Wesley So GM

Quick recap

Nice run — you converted pressure into results and won multiple games by keeping the initiative and using the clock. A couple of those finishes were on time, which shows strong practical awareness in bullet. Below I picked one of the cleanest wins for a short replay you can step through:

• Replay the game vs. Vincent Keymer:
  
• Summary placeholder: Flagging and technique vs. counterplay.

What you did well

• Kept consistent pressure in the center and on the kingside — your pawn advances and rook lifts forced opponents into uncomfortable choices.
• Practical clock management: you convert small advantages into wins by pushing on the clock and maintaining threats, which is essential in bullet.
• Good tactical eye around exchanges and mating nets — you find simplifying captures that leave the opponent with little counterplay.
• Flexible piece placement: quick re-routing (knight jumps, rook to the b-file/7th) that created concrete targets.

Recurring weaknesses to fix

• Time usage spikes in critical positions — a few losses/wins-on-time show that when the position becomes complex you spend too long early and then lose quality of decisions later. Practice shorter calculation bursts (5–10 seconds per critical node).
• Tendency to allow active counterplay: in some games the opponent got a knight or rook into your half (back-rank/2nd-rank infiltration). Prioritize quick prophylaxis — little waiting moves or rook lifts to stop infiltration.
• Loose pieces in sharp moments — there were a handful of positions where pieces were hanging or nearly hanging. Resist auto-premove and double-check for en prise threats before each capture or intermezzo. Use the term to remember: Loose Piece.
• Over-reliance on flagging as a plan — practical, but you should keep the objective to win the position rather than only the clock. Cleaner technique reduces variance vs stronger opponents.

Bullet-specific technical drills

• 3 x 10-minute sessions: tactics (puzzle rush / 1-minute theme puzzles) focusing on forks, pins, and back-rank mates — these decide most bullet games.
• Clock drills: play 20 games 1+1 aiming to win without relying on flagging — force yourself to convert a clear material advantage with 5s on the clock.
• Pre-move discipline: do a session where you forbid pre-moves unless you have mate or forced capture — retrain the muscle memory.
• Endgame quickies: practice the most common 1–2 piece conversions (rook vs pawn, king + pawn endings) for 15 minutes; many bullet resignations come from missed technical wins.

Concrete opening adjustments

Keep the lines you know well as your default (you get consistent practical results from solid systems). For openings you play less frequently, simplify the choices in bullet to one reliable move order so you don’t spend time on move-lookup during the game.

• Choose short, low-theory sidelines for opponent surprises and force decisions (less calculation per move).
• Practice 3–4 typical middlegame structures from your repertoire for quick pattern recognition — this saves 5–10 seconds per move on average.

Mindset & tournament practice

• When you have incremental time controls (like 60+1), aim to use increment each move to avoid unnecessary flag risks — play simpler, safer moves when under 10 seconds.
• After a loss, spend 2 minutes to scan the final 10 moves and ask: “Was this a strategic error, a tactic I missed, or a time problem?” That quick triage speeds learning.
• Keep a short beatsheet: opening, one middlegame plan, two tactical themes, one defensive resource — review this for 2 minutes between bullet sessions.

30/60/90 day action plan

• 30 days — daily 10–15 minute tactic sessions, 20 bullet games weekly with a forced “no flag-win” rule for half of them.
• 60 days — integrate 1+1 clock drills and practice 3 chosen openings to muscle-memory level (5 typical positions per opening).
• 90 days — simulate tournament stress: play a few sessions of 15|10 or 10|5 to translate bullet improvements into longer time controls and reduce panic blunders.

Next steps for the next session

• Warm up with 5 quick tactics (1–2 minutes total).
• Play 10 bullet games (60+1), but for the first 5 forbid pre-moves entirely.
• After each game, 60 seconds of scanning the last 6 moves for hanging pieces or missed tactics.
• Watch one short clip or review one critical bullet game you lost and extract the single recurrent error.

Closing / motivation

Your practical game is excellent — you win because you press and simplify at the right time. Polish a few clock habits and tighten up loose-piece awareness and you’ll reduce variance and convert more of the “on-time” wins into clean technical wins.

If you want, I can: (a) prepare a 15-minute tactics pack tuned to the patterns you miss, or (b) annotate the loss vs. Vincent Keymer with three concrete moments to change. Which do you prefer?