Olga Leticia Gamboa Alvarado WFM

Hi Olga Leticia!

Congratulations on the progress you have been making. Your recent peak in Rapid is 1742 (2021-09-03) and the quality of your best wins shows that you are consolidating many important chess skills.

What you are doing well

• Active, energetic play: In your win against InadaC (Adani Clarke) you willingly gave a pawn to seize the initiative and never looked back. The final counter-attack deserves a replay:
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• Opening versatility: You handle both 1.d4 (Queens Gambit, Nimzo-Indian) and 1.e4 positions (French, Pirc) with confidence, which makes you hard to prepare for.
• Tactical alertness: Exchange sacrifices and zwischenzugs (Zwischenzug) appear repeatedly in your wins. Keep sharpening this edge with daily tactic workouts.

Key areas to improve

• Time management: A noticeable share of your losses come from running out of time in winning or equal positions (e.g. vs oscarluna79). Aim to have at least 25-30 % of your initial time left when you enter the late middlegame. Practical tip: make one quick “safety move” per three difficult moves to keep the clock honest.
• King safety & pawn structure: In the loss to WGMCarlaHeredia you pushed ...,f5 and ...,f4 without full coordination and your king was soon stuck on h7. Before committing flank pawns, ask “will this weaken dark-squares or open files toward my king?”  Spending one tempo on a prophylactic move (such as ...Kh7 before ...f5) often pays off.
• Endgame technique: Some wins were secured on the clock rather than on the board. Try finishing a few Rapid games against the computer from equal rook-endgames to polish technique & confidence.

Suggested training plan

1. Structured openings: Build a “main line” notebook for each side of the board with 8-10 moves of theory and typical middlegame plans; revisit after every session.
2. Model games: Each week pick one grandmaster game in the Pirc and one in the Nimzo-Indian. Play through once quickly, then a second time pausing at every critical decision and writing down your move before revealing the GM’s choice.
3. Tactics & calculation drill: 15-20 fresh puzzles daily plus one “deep think” puzzle where you spend at least 5 minutes visualising without moving pieces.
4. Clock discipline: During Rapid, make it a rule to move within 30 seconds unless the position is totally critical; after each game glance at the move-by-move clock to see where the time sink occurred.

Your activity snapshots

See when you score best and schedule training accordingly:

Motivational checkpoint

You already play exciting, ambitious chess. By tightening up on the clock and adding a dose of positional awareness you should comfortably break through the next rating barrier.

Good luck with your studies and never stop enjoying the game!