u/Tanyooooo

Hi. Im a 2100 rapid lichess rating player. I dont have a fide rating.

I study atleast 2hours per day on weekdays and around 6hrs or more during weekends. I normally do the yusupov series. I try to finish one chapter per day but since i have work, and already on book 5, the topics are more challenging which makes it harder for me to finish one chapter a day. Nevertheless, my training is consistent. I ocassionally play one rapid game a day and analyze it after, and i do puzzle racer or woodpecker method as warm up before studying. I usually end my day just watching some chess videos before sleeping.

After just about 3 months, I felt that ive improved my chess strength since i was getting better tournament results and ive beat or atleast give hard fights to known strong players in my city. However, it kinda declined from there. These past 2 months, my tournament performance wasnt as good. I realized that when i play a game, i usually forget about thinking what my opponent wants to do and just focus on my own plans. I also lose a lot on time scrambles. I blunder my pieces there or am just guessing where to put my pieces without actually having a plan on what to do. I also have some holes on my opening prep. Example, Im black, d4-Nf6, c4-c5 (i play the benko), Nf3-cxd4, Nxd4-e6. I dont really know what my plans are in this position. I have tried e5 but im not really an aggressive player so it doesnt give me good scores. Anyway, im feeling the decline and im losing a bit of motivation coz im working hard but not seeing some results.

Any tips on how to change this? Thanksss

Hello everyone. I recently learned about this method of studying the games of players who are stronger than you but not so strong that you wont understand the reason for their moves.

I play the benko gambit, basically I play Nf6 after 1.d4 and almost always plays 2.c5 the next move. I also play the caro kann, I dont really want theory heavy openings so maybe a player where he/she plays the pawn structures that arises from caro kann well.

Btw im currently 2200-2300 rating in lichess. Im from the Philippines so i only have a local rating of 1905. Can you recommend some NMs CMs or FMs at most who plays the same openings as me for me to study their games?

I use the caro kann and i love facing the exchange variation. Then you know how you play Rb8 followed by b5-b4 minority attack, i just recently faced the move b2-b4 after i played b7-b5. Then i was feeling uncomfy coz my opponent then played Nb3-c5 and the knight has an annoying outpost. I was wondering if you know some model games of carlsbad structure where this happened coz i want to know what to do against it.