Hi Manu – Personal Game Review & Action Plan
Below you’ll find a quick snapshot of recent form, followed by concrete tips you can apply in your very next games.
Your Recent Activity
What’s Already Working
- Fighting spirit. Even in bad positions you keep looking for chances. This attitude helped you out-calculate passuby and win the ending on time.
- Tactical awareness. Forks, discoveries and back-rank ideas appear frequently in your victories – e.g. 11.Bxf6! in the game against marg0t228.
- Quick opening moves. You rarely fall behind on the clock in the first five moves, giving yourself a time buffer.
Biggest Improvement Targets
- King safety. In eight of the last ten losses your king never castled or wandered around the centre.
• General rule: castle by move 10 unless you have a concrete reason not to. - Early-queen adventures. Repeated Qf3/Qh5/Qxa5 raids win the occasional pawn but cost multiple tempi and invite …Bb4+ or …Qb5+ counter-blows.
• 7-move challenge: In your next 20 games, do not touch the queen before move 7 unless it wins material outright. - Loose pawn pushes. g4, h4, b4 and e5 appeared together in the loss to janoxh, creating dark-square holes.
• Before pushing a wing pawn ask: “Which square am I weakening? Can a knight jump in?” - Clock management. Three recent defeats were on time in roughly equal positions.
• Practical tip: when under three minutes switch to “increment mode”: make obvious/forced moves in < 5 seconds and think during your opponent’s turn.
Simplified Opening Menu
You clearly like Reti / Larsen structures (1 Nf3, 1 b3). Keep them, but follow basic set-ups:
- Pieces out first: Nf3, g3, Bg2, 0-0, d3, e4.
- Against 1…e5 after 1 e4 try the Italian Game: e4 e5 Nf3 Nc6 Bc4 Bc5 c3 Nf6 d4.
Tactical Training Focus
Daily puzzle set (10 positions) on: pins, skewers, back-rank mates and forks. Strengthening defensive vision will cut your blunder rate in half.
Illustrative Games
Recent win – clean development & swift tactics:
Recent loss – late castling & exposed king:
Two-Week Action Plan
- Days 1-4
• 20 puzzles/day on pins & forks.
• 5 rapid games; spend 5 minutes self-analysing each. - Days 5-8
• Study Italian Game basics for 30 min.
• Play 5 games using that setup. - Days 9-14
• Endgame drills: king & pawn vs king, opposition, Lucena (15 min/day).
• 3 rapid games focusing on time management.
Final Encouragement
Your creativity is a real asset. Combine it with solid fundamentals and you’ll break the 600 barrier in no time. Enjoy the journey and good luck!