playing faster

I recently reached 2000 in classical , but rapid I'm around 1750 most of the time.
maybe 50 / 100 points is just due to me playing rapid when I would not play classical , (tired over a beer etc.)
but overall It seems like I play much better when I have time to think about position. anything faster than rapid and I will be running out of time or blundering badly. thoughts ?

You can use blitz and bullet a little bit, to speed up your thinking. Just analyze those games also, and don’t do too much...
I think I remember several GMs giving this advice, to play a few quick games, just to learn to move faster. I think it was Moro that said that.

Puzzle rush is another idea.

Hi @privet3711

I also suck when I'm short of time. My blitz games are a disaster (not that my rapid games are brilliant... if you know what I mean :P ). This description of you:

"anything faster than rapid and I will be running out of time or blundering badly"

deeply identifies me. At the moment, I force myself to play (and lose) blitz games in the hope that practice could make me faster. I imagine this is a matter of not letting the clock make us nervous, stay calmed, and think efficiently, but at least for me, this is not easy to achieve. Will keep on trying.

Good luck!

I really feel like the main issue regarding this phenomena is that chess websites are a haven for blitz specialists; that is, people who play blitz and employ blitz strategy regularly (funky stuff designed just to throw you off your game rather than to be objective)

Anyone without a blitz background is going to struggle in that kind of environment.

Play some ultra, like hundreds of games, that'll make you understand the importance of time management and cheap tricks.
Also it will print in your guts the urge to hurry, a time awareness present in all your future calculations; I'm not sure this is also compatible with an efficient chess improvement, so you choose.

And then you just get better at tactics and knowledgable at a few openings.

Should be good enough.

Look at your lost games and see on which moves you spent unnecessary time.

Or do what tpr said, but you probably have to gain a little bit more time at every move.

It's not necessarily your fault, if you get better at regular chess, automatically you'll get better at fast chess too.
You have to stop useless calculation and start to trust your instincts for plans, time must be consumed to not blunder, anything else you gotta be careful.

The classical pool is also very different from the rapid one, you can see some 2000 finishing every game with more time than they started while others will use several minutes at every move.

That's my 2 cents.

@privet3711 its not uncommon to have 2000 in classical and 1750 in rapid. Usually you should have 100-200 points lower rating in each quicker time control, because of the inflation of the rating. 2000 in classical is easier to achieve for anyone who plays all time controls equally then rapid blitz or bullet. There are just more people that play faster time controls, thats why competion for higher rating is more.

If you have 2000 in classical you, however, should have 1800-1900 in rapid. 1750 is almoust 1800, but you should increase this a little more. If you could get 1850 in rapid then both of your time controles should be considered equal.

If you want to learn quicker time controls however to play better, just play a lot of them. Its all about getting used to it. Also you could learn time managment theory a little. There are some books that have that information, i read in 2 or 3 books tips how to control the time better. One is calculating how much time you have per move, other how much time you have until deep zeitnot(time trouble) - thats a situation on the clock where you cannot look for good moves, you can only look for moves that doesnt lose instantly. In that situation your whole game strategy changes. So calculate time until that and try to calculate time per move there. When analyzing games you can look - on which move you spent how much time, in tournaments, if judge allows, you can write after each 5 moves or so the time you have on the clock, but in lichess after each move computer tells what time you had, so you can see in what situations you think more and when less, and insert that into your calculations and look for those "critical positions" in your game - that you can predict - here you will need more time to think.

You can also create opening repertuare that needs less time to think about. Instead of Ruy Lopez, you can play 1.b3 - Larsens opening, instead of sicilian defense you can play russian defence 1.e4 e5 2.nf3 nf6 and get similiar position every game and save time thinking about that.

There are many tips on time control managment. Find some books on it or some articles on the net. Other then that just get used to it by playing a lot of that time control.

I am now 70+, as a student I played in a chessclub, somewhere at the TOP of the LOWER HALF... now I sometimes play with my grandson. where I live it is difficult to find people to play otb... so I found lichess, and I also find that I don't play "chess" anymore... I play chess like a series of chess-puzzles, that is to say, I don't try to find my own strategy or look into my opponents plans... I just react... loose or not... new game ... but I remember when we had time (over a cup of coffee or a glass of beer) to ask the opponent, if he really was going to attack my queen... and if that was really a sound plan.

If you have good reaction time and a nice gaming mouse, you should consider hyperbullet/bullet variants and push yourself to the limit. The point is that you should be able to memorize certain move orders of openings you tend to be comfortable with, which makes it become second-nature. Longer variants are usually quite time-consuming and usually where tactics are quite not as common, so I tend to not do as well in them.

However, moving faster is a trick you can have up your sleeve. Consider a situation where you have 10 seconds and your opponents has over a minute or two. After many experiences in that time pressure, my exposure to hyperbullet/bullet variants helped me win in those situations, which can intimidate/overwhelm your opponent.

So, stop taking your time and just start running.