Coach Chesswick
What You're Doing Well
Arthur, your recent blitz games show several strengths:
- You have a solid grasp of various openings, particularly the French Defense Advance Variation and the Czech Defense, where your win rates are above 56% and 62% respectively.
- Your preparation in mainline openings such as the Scandinavian Defense and Blackburne Shilling Gambit is paying off with consistent wins.
- In your most recent win, you demonstrated good control of the center and timely development, as seen in your game using the Caro-Kann Defense.
- Your overall strength adjusted win rate is just above 50%, indicating a balanced competitive level against similarly rated opponents.
- You are actively playing and maintaining your performance without significant recent drops; your 3-month rating trend is slightly positive, reflecting resilience.
Areas to Improve
There are some key aspects you can work on to elevate your blitz play:
- Manage Rating Fluctuations: Your six and twelve month rating trends show a decline. This implies periods where your performance slipped. Focusing on consistent practice and review of losses will help.
- Time management: In blitz, rapid and accurate decisions are critical. Work on your opening preparation to save time in the early stages and avoid time pressure mistakes.
- Opening Refinement: While openings like the Caro-Kann and Scotch have low win rates for you, consider revisiting theory or experimenting with alternate lines that better suit your style.
- Analyze Losses: Review your recent losses carefully to identify recurring tactical or positional errors, especially in middle game transitions.
- Endgame Skills: Some losses stemmed from complex endgame positions, so pushing your knowledge in this area will increase your chances of converting advantages.
Practical Tips
- Study the key positions and common plans of your favored openings — focus on typical pawn structures and piece placements.
- Practice puzzles targeting tactical motifs you frequently missed — forks, pins, discovered attacks.
- After each session, review one or two lost games to understand your mistakes and avoid them in the future.
- Keep track of your time usage to avoid rushing critical moments or losing on time.
- Play slower time controls occasionally to deepen your understanding of positions and strategic ideas.
Summary
Arthur, your foundation is strong, and with focused improvements on consistency, opening preparation, and time management, you'll see your blitz performance rebound and climb higher. Keep building your post-game analyses and sharpening tactical intuition — these will serve you well across all time controls.