Bullet Strategy

Which?

Make good moves fast.

Make random moves faster.

always wondered how this works.  My brain takes a long time to think of bad moves, let alone good moves...

Learn an opening line and hammer out the moves instantly; then play conservatively.  It actually isn't real chess though in my opinion; chess is a game of thought, and in such short spaces of time people can't 'think'.

AMcHarg, I see a lot of people try this strategy, and I don't think it's a very good one. You're much better off trying to play good moves quickly.

I think quite a lot during my bullet games. I just don't stop moving the pieces as I think. The tactic that you discover you had just after you move is likely to still be there. And the long term plans change fairly slowly.

Make good moves fast and get into a endgame where you can premove. True, sometimes I premove in the opening, but it's very risky and might not be worth it. 1 0 it's not a game where you think too much, but your experience and tactical skills are tested.

Nakamura published (or will publish soon) a book about bullet chess.

 You can enter a move before it's your turn? How is this done?

"premove" is when you do a move on your opponent's turn so that no matter what your opponent does, that move will occur (unless it's illegal).

bullet just takes practice. If you're good at slow games, then you'll get good at blitz, then eventually you'll get good at bullet. "instinct" chess as I call it.

~shuttle.

Good moves (see http://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-openings/quite-a-pathetic-opening), played fast:

:)

Anthony is on a mission. 

 As another poster said, you just make the move when it's not your turn -the squares go red. But also a handy thing to know os that you can cancel a premove with a wee click of the right hand button.

 Random moves won't cut it. There are people out there that can think quick and play good moves as quickly as you can play random moves. I play 2/1 bullet. this means that you don't end up with silly clock races - just be sure to play your move in a second or under :)

I wouldn't play this on any time control.

Well it's all about patterns at bullet speed -- what you recognize and remember instantly, also of course tactical patterns play a big role as there's no time to hash it out move by move.

As for strategy we have nearly the same bullet/blitz rating so I'm not sure what you're looking for.  When you're behind avoid trades as stubbornly as possible and play as complicated and aggressive as possible as your opponent has to burn time. 

When you're ahead on the board but behind on time and your opponent starts to do this, simply consolidate everything (while keeping an eye open for tactics) sort of like building a fortress, everything protects everything. 

In endgames I'm not afraid to premove 2 move repetitions to confuse my opponent and burn time, and when my opponent is very low on time it's good to play a meaningless check and then immediately pre-move it back to the square it came from.  Also if your opponent has to pre-move to avoid forfeit on time then play sacrificial checks like rook or queen unprotected right next to their king over and over, this destroys their pre-move and burns seconds.

When I play seriously I spend the most time in the opening trying to get a good positions and understand everything that's going on, in the middle game I speed up because I have a good grip and what both sides will play for, and in the endgame I usually play even faster -- although this site's quick players are generally flimsy enough that you can play about anything.

Move 16-25 usually I would have thrown in c5, but to be honest, I wasn't even looking at my opponent's side of the board and didn't notice all this light square pawns

Orange Honda:

I agree with the pattern recognition idea. There was a programme with Susan Polgar - talking about her brain and stuff. They do an experiment where she sits outsife with a board and pieces, then drive a truck past her with a position of a chess game. Although only seeing it a few seconds she recreates the position.

Then thay drive a truck past her with pieces in completely random places - not typical of a game, and she could not recreate it. All because it's the patterns she recognises and not actually the individual pieces.

All the parts of the programme are on you tube. Here is a link to the first part.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?V=WREgHsTr5yE&feature=related

or type in Susan Polgar my brilliant brain if the link doesn't work.

Also the study where they had masters play while seeing which parts of the brain are used most -- most used are in pattern recognition/memory not logic or creativity etc.

Most common misconception about GMs for general public is they must calculate a lot and that's what makes them better.  Actually GMs use a lot of long term memory and evaluation of positions and only calculate a lot in sharp/tactical situations.  Otherwise they actually calculate less than class players.

I remember when I was U1200 rating and would stare at the board and all I'd do is calculate non-stop (mostly looking for a tactic).  Now I often find myself staring at the position evaluating it not even calculating at all, then maybe calculate 1, 2, or 3 moves, then evaluating again.  If I can calculate 2 or 3 moves ahead of very high quality, I'm playing great -- on the other hand if I get confused and have to calculate a lot just to figure things out this results in weaker moves -- this general outline is the same for every player.

Excellent program. Indeed, I offered the same link in the IQ thread two days ago seeking to put to rest the common misperception that eidetic (photographic) memory would be an asset to a chess player. A person with strong eidetic memory could recall random positions as well as logical ones. Susan Polgar, on the other hand. trained her mind to recognize patterns.

In that documentary, they show her playing blitz and blindfold chess, as well as the exercise with the diagrams of the side of the delivery truck.

Apparently though some players like Fischer and maybe Tal and certainly Kasparov had a very good memory. If you read the article about Fischer he is said to have been able to reproduce several sentences of Icelandic upon hearing them only once. Surely strong eidetic memory would be an asset unless you are arguing that it is a hindrance.

Eidetic memory is not equivelent to "good" memory, although it is one kind, and cannot be called "bad" either. But for chess it is not beneficial. All that has been learned through generations of study of chess players and memory would seem to indicate that eidetic memory might be a hindrance to development of chess skill.

And physical strength would be a hindrance in sumo wrestling ? Okay it's maybe not the main thing.