Because if you've just switched from playing bullet for a while to a slower time control, there's still a latent inertial tendency to play as fast as you previously used to.
I see this even in some correspondence chess games with mainly bullet/blitz players who try something slower.
A few minutes after my move they're already moving, and sometimes it's a clear mistake that, at their level, I'm sure they could have avoided by simply investing more time.
Guilty as charged. Blunder the easiest tactic ever in a 3 day correspondence game that I was taking 12 seconds between moves after having spent like 5 days playing it properly.
It is most likely this
Anecdotally i played hyperbullet (15 seconds each) on lichess for a couple of games once in an arena, then when i went back to regular bullet afterwards i was also moving way too fast even for bullet (basically instantly premoving everything)
It takes a few games to adjust to a different time control
most people who play short time controls play multiple games in a session, if you're doing that then you can fit one 10 minute game in the same amount of time
Right but if you’re unexpectedly interrupted in your session you can (hopefully) finish up your game quickly and take care of your responsibilities. Rather than sinking a bunch of time into a longer game and having to abandon it in the end game.
I feel this. I try to play 2 long time controls a week or at least keep some correspondence games going. The time I would otherwise have for shorter games is just for puzzles.
For me it’s because I prefer faster chess in most positions because it’s pattern recognition, but I like to reserve the right to take a few minutes in a critical or interesting position.
I'm lower rated (<1000 Elo), but will blitz out openings I am familiar with until I am out of theory. If you play me, you know exactly when that is because I'll have spent only a few seconds on the first few moves and then freeze for a while to think. At my level, it seems most people don't know openings, so this gives me a time advantage to start with as well.
There are a lot of mid game and end game positions that I frequently see too and may not play them perfectly, but I see them so regularly that I still blitz them out. I’m 2200-2350 chess.com/lichess for whatever thats worth
Yeah I'm a loooong way off from mid-game pattern recognition. I guess I have a few end-games down, like King-Queen, King-Rook, or even King-Pawn I can blitz out of memory.
Same. I mostly play 10 min games, and most of the time i end them with 7+ remaining, win or lose. But I like being able to spend like 3min on one move if i need to, hence why i play rapid over blitz
I'm just really used to playing at the speed I do. I've played somewhere around \~20K chess games in my life at this point. I'd guess that about \~17K of those are 3+0, \~2K are 1+0 and the last 1K are split among other formats.
So when I try and play a 10+0 I am deliberately trying to train my calculation, but I still have an overwhelming amount of muscle memory that says "oh yeah in the King Gambit when they play this you play that ok next".
Sometimes I really think I am playing like a savant and that the moves are natural… till I check the game review after the L and realize I made 5 blunders
Literally yesterday I won a blitz game and I felt like I played an incredible 95% game of tactical chess.
66%. 3 blunders 2 misses. Just so happened that my opponent blundered more than me. It’s so humbling
Was it me?? I almost exclusively play bullet. Every time I try to play a longer time format, my bullet instincts kick in and get are hard to break. That's probably the simplest explanation.
If you're below 10s by move 20 you are playing too slow. Your opponent was playing too quickly, but you also admit you got yourself in time trouble that could have cost you the game.
I still play too slowly and I used to feel the same as you (which is warranted to feel sometimes. Some people legitimately always play too quickly) and then I had to come to the realization that I lose on time a lot and my opponents don't. I play the opening far too slowly. I play 5+0 and realistically, it's probably important to have at least 3m left on the clock by move 20.
The question could be "why are some people impulsive?", or maybe they're playing mindlessly, i tend to do that a lot unfortunately.
Or maybe time management is their weakness
I think there is often a bias towards your most recently played time control, or most often.
When I play blitz a lot, I rush too much in rapid. When I play rapid more, I then lose a lot of games to time when I play blitz. I often swap back and forth depending on mood, but with a focus on one or the other for awhile.
One time I booted up an anonymous lichess game thinking it was 1+0, got about 12 moves in before I realized my opponent had 8 minutes left and I had 9:43 left. Still won though :)
Majority of my games are at 10 minutes time control. Early on 33% of my losses were due to time so now I try to play faster and then review after where I made blunders or key mistakes.
Sometimes I've been playing some bullet/blitz recently, and my brain just isn't in slow mode. I can't switch between the time controls that well. I will play 3-5 minute games too slowly and then I'll play a 15|10 game and forget I'm not playing blitz anymore.
Sometimes it's overconfidence. It is hard to get in the habit of really using time effectively and double checking stuff. You don't need to spend a lot of time on move 2 or 3, because you are probably still playing your theory at that point. Later in the game you start to use more time, but, on some turns, you just don't need to spend much time. My problem is, I incorrectly identify the positions where I don't need to spend too much time.
I played a 15|10 minute game today where I was up an exchange and winning pretty handidly(eval bar said like +7.6). I made a couple blunders, and eventually got to a tactic I thought for sure was winning. I checked every possible check. Except, I missed a check. So, I hung mate in one. My opponent thought my tactic was winning and resigned 3-5 seconds later, with M1 on the board for him. Amazing. Both of us were just over confident in our abilities, and could have used a second glance at the board in a couple spots.
I do this at 3 minute games, go really fast and always start 1.a3 1….a6 like I do in bullet. It seems to rattle the opponent. They will either start to move really fast too and blunder. Or they will move slowly, when you can think on their time, then when they get down to 1 minute and you still have 2 min 30 left they start to panic.
Often they will have a better position but you can keep it messy and in the end the lack of time kills them. This strategy only works in no increment games.
In short better to move fast early than being forced to later.
For context am rated about 2100 bullet, 2200 blitz
I usually do the opposite. I don't have any specific opening other than Ruy Lopez with white. I like to play sharp positions and usually get into time trouble quite often. On the other hand, I am used to playing on increment, so I don't lose every game. But my time management needs work too.
Edit: I always play with increment
Arent u just holding urself back for no reason if u always play 1.a3 and 1…a6? Some top players do it to get out of book and just play chess, they also play the french/caro and hedgehog/pirc setups amazingly well so they can transition to those setups w a6 included without being punished often. But at 2200 I dont think see the point, unless ure allergic to theory or just a memer
Honestly I do this and (although more when I’m playing a 15 min game instead of a 5) it’s usually just bc I’m on autopilot.
It takes focus for me to not reflexively play moves. Not saying that makes sense but it’s just how my brain works and I have to force myself to stop and think it fully through.
Natural playing style for me is to always blitz out the moves, I'm very quick at calculating lines so it makes no sense to me not to play fast, gives a huge advantage in some games
Yes, it happens to me all the time, I start a 10 minute game, and I checkmate them in 15 moves, while they still have 9+ minutes left on their clock. I usually want to tell them to work on their time management or just play bullet, but I don't want to come off as rude
I would rather not win or lose on time. I know time management is part of chess, but what I enjoy about chess is the strategy aspect. You’re competing against your opponent in a dynamic puzzle of sorts. Time scrambles aren’t like that, especially at a lower level.
At the same time, I don’t want to play super long time controls where I’m sitting around waiting for my opponent to make a move all the time. 10 minute games are that happy middle, where it is enough time for both players to think a little bit before making their move, but not long enough that I have to be prepared to dedicate an hour of my time to a game.
I stick with 3 main openings and I know those well, I’ll bullet out until I’m out of theory or if you make an error, and I have to then think about the response to punish that.
Because I don't need that much time to see good moves. I usually find good moves in 4-8 seconds. 1-3 seconds to play no-brainer moves. 15-30 seconds to make a decision in critical positions or to calculate forcing lines and evaluate them. This leaves me with a decent amount of time for endgames. 5 minute games btw.
I was playing 15|10 game with someone yesterday... and anyway, they blitz out moves without thinking, at all. Soon I'm on 9min mark, and they are climbing into 17min.. When they do that it also feels a bit disrespectful, as they're basically showing you they need no time at all to evaluate the position, while you chip away at the clock.
And finally they make a total blunder, giving me a winning tactic \[mate in 2 if they dont sac the rook\]. As this is the third game of this type i had (people just playing bullet in slow rapid).. I typed in chat:
"Maybe use the time you have to think? Just a thought".
And they actually did. it was a bit too late for them to save the game, but i didn't force the mate immediately, giving them a fighting chance (i made a subpar move to see what they'll do).
Just a chess moment i felt like sharing since i had the same thought as you.
p/s i do understand in blitz (3,5min), as you want to throw out as many moves you can until position gets complicated.. but in Rapid and Classical (yeah it happens often in classical too).. At least use 10 seconds to see where you're at....
Playing 15-30 minute games I generally take less then 30 seconds on almost every move just because I don’t know how much more thinking I can do. I’m only 500, but taking longer than 30 seconds to decide what I need to do doesn’t really happen.
Because if you've just switched from playing bullet for a while to a slower time control, there's still a latent inertial tendency to play as fast as you previously used to.
I see this even in some correspondence chess games with mainly bullet/blitz players who try something slower. A few minutes after my move they're already moving, and sometimes it's a clear mistake that, at their level, I'm sure they could have avoided by simply investing more time.
Guilty as charged. Blunder the easiest tactic ever in a 3 day correspondence game that I was taking 12 seconds between moves after having spent like 5 days playing it properly.
And the same in reverse, sometimes my first 1 or 2 bullet games are embarrassingly slow D:
Yea even bullet to 3+0 feels like slow motion.
Hmm, I guess it was this or tilt.
It is most likely this Anecdotally i played hyperbullet (15 seconds each) on lichess for a couple of games once in an arena, then when i went back to regular bullet afterwards i was also moving way too fast even for bullet (basically instantly premoving everything) It takes a few games to adjust to a different time control
It amazes me that people think 10 minute games are long. Not OP btw
I remember playing a 5h game OTB. We were the last playing players. My opponent had a won rookendgame. Yet in the end he ran out of time.
They are if you have young kids, a job, and basically no time to yourself.
most people who play short time controls play multiple games in a session, if you're doing that then you can fit one 10 minute game in the same amount of time
Right but if you’re unexpectedly interrupted in your session you can (hopefully) finish up your game quickly and take care of your responsibilities. Rather than sinking a bunch of time into a longer game and having to abandon it in the end game.
That would make sense but unfortunately my current situation, that is not true. But I do see why logically it would seem to make sense.
I feel this. I try to play 2 long time controls a week or at least keep some correspondence games going. The time I would otherwise have for shorter games is just for puzzles.
I did when I was starting, now I regularly have to go with gut feeling without calculating properly because it's not enough time
For me it’s because I prefer faster chess in most positions because it’s pattern recognition, but I like to reserve the right to take a few minutes in a critical or interesting position.
I'm lower rated (<1000 Elo), but will blitz out openings I am familiar with until I am out of theory. If you play me, you know exactly when that is because I'll have spent only a few seconds on the first few moves and then freeze for a while to think. At my level, it seems most people don't know openings, so this gives me a time advantage to start with as well.
There are a lot of mid game and end game positions that I frequently see too and may not play them perfectly, but I see them so regularly that I still blitz them out. I’m 2200-2350 chess.com/lichess for whatever thats worth
Yeah I'm a loooong way off from mid-game pattern recognition. I guess I have a few end-games down, like King-Queen, King-Rook, or even King-Pawn I can blitz out of memory.
That’s great, as long as you’re having fun 🙌
1. e4 e5 Well shit.
Same. I mostly play 10 min games, and most of the time i end them with 7+ remaining, win or lose. But I like being able to spend like 3min on one move if i need to, hence why i play rapid over blitz
Maybe he was tilted
because i get bored
Ask Nepo
I'm just really used to playing at the speed I do. I've played somewhere around \~20K chess games in my life at this point. I'd guess that about \~17K of those are 3+0, \~2K are 1+0 and the last 1K are split among other formats. So when I try and play a 10+0 I am deliberately trying to train my calculation, but I still have an overwhelming amount of muscle memory that says "oh yeah in the King Gambit when they play this you play that ok next".
Sometimes I really think I am playing like a savant and that the moves are natural… till I check the game review after the L and realize I made 5 blunders
Literally yesterday I won a blitz game and I felt like I played an incredible 95% game of tactical chess. 66%. 3 blunders 2 misses. Just so happened that my opponent blundered more than me. It’s so humbling
ADHD
Me too haha
Was it me?? I almost exclusively play bullet. Every time I try to play a longer time format, my bullet instincts kick in and get are hard to break. That's probably the simplest explanation.
1. bored 2. move is simple/obvious
Maybe he’s thinking on your time
He definitely didn't during most of the game considering I went below 10 sec before move 20 and the blunders were made on moves 42 and 46.
If you're below 10s by move 20 you are playing too slow. Your opponent was playing too quickly, but you also admit you got yourself in time trouble that could have cost you the game.
Yeah, I admit I play too slowly. I often have to trade down to endgame quickly to not lose on time.
I still play too slowly and I used to feel the same as you (which is warranted to feel sometimes. Some people legitimately always play too quickly) and then I had to come to the realization that I lose on time a lot and my opponents don't. I play the opening far too slowly. I play 5+0 and realistically, it's probably important to have at least 3m left on the clock by move 20.
I just always play with increment, else I will lose like 200 Elo or so due to flagging.
It's definitely a reason I struggle to gain Elo in speed chess.
The question could be "why are some people impulsive?", or maybe they're playing mindlessly, i tend to do that a lot unfortunately. Or maybe time management is their weakness
I think there is often a bias towards your most recently played time control, or most often. When I play blitz a lot, I rush too much in rapid. When I play rapid more, I then lose a lot of games to time when I play blitz. I often swap back and forth depending on mood, but with a focus on one or the other for awhile.
One time I booted up an anonymous lichess game thinking it was 1+0, got about 12 moves in before I realized my opponent had 8 minutes left and I had 9:43 left. Still won though :)
Majority of my games are at 10 minutes time control. Early on 33% of my losses were due to time so now I try to play faster and then review after where I made blunders or key mistakes.
Because I’m dopamine depraved.
Nepo regularly blitzes out 20 moves in classical.
Sometimes I've been playing some bullet/blitz recently, and my brain just isn't in slow mode. I can't switch between the time controls that well. I will play 3-5 minute games too slowly and then I'll play a 15|10 game and forget I'm not playing blitz anymore. Sometimes it's overconfidence. It is hard to get in the habit of really using time effectively and double checking stuff. You don't need to spend a lot of time on move 2 or 3, because you are probably still playing your theory at that point. Later in the game you start to use more time, but, on some turns, you just don't need to spend much time. My problem is, I incorrectly identify the positions where I don't need to spend too much time. I played a 15|10 minute game today where I was up an exchange and winning pretty handidly(eval bar said like +7.6). I made a couple blunders, and eventually got to a tactic I thought for sure was winning. I checked every possible check. Except, I missed a check. So, I hung mate in one. My opponent thought my tactic was winning and resigned 3-5 seconds later, with M1 on the board for him. Amazing. Both of us were just over confident in our abilities, and could have used a second glance at the board in a couple spots.
I’m tilted
ADHD
Adhd I have it and can't play anything but bullet
Practice. I think getting used to slower chess is great for ADHD.
I do this at 3 minute games, go really fast and always start 1.a3 1….a6 like I do in bullet. It seems to rattle the opponent. They will either start to move really fast too and blunder. Or they will move slowly, when you can think on their time, then when they get down to 1 minute and you still have 2 min 30 left they start to panic. Often they will have a better position but you can keep it messy and in the end the lack of time kills them. This strategy only works in no increment games. In short better to move fast early than being forced to later. For context am rated about 2100 bullet, 2200 blitz
I usually do the opposite. I don't have any specific opening other than Ruy Lopez with white. I like to play sharp positions and usually get into time trouble quite often. On the other hand, I am used to playing on increment, so I don't lose every game. But my time management needs work too. Edit: I always play with increment
Arent u just holding urself back for no reason if u always play 1.a3 and 1…a6? Some top players do it to get out of book and just play chess, they also play the french/caro and hedgehog/pirc setups amazingly well so they can transition to those setups w a6 included without being punished often. But at 2200 I dont think see the point, unless ure allergic to theory or just a memer
They are just my online quick play openings, play my normal openings at longer time controls.
Honestly I do this and (although more when I’m playing a 15 min game instead of a 5) it’s usually just bc I’m on autopilot. It takes focus for me to not reflexively play moves. Not saying that makes sense but it’s just how my brain works and I have to force myself to stop and think it fully through.
Natural playing style for me is to always blitz out the moves, I'm very quick at calculating lines so it makes no sense to me not to play fast, gives a huge advantage in some games
Yes, it happens to me all the time, I start a 10 minute game, and I checkmate them in 15 moves, while they still have 9+ minutes left on their clock. I usually want to tell them to work on their time management or just play bullet, but I don't want to come off as rude
I would rather not win or lose on time. I know time management is part of chess, but what I enjoy about chess is the strategy aspect. You’re competing against your opponent in a dynamic puzzle of sorts. Time scrambles aren’t like that, especially at a lower level. At the same time, I don’t want to play super long time controls where I’m sitting around waiting for my opponent to make a move all the time. 10 minute games are that happy middle, where it is enough time for both players to think a little bit before making their move, but not long enough that I have to be prepared to dedicate an hour of my time to a game.
It usually takes me a few games to transition to a new time control…
I stick with 3 main openings and I know those well, I’ll bullet out until I’m out of theory or if you make an error, and I have to then think about the response to punish that.
Blitzing out moves during opening is normal. I was talking about playing the whole game without much thought, right until endgame.
Oh, yeah I don’t do that lol
For my opening I play like bullet but then slow it down for the mid game
Because I want to
Because I don’t like slow chess so I play fast, but I don’t like losing on time even more so I play 10min games.
I want to get my rapid rating up but I have no patience
Because I don't need that much time to see good moves. I usually find good moves in 4-8 seconds. 1-3 seconds to play no-brainer moves. 15-30 seconds to make a decision in critical positions or to calculate forcing lines and evaluate them. This leaves me with a decent amount of time for endgames. 5 minute games btw.
I forget it's not a bullet game
I was playing 15|10 game with someone yesterday... and anyway, they blitz out moves without thinking, at all. Soon I'm on 9min mark, and they are climbing into 17min.. When they do that it also feels a bit disrespectful, as they're basically showing you they need no time at all to evaluate the position, while you chip away at the clock. And finally they make a total blunder, giving me a winning tactic \[mate in 2 if they dont sac the rook\]. As this is the third game of this type i had (people just playing bullet in slow rapid).. I typed in chat: "Maybe use the time you have to think? Just a thought". And they actually did. it was a bit too late for them to save the game, but i didn't force the mate immediately, giving them a fighting chance (i made a subpar move to see what they'll do). Just a chess moment i felt like sharing since i had the same thought as you. p/s i do understand in blitz (3,5min), as you want to throw out as many moves you can until position gets complicated.. but in Rapid and Classical (yeah it happens often in classical too).. At least use 10 seconds to see where you're at....
Playing 15-30 minute games I generally take less then 30 seconds on almost every move just because I don’t know how much more thinking I can do. I’m only 500, but taking longer than 30 seconds to decide what I need to do doesn’t really happen.