A tool to improve OTB time management

Some numbers and maths about time

My 403 OTB games average 40 moves. That aligns with common practice: many classical time controls are built around a first control at move 40. As a rule of thumb, aim to reach move 40 without having eaten your whole clock.

The importance of the time dimension in OTB chess

I can’t stress this enough: time management decides games, even more so now that classical events are trending shorter.
A very popular format in France lately is 5 rounds over 2 days at 60′ + 30′′.
Let me put it simply: with that little time on the clock — and three games in a row — you won’t play perfect chess.

The absolute competitive goal isn’t perfection; it’s to play fast enough and good enough.

The clock is just as much a part of the game as the board and pieces, and losing because of time-trouble is no different to losing because of weak play — it's still a zero on the score-sheet.
John Nunn, Secrets of Practical Chess

I'm not going to write an essay about time management or time pressure in chess. Frankly, all has already been written down black on white.
We all know it greatly matters, and we all try to do our best. And... we do not !

Why is that ? Because to cure a disease, you have to identify it first !
It could be :

• Insufficient opening knowledge
• Inherent slowness
• Indecision
• An area of the game where bad skills slow your pace
• Etc.

The tool

During the game I note my clock every 5 moves. After the game I drop those numbers into a simple spreadsheet. The output shows where and how I spend my time.
This sample is just a few dozen OTB games, so it’s not definitive — but it already gives food for thought:

1. 30% of my clock is gone between move 15 and 20. This is catastrophic and screams indecision.
2. I have 77% of my clock after move 15, which is very good because move 15 is 37,5% of the game.
3. It shows a good opening prep, but not deep enough because obviously, when I'm out of prep, I totally drop off.
4. 6% by move 40 is very risky because it doesn't mean the position is easy to play at all...

As you can see, after the initial data output, I realized (well I already knew but it was now crystal clear) I had to play faster, to be more practical, and we can already see some sensible improvements, and there is a lot of room left for future improvements.

Conclusion

Track your clock every move (or every 5 moves) and put the data to work.
You’ll learn where your time goes, and only then can you start fixing the right disease.

TL;DR : Track Diagnose Fix