Coach Chesswick
Hi JimLahey, here’s some tailored feedback based on your latest blitz (3 | 0) sessions!
What you’re doing well
- Dynamic opening choices. You comfortably switch between the Modern, Owen’s, Caro-Kann and even the Chigorin, keeping opponents guessing. Your current 3050 (2025-01-16) reflects that this variety serves you well.
- Sharp tactical vision. You are happy to enter messy positions and usually come out on top. The knockout blow in your recent win as Black (…Ne3+) is a good example:
- End-game pragmatism (when the clock allows). In several wins you simplified to winning rook-endings smoothly once the queens were off.
Key improvement areas
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Time management – your single biggest leak.
Four of your five most recent losses were on time in positions that were objectively equal or winning.- Practise “chunked” thinking: spend ≤10 s reaching a playable position out of the opening, then switch to an average of 3 s per move.
- Allow one only if needed “tank” per game (≈15 s) at a critical moment; the rest must be blitz-speed.
- Add a few 3 | 2 or 5 | 0 games to rehearse quick but accurate decision making.
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Handling the Chigorin structures vs 3.Bf4.
You repeated the same line twice and got squeezed each time. Consider:- Trying 3…dxc4 followed by …Be6 to neutralise Bf4, or
- Switching to the Queen’s Gambit Declined with …e6 if you want a more solid fallback.
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End-game conversion under time pressure.
Two flags came in winning rook-endings. A 10-minute weekly drill on Philidor, Lucena and basic pawn races will pay big dividends. -
Avoid premature pawn storms.
Several games featured early g- and h-pawn pushes before your king was safe, e.g. the loss shown below where …g5 and …h5 allowed counterplay:
Ask yourself “Can I improve a piece first?” before launching flank pawns.
Action plan for the next week
- Play three 3 | 2 games a day and focus only on staying above 30 s.
- Review one annotated Chigorin game by a strong player and note the typical plans.
- Solve 20 end-game flash cards (R + P vs R; B + wrong-colour rook pawn; opposite-coloured bishops).
Self-monitoring tools
The following interactive widgets can help you track progress:
- Hourly confidence check:
- Consistency tracker by day:
Keep the momentum
Your aggressive style is a weapon—tune the clock handling and patch the Chigorin gap and you’re well on your way to the next rating jump. Good luck, and enjoy the grind!