The Tortoise and the Hare

This month, I visited NYC and played several tournaments at the Marshall Chess Club. My results were mediocre, and my games marred with tactical oversights. It reminded me of my first training with IM Herman Grooten, who told me that my tactical skills were relatively poor for a player of my strength.
On my way back from NYC to Charlotte, I was sitting next to a young woman in the airplane who was frantically swiping and typing on her phone. TikTok videos and Instagram Reels: 3-5 seconds per video. If she liked the video, she would quickly glance over the comments, post an emoji, and otherwise swipe to the following video. Just watching it made me nervous, and it made me realize how slow I am on devices!
This made me curious about how my tactical skills are influenced by speed. My bullet and blitz ratings on Lichess are both 2300+, and I wanted to know the typical high scores for Puzzle Storm and Puzzle Streak for different Lichess rating brackets.
A regression analysis using ChatGPT based on June 2025 data produced the following results:

The analysis is based on approximately 120,000 players with the following characteristics:

• has at least 50 Puzzle Storm runs
• owns an established Blitz rating (rating deviation < 70)
• has at least 30 Puzzle Streak runs

My Puzzle Storm high score is 32, and my high score in Puzzle Streak is 73, corresponding with a rating of 1700 and 2600, respectively!
This confirms that I am slow but accurate, provided I have enough time. Surprisingly, I have still managed to rack up 27 wins against GMs in bullet and blitz on the other chess site. This includes a win in bullet against speed demon GM Andrew Tang. This game was played in a prize tournament (Bullet Brawl), so it was a relatively important game for Andrew. At the age of 61, I was able to defeat my opponent in 38 moves, using 36 seconds!
Furthermore, while in New York City, I was able to defeat GM Michael Rode over the board at the FIDE Blitz tournament.

Of course, it helped that I got my own Chessable course on the board!

So sometimes, just as with the Tortoise, slow and steady, wins the race. Chess is unforgiving, and one blunder can cost you the game. Accuracy matters!

Every Saturday, I host a live stream and solve Lichess puzzles with the viewers.
We use the following process:

• Orientation: position characteristics and plan of the opponent
• Calculation and Evaluation of candidate moves
• Verification: double-checking the best reply of our opponent

We often take more than 15 minutes to solve one puzzle, but that's okay, because we value accuracy higher than speed. I enjoy finding the truth in positions together!

In the meantime, I am going to see how far I can get my Puzzle Storm score up.