I've been playing blitz chess and bullet since december and I've really been enjoying it but I want to get more serious at chess and I've been told that longer time controls are the best for more serious games. Because of this I started playing some rapid chess and have still found it fun but I find the longer time quite boring and I get distracted easily during games.
So I'm wondering if I should start to play classical or not.
Thanks
play classical. I started doing that on this account and I gained around 150 points in blitz
i think you should play
I think classical is better for improving calculation and visualisation skills as you have more time to consider each move. With blitz you are more likely just to react to patterns you are already familiar with, but to miss anything needing deeper calculation. If you get distracted easily, you need to work on your concentration - tactical exercises might help with this.
@solvando do tactical exercises mean puzzles?
Rapid might be the better medium - you get more games in (which is important for openings, where number of games matters as much as length of an individual games, as the only way to encounter rare lines is by playing lots), while allowing yourself time to think about positions.
if you want to improve your positional understanding and your calculation skills, go for classical. Rapid is also very good, but you dont have that much time to look for several canditate-moves. Rapid is like Blitz, but with more calculation and less blunders. I think in classical, you dont play just for tactics, but more for positional advantages and you cant hope for blunders, because your opponent has enough time to find the best move. But thats just my opinion ^^.
I would suggest: play mostly rapid and sometimes classical.
And when you start to play serious games, classical wont be that boring, because you dont want to blunder in a winning position after 30 mins. so you are forced to play more serious.
From a 1300… completely hopeless at blitz.. waste of time.. not much better at rapid… certainly games under 10 minutes… 15-30 minute games at least give me a chance before I screw up. Definitely play longer time controls.
Swing chess is pretty cool to play too.
youtu.be/nHUe0ai9Vm815+10 rapid is the perfect middle ground between game quantity and quality!