Coach Chesswick
Hi gmsakk — personalised coaching report
1. Snapshot
- Peak blitz rating so far: 2896 (2025-03-03)
- Hourly swing of your form:
- Consistency pattern by weekday:
2. What you already do well
- Initiative-first mindset. Most games start with an early pawn lever (f4/f5, c4/c5 or g-pawn pushes) that forces opponents to solve problems quickly. The attack that began with 22.Nd7+ (see mini-board below) is a textbook example of converting activity into material.
- Piece coordination. In both classical and Chess960 you rarely leave pieces idle. Your bishops usually find useful diagonals before move 10, and rooks reach open files quickly.
- Versatility. Switching between standard and 960 suggests good board vision rather than rote memorisation.
3. Repeated pain points
- Time-trouble losses. Four of your last nine defeats ended on the clock (or immediately after a blitzed blunder made under 10 s).
- Over-extended wing pawns. In both Trompowsky losses against Mischuk_D your g- and h-pawns raced up the board, leaving dark-square holes round the king. The same pattern appeared in the Chess960 loss to MVM2008.
- Converting won positions. The most recent win reached a technically winning rook end by move 34, yet it still required flagging the opponent. Cleaner conversion would save energy.
4. Illustrative positions
a) Strength – coordinated attack
b) Weakness – structural holes after pawn storm
5. Action plan
- Time management drill. Play a daily 15|10 game and force yourself to spend at least 30 seconds on moves 6-15. This trains a habit of budgeting time for the critical early middlegame instead of saving everything for a frantic finish.
- Review pawn-storm triggers. Before pushing a wing pawn, ask “What squares become weak if this pawn disappears?” A checklist: king safety, opposite-colour bishop, and opponent’s half-open files. Practise with annotated master games in the Trompowsky Attack where White keeps the centre intact.
- End-game technique. Set up two-rook-vs-rook pawn endings from your own games and play them against an engine at depth-8. Aim to convert within 25 moves.
- Backup openings with calmer structures. Add one solid queen’s-pawn line (e.g. Colle-Zukertort or London) to balance your high-risk repertoire. This will also reduce prep time in 960 where early tactics are less forcing.
- Post-mortem habit. After each session pick one win and one loss, run a 5-minute engine check, and summarise:
- Biggest ⨉ (blunder) and why it happened.
- One positional theme learnt (e.g. pawn structure or minor-piece outposts).
6. Next milestone
With steadier clock handling and tighter pawn discipline you are on track to stabilise above 2400 blitz within the next 200 games. Let’s revisit the plan after every 50-game block.
Good luck, and enjoy the grind!