Aaron Jacobson IM

Overall Performance Summary

Aaron, your recent blitz games show a solid fighting spirit with some excellent wins against strong opponents. Your strength adjusted win rate of nearly 50% indicates competitive play at this rating level. While there has been a slight dip in your rating over the last month, the longer term trends over 3, 6, and 12 months show you are maintaining a steady level with potential for upward growth.

• 1 month rating change: -5 (small dip)
• 3 month rating change: +33 (positive momentum)
• 6 month rating change: -15 (some fluctuation)
• 12 month trend positive with a slope around 11.7 — consistent improvement

Strengths in Your Games

Reviewing your recent wins, some key strengths stand out:

• Opening aggression: Your attacks, particularly with early queen and bishop activity, put opponents under immediate pressure.
• Active piece play: You often maintain control of important central squares and coordinate your pieces well in the middlegame.
• Endgame technique: Conversion of material advantage was efficient in multiple games where you forced opponents into resignation.
• Positional understanding: In games like the Queen’s Gambit Declined lines, you demonstrated good handling of structural themes and piece placement.

Areas for Improvement

Looking at your losses and time control aspects, here are opportunities to focus on:

• Time management: Some games ended due to time loss, so improving clock awareness and faster decision-making could help maintain pressure without running low on time.
• Defensive resilience: In a few losses, tactics against your king's safety and endgame conversion by your opponents were critical. Reviewing defensive techniques especially against attacks on your king would be beneficial.
• Opening theory depth: While openings like Kings Pawn and Queen’s Gambit appear frequently with effective play, deepening familiarity with common responses and traps could help avoid early disadvantages.
• Tactical calculation: Blitz requires precise calculation. Increasing tactics training could reduce oversights especially in critical moments of middle or endgame.

Practical Study Recommendations

To enhance your blitz play, consider these focused approaches:

• Practice faster opening repertoire drills to save time and gain early initiative.
• Use tactic puzzles daily to sharpen calculation skills particularly focused on pins, forks, and discovered attacks.
• Analyze your losses to understand tactical or strategic mistakes, especially in games decided by time or quick checkmates.
• Play slower games occasionally to explore complex positions deeply, which strengthens your long-term positional understanding.
• Review key endgame positions to improve technique under time pressure.
• During blitz games, actively monitor your clock to avoid time trouble.

Encouragement and Next Steps

Your consistent play and ability to win games against strong opposition is commendable. Keep focusing on steady improvement with a balanced approach between tactics, opening knowledge, and endgame skills. Your positive trend over the last several months shows your progress trajectory is promising. Keep building on that foundation with a mix of training and playing diverse opponents.

Look forward to reviewing your next set of games to continue tracking progress.