Personalised Feedback for Rohan Rajaram
Snapshot of Your Current Form
• Time-class played most: 3-minute blitz
• Best blitz mark so far:
• Recent score: 5 wins – 5 losses (sample taken from last two sessions)
What You Are Doing Well
- Dynamic pawn play: Your wins against sinistersnake and Ali Sebbar show confident central and wing pawn breaks (…b5, …f5, c5) that seized the initiative early.
- Converting advantages: In the English vs BSWPaulsen you coordinated rooks and minor pieces smoothly, finishing with 33.Rf7# – a textbook exploitation of an exposed king.
- End-game tenacity: Your 63-move grind versus Andrej Ljepic proved you can keep your nerve in equal or even slightly worse endings, creating practical winning chances until the very end.
Patterns That Cost You Games
- Early king exposure in bullet: Three losses to jacky3252 ended in mate before move 15, all featuring Qh7/Qh6 infiltrations. The common factors were:
- Queenside development before completing kingside safety (…h6 or …g6 left undefended squares).
- Slow reaction to direct mating threats in double-fiancetto structures.
- Pawn pushes that weaken dark squares: In the Nimzowitsch-Larsen loss you played …f5 + …h6 creating holes on g6/h6. Opponent’s queen and rook exploited them quickly.
- Clock management: Two time-forfeit losses occurred in positions that were still objectively playable. In ultra-fast games a two-second safety buffer is vital – make your move-confirm click part of the thought process, not the after-thought.
Targeted Improvement Plan
- Opening sanitation (bullet)
- Add an automatic ⟶ …h6 against early Qh5/Qh7 ideas in systems where you fianchetto.
- Prepare a bullet-specific response to 1.b3 and 1.c3 that aims for quick development rather than perfect pawn structure.
- King-safety checklist
Train a five-second scan before every move: “Checks – captures – threats – loose pieces – pawn breaks – mate nets on h7/h2 ”. Building this micro-habit will stop the back-rank & h-file mates that decided four of your recent defeats.
- Clock drills
- Play three 1|0 games where your goal is never to drop below 50 % of initial time until move 15.
- Use premove for forced recaptures only – not speculative tactics.
- End-game refresh
Spend 10 minutes a day on king-and-pawn and minor-piece endings. Your technique is already a strength; sharpening it further will convert more blitz games where tactics fizzle out.
- Prophylactic thinking
Include at least one quiet move in each tactics puzzle session – it conditions you to look for prophylaxis rather than only aggression.
Short-Term Milestones
- Finish the current week with no miniature losses (<20 moves).
- Reach a streak of 5 consecutive games without dropping under 20 s in 3-minute time controls.
- Analyse one bullet game per day, writing a single sentence on what you would change in the opening.
Keep It Up!
Your tactical eye and fighting spirit already match high-2700 opposition. By patching the early king-safety leaks and refining clock discipline, you should comfortably push beyond your current peak in the next rating cycle.