Coach Chesswick
Hi Matt (Herman-NY)!
Congratulations on maintaining a high 2664 (2024-10-01) and producing spectacular attacking wins such as your recent victory against Masterisback04. Below is some personalised feedback drawn from your latest games.
What you’re doing well
- Tactical sharpness – Your ability to unleash combinations (e.g. …Rxc3 in the Najdorf or the h-file sacrifice attack vs BaptisteYannick) regularly decides games in your favour.
- Dynamic opening choices – The Sicilian, QGD and Nimzo setups you employ keep the position unbalanced, suiting your active style.
- Resilience in complications – Even in time trouble you often find resources such as …Nf4–h3+ in your last win, turning pressure into mating nets.
Main areas to focus on next
-
Time management
• Four of your last six losses were “lost on time” in roughly equal or promising positions.
• Aim to hit “safe-moves” earlier in predictable sequences (e.g. Najdorf sidelines) and keep 20-30 seconds as an emergency reserve.
• Try a few sessions of increment only training (e.g. 1 + 2) to practise quick but accurate play. -
Handling the h3/g4 Anti-Najdorf systems
• Against 6.h3 g4 lines you twice chose …Rc8/…Rxc3 very quickly and entered positions where White’s centre remained intact.
• Consider the calmer plan 9…Be7, 10…h6, delaying …Rxc3 until you can meet bxc3 with …d5.
• Build an “if-then” memory aid for this branch so you spend zero extra seconds in future games. -
End-game conversion under pressure
• Versus LSChess and chess13524678 you reached favourable end-games but the clock out-raced you.
• Drill simple rook-and-pawn endings vs an engine using 20-second total start times to automate winning techniques.
• Adopt a mental checklist (king activity, passed pawns, rook behind passer) to avoid re-calculating basics. -
Strategic pauses
• Your middlegame plans are sometimes too force-driven; incorporate one move of prophylaxis before launching tactics (e.g. …Kh8 in the Najdorf, …a6 in QGD structures).
Mini-Exercise (from your loss vs AlexeiShirov)
After 17…Nxe4 the critical line 18…Bb4+ 19.Ke2 Qe5! would have kept material balance and freed your c3-knight.
Replay and calculate the variation in under 30 seconds:
Stats & Tracking
Monitor your progress with the built-in tools:
& . A visible dip in wins during late-night sessions matches many of your flag-losses; consider scheduling key games earlier.Action plan for the next two weeks
- Play 25 blitz games focusing solely on staying above 20 seconds by move 30.
- Analyse each Anti-Najdorf with an engine and store one pre-selected safe reply in your notes.
- Solve 50 rook-and-pawn end-game puzzles, time-capped at 90 seconds each.
- Review one game per day asking “Where was my first unnecessary think?”
Keep enjoying your dynamic style, Matt. With a small investment in time-handling and structure awareness, you’re well on course to break the next rating barrier.