I will be playing some 15 minute OTB games and I wonder if there are some tips on how to manage my time well.
Somehow I play slower OTB than online (perhaps due to no premove, etc) and often get into time trouble.
15 minutes is longer than blitz, but still a very short time considering considering that each move probably needs to be played in less than 30 seconds.
Thanks for any tips.
You should aim to think about 15 seconds per move.
Also about obvious decisions like taking back you should think a little, as you otherwise might miss some intermediate move or other tactic. About difficult decisions you should not cogitate too long: trust your intuition.
You should not look at the clock, but concentrate on the board only and play in regular cadence. To get that cadence I advice playing training games with the same time control, so that you get a feeling of what is too fast or too slow.
15 minutes is 900 seconds.
The average chess game is about 40 moves.
However you shouldn't plan for 40 moves, plan for about 60.
900 / 60 = 15 seconds per move on average is what you should do to optimize your time management.
However don't always play in that fashion. When your clock is down to under a minute you best be playing like it's bullet regardless of how much time you started with.
If you are playing for 30 seconds per move in a 15 minute game then you are looking at a 30 move game strategy not a 60 move game strategy.
Also want to add that don't play like:
Think 15... move
Think 15... move
Think 15... move
Every move is different sometimes you want to play instantly to save time for times you need to think.
Sometimes a move does not require any thought and you can instantly make the move. Moves like the only recapture, opening theory you know well, only legal move, endgame where you are just pushing a pawn you know will promote.
Moves you want to think more on are when you are going to make a sacrifice, exchange, or simplification. So when you pin their knight to their king with your bishop, and then they threaten your bishop with the pawn... Think capture, or which square to retreat, or in between move. On the other hand if you take the knight, and your opponent only has 1 pawn capable of a recapture that should be an instant move. With 2 pawns to recapture it's different and they should consider which open file is better.
@tpr"You should not look at the clock, but concentrate on the board only..."
I get what you're saying here but keep in mind I have had opponents in OTB Blitz rated 200 pts higher than me lose on time because they literally never looked at the clock. I never understood it.
All time spent looking at the clock is time lost and is thinking distracted. You have to play at a speed dictated by your inner clock, as acquired through training with the same time control. If you start looking at the clock you are more likely to get anxious and blunder. It is better to lose on time than to lose by a blunder.
>> You should aim to think about 15 seconds per move.
This is a bad piece of advice for time management. First of all, in average you should think more in the beginning of the game (after you went out of your opening knowledge of course) and less and less further. The reason is that against the equal opponent who spends time uniformly you'll have better chances to get advantage earlier and then his time advantage will not help as well in a worse position. First moves cost more than last.
Also note that 40/60-move games are usually the games that resulted in resign in a lost position and a lot of time on the clock of the winner. If you'll have very little time on the clock after these 60 moves, your opponent will definitely try to flag you even in absolutely losing position. Thus you should reserve some time for the realization of dominating advantage.
>> each move probably needs to be played in less than 30 seconds
It is not. In a very difficult situation you can spend much more time. However, number of such thinks needs to be minimized, obviously.
>> All time spent looking at the clock is time lost and is thinking distracted.
There are some states between "All time spent looking at the clock" and "Not looking at the clock at all", aren't they? You definitely should look at the clock sometimes just to be sure your inner clock is not deadly wrong.
>> It is better to lose on time than to lose by a blunder.
Lol, wut? If you blunder, your opponent can blunder in response later as he is also restricted in time. If you lose on time, you lose. Of course some blunders like mate in one are totally irrecoverable, but in most cases there remains some play. Unlike long time control OTB games a piece can be not a decisive advantage in 15+0 on the level of TS.
Generally you should not think too much in quiet positions, except for the cases when you're coming up with the general plan of actions. Moves in quite positions usually don't differ much in evaluation and thus it is not rational to spend some time to gain little advantage. If you feel the position starts to get complicated, more time is required to search for tactics and watching out for the tactics of opponent. If your king is likely to get mated in the middlegame, it is better to spend much more time than in average for move to have any chance go out of this.
One of the most common mistakes I see in players' time management is totally ignoring the current material situation. If suddenly a lot of pieces got exchanged and the game transformed into, say, a one-rook endgame, you should slow down your moves as the expectation of total number of moves decreased, but not the complexity of the position. This is even more true for the pawn endgames, which are usually the last stage of the game (sometimes are converted into queen endgames though) and which are extremely tricky and non-drawish.
And finally, use your opponent time wisely. Think what move the opponent is most likely to do (not what you most want him to do!), suppose that he already done it and start to think. You can often make a non-trivial move almost instantly just because you already calculated the answer on the opponent turn.
"You definitely should look at the clock sometimes just to be sure your inner clock is not deadly wrong."
No, you should synchronize your inner clock by practice games. The more you focus on the board the better you play. The clock is just a distraction.
"Think what move the opponent is most likely to do (not what you most want him to do!), suppose that he already done it and start to think. You can often make a non-trivial move almost instantly just because you already calculated the answer on the opponent turn."
This is bad advice and also a recipe for blunders. During opponent's time you should think about general strategy: pawn structures, desirable/undesirable trades, important squares, possible favourable / unfavourable endgames etc. Only after your opponent has moved you should calculate. Otherwise you waste time calculating things that do not happen and you calculate with a one move difference between the actual game state and your mental game image. It also leads to less fatigue as your calculating effort has a rest.
"It is better to lose on time than to lose by a blunder."
Yes indeed. If a player often loses on time in winning positions all he has to do is play the same moves faster, so readjust his inner clock to play a bit faster without losing accuracy. On the other hand a player often losing from blunders must try and avoid blunders, but that is more difficult to achieve.
Why on earth would there be an OTB tournament at a 15/0 time control? That's very strange. Way, way too fast.
To finish in one day?
