John Arni Nilssen IM

What You're Doing Well

John, your recent blitz games demonstrate several strong qualities:

• Opening Knowledge: You are consistently playing solid openings like the Modern Defense and English Opening, which aligns well with your overall opening performance. Your ability to navigate these lines contributes to a stable start in most games.
• Positional Play: You show good understanding of piece coordination and control of key squares, such as in the games where you skillfully managed central tension and expanding pawn structures.
• Endgame Technique: Multiple wins have come from patiently improving your position and capitalizing on small advantages, as seen in your successful conversion in rook and minor piece endgames.
• Consistent Performance Over Time: Your strength-adjusted win rate of about 50% and a positive 6-month rating trend demonstrate your growing mastery in blitz chess.

Areas to Improve

To further elevate your blitz play, consider focusing on these areas:

• Handling Tactical Sharpness: In some losses, tactical oversights occurred during critical moments (e.g., the game ending after an unexpected checkmate). Regular tactics training could help sharpen your calculation and spotting of threats.
• Time Management: Some games show moves made with significantly less time than your opponent. Try to balance your clock usage better during middlegame transitions to avoid rushed decisions late in the game.
• Opening Variety and Preparation: While your main openings are reliable, diversifying can help surprise opponents. Study the weaker-performing openings like the Sicilian Closed lines where your win rate is below 43%.
• Defense under Pressure: Your losses reveal opportunities to improve resilience when under attack, specifically handling opponent's initiative in sharp Modern Defense and English Opening lines.

Practical Tips

• Incorporate daily tactical puzzles focusing on forks, pins, and discovered attacks to reduce tactical blunders.
• Practice time management with blitz and rapid games where you consciously allocate time evenly across opening, middlegame, and endgame phases.
• Analyze your recent losses by reviewing critical moments and identifying recurring mistakes, then work on specific patterns.
• Try experimenting with alternate opening lines in training games to broaden your repertoire and challenge familiar patterns.
• Use moments of advantage to simplify the position strategically rather than rushing an attack, especially in complicated endgames.

Keep Up The Good Work

Your recent performance shows an upward trend overall, with an increase of over 100 points in the last 3 months and a solid foundation in your opening choices. Stay focused on continuous learning, and your blitz results will continue to improve.

Keep harnessing your strengths and working on your weaknesses; improvement at your level is a steady process with rewarding results!