Coach Chesswick
Positives to Build On
Bojan, your recent games and overall performance show several areas where you're doing very well:
- Opening Preparation: Your solid win rates in openings like the Modern Defense, Queen's Gambit Declined Exchange and the English Opening: Anglo-Indian Defense suggest strong preparation and familiarity in these lines. Your highest win rates come from the Réti Opening and Colle System with wins over 60%.
- Consistency and Improvement: Your rating has steadily increased over the past months, reflecting your dedicated effort and growth. The +75 rating change in the last month and positive 1-month slope indicate you're currently on an upward trend in skill.
- Active Play and Aggressiveness: Games show you are actively engaging in the midgame, looking for tactical chances and trying to seize the initiative, which is excellent for a higher playing level.
Areas for Focus
Reviewing your recent losses and draws offers some clues on where to sharpen your play further:
- Time Management: Some of your recent games show a significant drop in clock time during the middle game. Improving your speed and decision-making under time pressure will help prevent losing by time and enable better tactical calculations.
- Handling Complex Positions: In the Queen's Gambit Declined example, the transition to a complex endgame with active rooks and passed pawns was challenging. Studying technique in rook and pawn endgames will help convert advantages and defend difficult positions more confidently.
- Opening Variability: While your win rates in select openings are strong, broadening your repertoire might help avoid predictable lines your opponents might be preparing against. Experimenting with a few new systems could keep your opponents guessing.
- Defensive Awareness: In the King's Indian Defense game, you faced sharp attacks that eventually overwhelmed your position. Focusing on defensive techniques and recognizing opponent threats earlier will reduce such setbacks.
Specific Suggestions
- Practice blitz time control games with a focus on maintaining good time balance, especially from move 10 to move 25 in the game.
- Spend time reviewing rook endgames and pawn structure fundamentals to sharpen your ability to hold or convert slight advantages.
- Work on recognizing key tactical motifs common in the King's Indian Defense and other sharp openings you face often.
- Continue using your strong opening base but try incorporating less common moves occasionally to keep your games fresh.
Summary
Your overall progress is excellent and your solid foundation in openings is a great asset. With focused effort on time management and endgame technique, plus some work on defensive awareness, you should expect to see continued improvement. Keep training consistently as your recent trends show sustainable skill growth.
For detailed analysis, consider revisiting games such as your match against Igor Yarmonov in the Queen's Gambit Declined and DrKarelGo in the King's Indian Defense to explore key turning points and learnable moments.