Coach Chesswick
Personalised Feedback for Saa-Andrew
Quick Snapshot
• Current peak rapid rating: 1605 (2025-01-18)
• Strongest phase of the day: see
• Week-day consistency:
What You Are Doing Well
- Initiative-seeking style – your recent wins often come from early space-gaining pawn thrusts (g4/g5, a4/a5) that surprise opponents and create tactical chances.
- Open-file exploitation – in victories versus CatawithoneA and NRJ09 you doubled rooks or queens on open files quickly and converted pressure into material.
- Practical speed – even in 3 + 2 you keep ~40-50 s on the clock deep into the middlegame, allowing time to calculate critical tactics.
Patterns in Recent Losses
- Early King Exposure
• The loss to Wbijamtescia shows castling long into a half-open c-file followed by pawn storms against your own king. • Tip: before pushing flank pawns, ask “How many tempi does my king need to feel safe?” If the answer is >1, finish development first. - Unbalanced Piece Coordination
• In several Sicilians you exchange dark-square bishops early (Bc4-Bxd6 / Bxe5) and later suffer on dark squares.
• Drill: play 10 training games where you purposefully keep your dark-square bishop to learn the resulting structures. - Calculating Counter-shots
• Example (vs. jonman75): after 21…Rfa8 your queen-side looked active but …h5-h4 & …Ne4 suddenly flipped the initiative.
• Routine: when you consider a move, spend 3-5 s listing opponent forcing replies (checks, captures, threats) before committing.
Opening Map
| You as White | You as Black |
|---|---|
| Sicilian (Bc4/e5 lines), Italian-style setups | Caro-Kann & English Reversed setups |
These choices are fine, but aim for one mainline per colour so you can study plans deeply rather than memorising many sidelines.
Concrete Study Plan (Next 2 Weeks)
- Daily: 15 tactical puzzles focused on intermezzo and back-rank motifs. Use the “unrated” setting so you can retry positions.
- Every other day: play one 10 + 5 game without early pawn storms; review afterwards and annotate 3 critical moments with “Why not?” questions.
- Week-end: pick one GM game in your chosen opening and summarise the plan in 5 bullet points. (Look up tabiya if you’re unfamiliar with the concept.)
Tactic to Remember
The miniature below from your win against CatawithoneA is a perfect reminder to look for double attacks on queen & rook:
Friendly Challenges
Try inviting past opponents for rematches − e.g. wbijamtescia or nrj09 − and apply your new plans.
Final Thought
Your aggressive intuition is a rare asset; coupling it with a short “king safety & counter-shot” checklist before each tactical lunge will push you well beyond 1300-1400. Enjoy the journey, and feel free to ping me with any game you’d like analysed in depth!