Free insight into your games

Not everyone feels justified in hiring a coach

I run a small online community mainly dedicated to "adult improvers" who love the game but either lack the talent, drive, ambition, time, resources, etc. to make hiring a coach a justifiable expense in their eyes. 

Most of these older players aren't lucky enough to have a stronger friend, colleague or member of their family to provide useful insight into what their strengths and weaknesses are and how to map out a course of action to improve. 

In the somewhat distant past, this type of situation would have made an "adult improver's" prospects of breaking that glass ceiling seem very dim.  But things have now changed for the better and some very powerful free tools are out there that can really help the person who takes the time to understand what they have to offer. 

Openingtree.com offers valuable free insight 

A case in point is a member of my Discord who enjoys playing the Queen's gambit a lot. Upon running a quick Openingtree.com free analysis of a bunch of his recent games as White, it clearly revealed that his 1.d4 games in general and Queen's gambit games, in particular, could stand improvement. 

The results speak for themselves: White's performance with 1.d4 can stand improvement.

This is also true when White chooses to play the Queen's gambit

The free Aimchess report adds valuable details

But things can go south in any of the phases of the game and the results of one game don't necessarily imply that similar ones will obtain in all other ones. So, unless one has a vast amount of time and patience to create a spreadsheet containing all relevant data-points, a free report provided by Aimchess.com really helps to zero-in on the weaker aspects of the game. 

The free report is produced in a couple of minutes and gives you a quick graphical overview of your strengths and weaknesses as well as more detailed explanations about each aspect of the game covered in the overview. 

This report makes it plain to see that my Discord member's difficulties aren't with the opening phase of the game, as his overall score for the category is the excellent 95%. Concretely, this means that he gets to a good or passable middlegame in the vast majority of cases as the following excerpt from the Aimchess report makes clear. 


But as the overview and complete report which isn't reproduced here make clear, he has problems capitalizing on advantages which suggest that he might not have a clear understanding of the opening's ideas, plans and tactical motifs. This seems even more probable when one considers his "time-management" score and the associated breakdown which reveals that he loses a lot of time thinking in non-critical positions. 

Contrast this with the results I obtained from the handful of blitz games I played this month

Things look pretty rosy for me, right? 

Chess.com's own analysis tool also provides free insight

Unfortunately, they aren't. My tactical weakness revealed in blitz games also exists in "daily" games as the reader can plainly see from the following image. 

Notice how close the game was against this much stronger player during most of the game until I blundered it away. 
Unfortunately, this tactical-weakness induced pattern repeats itself over and over again, irrespective of my opponents' playing strengths: I am an equal opportunity blunderer!

Same old, same old.

Here's another recent one:

The point is although my Discord member has poor results in different aspects of the game, my problem is impairing me almost as seriously as him as far as measured performance is concerned. Luckily for us, we both gained some valuable free insight into our games thanks to openingtree.com and Aimchess.com as well as Chess.com's own analytical tools.