Review of chess analysis::Where Did the Soldiers Sleep in the Trenches
Review of chess analysis::Where Did the Soldiers Sleep in the Trenches
For thousands of people, the real test of chess skill lies not in the tournament hall, where single games routinely last five, six, and even seven or eight hours each. Instead, these people, primarily made up of the hardcore veterans of Internet Chess Servers, feel that blitz chess with games lasting only a few minutes are the real test of chess prowess. While this is much a matter of opinion and personal taste, the differences between blitz chess and chess classical time controls are worth noting and studying because they can help you play better in both your fast and slow time control games. As chess is a mental game, the majority of changes you have to make in your play when going from fast time controls to slow time controls (or the other way around) are mental ones. However, there are a few physical things to keep in mind, and I think exploring these are a good way to start thinking about how we should change our play. First, it's obvious that your frequency of moving is going to be increased. In fact, you're often going from making two or three moves every ten minutes to making hundreds of moves in ten minutes time. Being physically alert is a top priority for this very reason: you don't want to outplay your opponent, but lose on time just because you took your time to make your moves slowly. That is, once you decide on your move, which will usually just take seconds, you should move it quickly and also quickly hit the clock. I've seen hundreds of people in my lifetime who could have improved their blitz results dramatically by just moving their hands faster when they were playing. Second, and almost important as moving quickly, is to know what your hand movements will be for capturing pieces, castling, and promoting a pawn, BEFORE the move happens. If you're about to promote a pawn, go ahead and make sure you have the piece you're going to promote to in your other hand on your opponent's time, so that you won't waste valuable seconds on the clock looking for the piece. Also, when capturing a piece, learn to move your own piece and pick up the opponent's piece at the same time with one hand in a single fluid motion. Then, hit the clock with the bottom of the piece you just captured, so you don't waste time putting the piece down and then hitting the clock. While these may seem like minor issues that will save you a second here and a second there, if you only have three minutes on the clock, then you only have 180 seconds to burn, which isn't a lot. Doing anything you can to save a few seconds here and there is the easiest way to boost your win rate. The mental aspect of blitz chess is probably the hardest to adjust to, but there are a few major things that you can do to help. The first is to simply remind yourself that you're not playing classical time controls, and that you have to move based off your knowledge of chess, not your deep calculations at the board. Blitz chess is more about intuition and quick decision making than long detailed analysis, and realizing this and acting on it isn't very hard once you get used to the idea. Another major problem a lot of players have is that they are scared of making mistakes, so they take too much time on their moves. This is the major psychological block most people have with blitz chess, because in long time control games they are used to being able to look at all variations. When you know what's to come ahead of time, it's easier to be comfortable in the game. This comfort is a great weakness in blitz chess, and can lead to major problems if you let yourself become afraid of the unknown. Instead, you should embrace the unknown as part of the game and run with it. Remember always: blitz chess is a competitive task, not a perfect one. In a fight, the opponents are not so much worried about being perfect as they are winning. This should be the same for you in blitz chess. In conclusion I'd like to share a story. When I was about 17 or 18 years old, I had a friend who was a USCF expert, rated about 2050, and at the time I was probably rated about 1400 or 1500. In G/30 or higher, this guy would normally just run over me game after game. However, if we played G/5, I would easily win about 80% of the games. Now, how is this possible you might ask. The answer is simple: he hadn't made the mental adjustments necessary to play fast time controls with his full ability. After some discussions about this at a weekend tournament we were playing at, I finally talked him into playing the blitz tournament that was held that night and to just try to play fast and win, instead of trying to play perfectly. The result? He won his class prize, and beat two Fide Masters in the process. Let this be a lesson to those who don't think they can play well in blitz for some reason: it's all mental. |
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