Ruarí Morrison

What you did well in your recent rapid games

You showed good fighting spirit and fractionally sharper calculation in your wins. Specifically, you kept pieces active, created pressure against the opponent’s king, and converted advantages into clear, practical endings. In the winning game, you maintained piece activity and found a decisive line that transitioned into a winning endgame. In the draws and losses, you often recovered from difficult middlegame positions by staying flexible and looking for practical chances.

• You activated your minor pieces quickly and placed your pieces on active squares, which created practical threats even when the position was not perfectly favorable.
• You compelled your opponent to defend space on the kingside, which helped you coordinate a later assault or a simplifying sequence that favored your plan.
• You demonstrated resilience in keeping fighting chances in slightly worse positions, a key trait in rapid games where time pressure and sharp tactics test your nerves.

Key areas to work on for faster, steadier progress

• Time management under pressure: Aim to keep a steady pace and avoid getting stuck in long, complex lines on unfamiliar structures. Practice budgeting several candidate plans in each position and commit to one clear plan earlier.
• Tactical awareness: Your losses show moments where sharp tactical ideas from the opponent disrupted your structure. Strengthen pattern recognition for forks, pins, skewers, and discovered checks with regular tactical puzzles.
• Opening handling: Build a concise opening plan for your most-used lines so you can reach the middle game with a clear, functional structure. Avoid overextending in the early moves unless you’re following a known, strong plan.
• Piece coordination and endgame readiness: In middlegames with material or positional imbalances, focus on coordinating rooks and queens to create simultaneous threats and simplify into favorable endgames when possible.

Opening notes and study plan

Your recent openings show you’re comfortable with flexible, dynamic setups. Focusing on a small, dependable repertoire can reduce decision fatigue and improve consistency. Consider the following approachable directions to deepen understanding and execution:

• Sicilian structures you’ve faced (Alapin and related lines): study the typical pawn structures and typical plan ideas for white, such as building a solid center with d4 and c3 and then coordinating minor pieces for pressure on d5 and the c-file. This helps you reach a comfortable middlegame more often.
• Bishop’s Opening / Vienna-related lines: focus on developing quickly, contesting the center, and using timely kingside activity. Learn common responses to early ...e5 and how to exploit overextension in the opponent’s pawn structure.
• General quick-reaction ideas: learn two or three standard middlegame plans for each major pawn structure you commonly encounter (open center, closed center with behind-the-pawn breaks, and opposite-side attacks) so you can switch gears smoothly during a game.

Tip: you can review your openings with a focused lens—what was the typical middle-game plan after the first 15 moves, which lines produced the most comfortable positions, and where did you feel you had to improvise? Ruarí Morrison

Training plan for the coming weeks

• Daily tactics: 15–20 minutes of puzzles focusing on forks, pins, and discovered checks to sharpen quick calculation.
• Opening refresher: pick two lines you use most often (for example, a Sicilian Alapin setup and a Vienna-related structure) and study the typical middlegame plans and common counter-strategies for both sides.
• Endgame practice: two short rook-and-pawn endings per week to build technique in converting small advantages and fighting for drawing chances from worse positions.
• Game review routine: after each rapid game, spend 10–15 minutes reviewing key turning points, identifying where a different plan or a tighter defense would have produced a clearer advantage.
• Play balance: maintain a mix of longer and shorter rapid games to reinforce both deep calculation and practical decision-making under time pressure.

Next steps and quick-start plan

To translate your rating trend into consistent improvement, try this immediate plan:

• Choose one main opening for White and one for Black to firm up your early game; write down a short, two-to-three move plan you want to follow in the first 12–15 moves.
• Do a 20-minute post-game analysis, focusing on: what you expected, what surprised you, and what practical adjustments you could make in your next game.
• In practice games, aim for a clear, repeatable endgame tactic that you can execute with less risk (for example, simplification to a rook ending with a connected passer).

Notes and resources

For quick access to your profile and practice history, you can refer to your updated stats and game history here: Ruarí Morrison.