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How to improve playing fast?

Thank you all for contributing to this thread :-)

@FredtheCrusher, glad to hear that players rated some 400 points higher than me can suffer from the same "disease". And that one is not doomed to the sub 2000 levels because of it.

@RegisLakrids, I have tried bullet. My bullet rating (on chess.com) is like 800 (while I am 1800 FIDE). It is highly dependent on internet connection.

@BlackSalt, curious to hear how that works out. Maybe your tool is a good "conditioning" tool for checks and for keeping a whole board vision.

@HORRORMAKER, @zorba7676, interesting.
The question is how to train oneself to *consistently* spot the patterns. I have done 10000s of tactics puzzles, and should have seen the most of them by now -- and the last 10000 puzzles has not increased my tactics ratings at all.
Maybe at certain age new patterns become _very_ hard to retain?

I just did an experiment:

Using a paid account on chess.com, I set the tactics trainer to give me problems in the 800-995 range. Since my TT rating is 2500+, I should get the 800-900 puzzles within target time, and never spend several minutes on a problem with target time under 15 seconds? Right?

Wrong. Most of them I did fail to solve within the target time, but solved them in less than 20-30 seconds. But interesting is the one in 20 puzzles (or so) I could stare at for minutes (usually over 3 but less than 7) before seeing the rather obvious tactic. So this kinda proves that the "disease" is real and not just imagined.
@TheTap : 24. R d2 ? looks like ok i'm going back home and wait till my advantage pays of somehow in the end. If you have an advantage it's mostly not the time to wait...it's time to keep the pressure on and expand the advantage. 24. R h8 keeps the pressure. N d5 threatens and N d4 is not problem.sometimes one passive move can easily kill a good active position.
@HORRORMAKER, thanks for the comment - did not expect any comments about my game. 24. Rh8 was indeed the first move I looked at there, but thought after 24 ... Nd4+ 25. Kd2 h5 black is ready to double on the b-file with pressure and my rooks are uncoordinated. So I decided to play it safer with R8d2 instead :-)
The computer told me that continuing the line with 26. Nd5+ followed by Rh7 is crushing for white, but did not see that far in the game. It was a 15+15 after all.

Thank you!
Maybe the bigger mistake was to take on e3 on move 19. Then it's just a simple piece exchange. Instead retreat to a5 with the knight, no tactics then ever possible. Bishop on e3 still attacked and a fork too. Why trade here? This is the game deciding moment #1. No chances anymore for Black, if 19.Ka5. It's already finished.

Taking with the Rook on d4 just before the self-help mate also very crushing for you as well. Many pawns ahead. Multiple threats, positionally won as well.

Too focused on your own position? Less thought to the opponent's threats. Tendency to move the King to a loose square, at some point to release tension. Maybe poor time allotment? A few seconds more and maybe see the mate. Difficult to know. Can be hard to win winning positions, sometimes. So many ways to win, get a bit cautious and then get caught cold. I suffer here a lot too btw at times. I think that very many players do.

18 ...Re6 is very clear though. Maybe the bigger error in many ways. See this easy win and the later loss can never happen.
@Sneakmasterflex,
thank you for a concrete suggestion what one can try. I do not have Fritz (and do not use Windows), so spending 70 USD on Fritz might not be the first thing I try.

Instead I am trying to do thousands of low rated tactics on chess.com (solving them in seconds), and see if that can improve my pattern recognizer.

@cp560, thank you for the comments. I saw Na5 but thought after Ra6 I either have to save my knight and let his dark colour bishop away (with a tempo on my a-pawn). So I chose to trade on the spot. A few more seconds before Nc2 would not have helped. I spent 50 seconds on that move, mostly considering the ways to dislodge his knight outpost - trading it directly or by trying undermine it with b4. It would have taken several minutes for me to see Rb3#.

This was not intended to be a game review thread, but if there is a strong player willing to comment on whites decision around move 10 to wreck black's pawns in exchange for giving him the d-file, the bishop pair, and receiving very weak dark squares and a terrible light colour bishop. Was very unsure if this was a good tradeoff for white, and spend four minutes on that decision.
Try move confirmation. After all those deep calculations you come up with a move. You play it. Then you look at your move to check it is no blunder: no checkmate in 1 no queen or piece hanging... Then you confirm.
Not spotting simple one-move tricks, unnecessarily hanging pieces etc. is something many players suffer from if they picked up chess at a later age. Say over 20.
Players who started very young, even if they play very weak, seldom hang pieces in one.
#3: "You lack danger awareness. You had to give up your rook for the knight."

True, in fact those wonderful queenside pawns make the position nice for white even down the exchange.

It does take a little more experience to instantly intuitively recognize that the knight rook combo there poses too much danger to even play a defensive move like 26. Rd3.

In such case, white gets hit with 26... Rb3+ 27. Kd2 Rxb2+ and then trying to defend the bishop with 28. Ke1 fails because 28. Rxe2+ with check (black controls that square with the knight). And even if black for some reason fails to capture the bishop, white's queenside pawns are shattered.
@NobodyReally,
that is a depressing thought. When thinking about it, the (relatively) simple things I miss are things/patterns I have learned as an adult. I don't drop pieces, since the 11-year old me probably did not.

@NoobFrank, doesn't Rd3 just hang the bishop on e2? Maybe we share the same problem...?

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