Raunak Sadhwani GM

Overview of Your Recent Rapid Games

Nice work keeping a fighting spirit across your most recent rapid events. You’ve shown willingness to complicate positions and keep pressure on opponents even when things get tense. The following notes pull from your recent win, loss, and draw, along with opening choices and long‑term trends to help you sharpen your practice plan.

What You’re Doing Well

• You pursue activity and initiative even in solid openings, aiming to seize the tempo and force your opponents to react. This helps you create chances to convert into an advantage.
• You handle complex middlegame dynamics with a willingness to simplify into endings where your pieces and pawns can attack the opponent’s weaknesses. This readiness to trade into favorable endgames is a valuable strength.
• Your openness to aggressive lines, such as these recent games, reflects a confident mindset that keeps opponents on their heels and tests their exact handling under pressure.

What You Can Improve From the Last Couple of Games

• Defensive discipline in sharp tactical moments: In the loss, the opponent generated dynamic play on the kingside and central files. Work on recognizing when the king safety is at risk and switch to solid defenses sooner, avoiding late defensive concessions.
• Time management in longer sequences: In tighter time controls or longer sequences, a few moments of hesitation or rushing can invite errors. Build in a quick, fixed plan for the critical middlegame phase (e.g., central control, piece coordination, and king safety checks) to keep pace and reduce blunders.
• Endgame precision: You’ve shown good appetite for endgames; aim to tighten endgame technique with targeted practice on rook endings and pawn endgames, so small advantages can be converted consistently into wins.
• Time for prophylaxis in openings: Your openings show willingness to fight for dynamic play, but occasionally a prophylactic or quieter continuation can prevent the opponent’s counterplay. Consider adding one solid safety move in several lines to reduce risk of counterattacks after the early middlegame.

Opening Performance Snapshot

Your opening choices show a mix of aggressive setups and solid defenses. Notably, you’ve performed well in certain aggressive lines, while some other lines have yielded fewer wins. Here are some practical takeaways:

• Amazon Attack and similar aggressive setups have yielded solid results when you maintained pressure and piece activity. These lines fit your style when you’re aiming to dictate the pace of the game.
• Some lines with heavy piece activity (like certain King’s Indian and Ruy Lopez branches) have produced good wins but also riskier positions. Use these when you’re comfortable with the ensuing complications, and pair them with concrete middlegame plans to avoid getting lost in the tactics.
• Be mindful of openings that produced less favorable results, such as the Berlin‑style branches with limited winning chances. If you’re unsure about a branch, switch to a more flexible setup or prepare specific middlegame ideas to maintain balance.

For a quick reference, you can review your performance on key lines like the Italian Game and the King’s Indian family. Italian Game King’s Indian Defense

Interpreting Your Rating Trends and What They Mean for Practice

Short-term trends show a small dip in the last couple of months, while longer-term indicators point toward a gradual positive drift. This pattern suggests you’re in a phase where sharpening fundamentals and consolidating your knowledge will pay dividends in the near term, while your longer-term trajectory remains favorable.

• Strength of play remains above the average in the long run, so focus on consistency and minimizing blunders in the critical middlegame transitions.
• Continue to invest in core skills: tactics recognition, prophylaxis, and endgame technique. These areas tend to provide the most leverage to lift your results in rapid events.

Practical 2-Week Plan to Elevate Your Rapid Results

• Daily tactical sessions (15–20 minutes): focus on motifs that appeared in your recent games (exchanges, discoverer checks, and endgame conversions). Use a mix of timed puzzles and move-by-move analysis to build calculation speed and accuracy.
• Two focused game reviews per week: pick one recent win and one loss. Identify 2–3 turning points where better decision-making could have changed the outcome, and formulate concrete improvements for similar positions.
• Opening study (3–4 sessions per week, 20 minutes each): strengthen your best-performing aggressive lines (like Amazon Attack) and add 1–2 safe, flexible replies in your other main lines to improve resilience against surprises.
• Endgame drills (2 sessions per week, 15 minutes): practice rook endings with pawns and common king‑and‑pawn endgames. Aim to convert small advantages into wins and learn to defend when behind.
• Time‑management practice (1 session per week): run short, 25‑move mini‑games with strict time limits to train staying calm and making purposeful moves under pressure.

Quick References and Useful Prompts

• Profile reference for Raunak: Raunak Sadhwani
• Key opening ideas to review: Italian Game; Amazon Attack; King’s Indian Defense
• Sample game snippet you can study: