If you are serious about making progress, play slow games.
+20 minutes, or even better unlimited. I am new to this server but I have already noticed in the games I played my opponents make the type of mistakes that blitz players do, like missing tactics,
overlooking threats, and dropping pieces. While playing fast or very fast time control is fun, doing exclusively that will not help you with your chess.
I think that the best blitz players play "by rote", they just apply principles and specific ideas that they have studied and tested playing mainly longer time control.
If you want to develop board vision, tactical understanding, and play solid games, you must start playing slow games.
Chess is not pushing pieces indiscriminately.
i tis true that blitz players play "by rote" for the most part.
but the way to develop your game is not to play longer time controls. your capacity does not improve by stretching time out.
your capacity improves by developing it; ie. by exposing it to ideas, themes, etc. that you haven't learned before. you're not going to learn on your own, no matter how long the game.
to improve, study games played by better players, expert books, etc.
Superbuddha I agree that "learning" absolutely can not take place in blitz games. It is an impossibility.
I also agree with mb that studying games and books are also part of improvement.
And also yes, your capacity is improved by exposing it to ideas you haven't seen before (which has nothing to do with blitz) which is why I force myself to play new or crazy openings, and even "free
form" chess in the beginning which have no similarity to any popular "lines" in any book LOL and see how it goes.
BTW I love this site and this interface better than any other chess site in existence...period.
I also place my anon wins in my profile so my play can be analysed and compared with my rated games so anyone with experience will know it's the same player and style.
I always freeze up during rated games mentally so I play more anon games than rated.
Keep up the good work admin!
Mb yes, as you admit yourself when you are playing speed chess, at best you are playing by memory of positions, ideas and concepts that your have seen somewhere else.
This is very important, first because a huge part of success at blitz is to bring your opponent into positions that you master but that will seem unusual or overly complex to him and capitalise on his
mistakes.
Important also because you will not have the time to properly analyse and FULLY UNDERSTAND on the spot the positions you are playing. Corollary to that is the number of huge mistakes, inaccuracies and
opportunity missed in EVERY bullet and blitz games.
The third reason this limitation to "by rote" playing is harmful to the quality of your game, is simply because chess is also an art, and one of the most satisfying thing over the board is to CREATE
and produce combinations, sacrifices, traps, checkmates, everything.
Even though I still suck at chess, I have made considerable progress recently by working hard on board vision, practicing tactics, and playing slow games.
I found out that in the end it's often tiny subtleties that win games(Small differences in the move order by example, or quiet moves).
These are definitely too small to see under time pressure, and I sincerely think that if you spend too much time playing bullet and blitz you will take the habit to overlook a lot of things and play
your positions superficially.
Also it will destroy your ability to give checkmate, simply because 9 times out of 10 bullet games are won or lost ON TIME.
i said by rote, for the most part
there is always room for creativity, discovery, etc.
that said, you are almost half right.
that is, of course the longer time you take, in general the better moves you will find.
on the other hand, when you take time to deliberate, how are you doing it? you're assessing a position and considering it with an already developed understanding (of tactics, strategies, positional
themes, memories of past play, etc.). if it is an art, it is an applied one, for the most part. that is, by rote is a given to begin with.
in which case, again, if you are intent on developing your game, the best way to do so is by elevating your understanding in theory. the way to do this is by exposing it to higher levels of play
(books on tactics, strategy written by experts, and by observing world class games, etc.). the process of absorption gives you the tools to actually do something with your time.
let me put it another way; i can give an elephant 100 hours and it will never know how to even make the first move. on the other hand, you could give me 100 hours and kasparov 5 minutes of
consideration and i would still lose.
that said, i play fast games for the excitement and also to avoid computers; and also because i am impatient.
to each his own tho.
i disagree. the biggest part of being good at chess is knowing the lines, and learning the lines comes much faster playing blitz
well, true, playing faster games allows you to experiment with more lines more often, and acclimate yourself to the order, etc.
but to learn the right lines in the first place it's much easier to study the openings themselves, in books or in the games of others.
it's like the difference between trying to find your way with a map vs wandering without one
i always wander without a map. just saying.
well, that's where the fun comes in :)
i've developed a few theories of my own lately, wandering.
one of my new favorites is when white fianchettos kingside; h5, h4 as black, knight takes, and sac with the rook (and ideally take back the pawn with the queen); down a point at the end of it all but
with great kingside attacking chances.
you will not find this in books (probably for good reason) but it turns out to be a lot of fun, often.
You will not learn anything in bullet games because there is no time for thinking. Below 2 minutes there are no well played games on this site, yes maybe you can study an opening or 2 and play them
right but after the opening the quality of the games drop rapidly. I completly agree with budda. mb, there is no room for experiments in a game where moving a king arround on the backrank is a viable
strategy.