Robert Hovhannisyan GM

What you’re doing well

You bring energy and practical counterplay to blitz, keeping pieces active and creating pressure even in complex positions. Your willingness to complicate the game can catch opponents off guard and generate chances to seize the initiative. In several games you demonstrated good persistence, converting middlegame ideas into tangible threats and maintaining fight until the final moments.

• Active piece coordination and willingness to attack when opportunities arise.
• Resilience in tight, tactical lines and ability to navigate unclear positions with practical decisions.
• Consistency in maintaining pressure on the opponent’s position, which often forces errors under time pressure.

Key areas to improve

• Time management in blitz: aim to allocate a steady pace so you have a reliable plan in the late middlegame. When time gets tight, switch to simpler plans rather than deep, risky calculations.
• Endgame technique: several games reach rook-and-pawn endings. Build a simple conversion toolkit—keep the king active, place the rook behind passed pawns, and use basic opposition concepts—to improve converting or drawing tendencies.
• Opening preparation and plans: you’re frequently in solid Queen’s Gambit Declined and French Defense structures. Develop a compact two-repertoire approach (one for White, one for Black) with clear middlegame plans to reduce drifting into vague positions.
• Calculation discipline: pause at critical moments to verify threats, captures, and forcing lines. Prioritize moves that clearly improve your position or reduce your opponent’s counterplay, especially under time pressure.
• Prophylaxis: try to anticipate your opponent’s main ideas and address them preemptively to limit surprises in blitz.

Opening performance and study focus

Your openings data shows solid results across a wide range, with particular focus around Queen’s Gambit Declined and French structures. To strengthen, consider focusing on a small, reliable set of lines and their typical middlegame plans:

• Queen’s Gambit Declined: Exchange Variation: study typical middlegame plans and common pawn structures after exchanges, plus practical ideas for activating pieces in the resulting endgames. See focused study: Queens-Gambit Declined: Exchange Variation
• French Defense: Exchange Variation: reinforce the pawn structure, learn how to activate pieces after early trades, and recognize typical tactical motifs Black uses in these lines. See focused study: French Defense Exchange Variation
• Other openings like Caro-Kann and Four Knights: pick one line from each and craft a simple, repeatable plan that you can rely on against various responses.

Practice plan for the next weeks

• Week 1: Time management and endgame basics. Do rook-endgame drills and practice pacing your moves in short time controls.
• Week 2: Opening depth. Choose two openings to study in depth (one for White, one for Black) and write a short plan for typical middlegame ideas.
• Week 3: Tactics and prophylaxis. Daily tactic practice focused on themes common in your chosen openings; add a prophylaxis checklist to review before each move.
• Week 4: Review and apply. Play a batch of blitz games, then analyze three of them with notes on mistakes and alternative plans to reinforce learning.

Next steps

If you’d like, I can tailor a concrete 4-week plan with suggested drills, sample practice games, and a simple template to review each blitz game for recurring patterns. Keeping a short, focused practice routine will help you reverse the recent downwards trend and build steadier results over time.