Leon Luke Mendonca GM

Recent rapid games: what went well

You’ve demonstrated willingness to fight for active play and to press from the opening through the middlegame. In your Colle-based games, you showed comfort with a solid central setup and coordinating pieces to create pressure on the opponent. You also tend to keep your pieces connected and look for ways to activate rooks and queens along open lines when the position allows.

In dynamic moments, you’ve shown resilience and the ability to generate counterplay. When opportunities arise on the kingside or in open files, you seize them and keep your opponent under some initiative. This willingness to complicate when appropriate is a strong asset in fast time controls.

Key improvements to focus on

• Time management and pacing in middlegames: allocate a little more time to critical turns and avoid rushing when the position is unclear. A quick check after each forcing sequence helps you spot hidden threats and better evaluate exchanges.
• Converting advantages: in several games you built promising positions but didn’t always convert the edge to a clean win. Practice clear plan formation in the middlegame (what breaks you want, which squares you want to control, and how you coordinate your rooks and queen) and follow it to a concrete target.
• Defensive vigilance against tactics: when you’re pressing, ensure you’re not walking into tactical counterplay. Develop a lightweight checklist before committing to a tactical line (threats your opponent has, your opponent’s immediate threats, and a forcing move candidate with a simple follow-up).
• Endgame technique: sharpen rook and minor-piece endgames and queen endings. In rapid time controls, converting slowly improving positions into a win requires precise endgame technique and careful king activity.

Opening performance: high-level takeaways

Your data shows solid results with the Colle system, where you’ve achieved a strong win rate. This suggests you’re comfortable with steady development, central control, and building a consistent plan in that setup. Consider leaning into that structure more, while keeping a flexible toolkit to avoid becoming predictable.

Other openings show mixed results. Queen’s Indian-related lines can be complex; spend a focused session or two on typical middlegame plans that come from those structures and common pawn formations. If you frequently meet certain defenses (like the variations in the data), drill the main line ideas and your standard responses so you’re not surprised by typical counters.

Two-game samples in some lines are small, so treat those trends as starting points for study rather than final judgments. Use them to identify which parts of the opening you’re most confident in and which parts you want to reinforce with focused practice.

Concrete plan for the next 2 weeks

• Daily tactical workouts: 15–20 minutes focusing on spotting threats, forcing moves, and calculating short combinations. Aim to reduce missed tactics by at least one per session.
• Opening focus sessions: dedicate 2 sessions to Colle practice (central plan, typical middlegame ideas) and 1 session to a Queen’s Indian/related line to build familiarity with common structures and plans.
• Endgame training: 2 short rook endgames per week. Practice activating the king, cutting off opponent counterplay, and pushing a passed pawn when possible.
• Post-game review routine: after each rapid game, write down one turning point, one alternative plan you could have pursued, and one small improvement you can carry forward.
• Time-check habit: in each critical moment, pause for 3 breaths and quickly assess the main threats, then decide on a plan before committing to a move.

Optional study ideas and placeholders

If you’d like, I can tailor a short study pack based on your most frequent responses to the Colle and Queen’s Indian lines. For example, we can build a compact 2-week plan that includes key middlegame ideas, typical pawn structures, and a few model games illustrating strong plans in those openings.