Tips On Improving Your Bullet Play - Part 1!

Hi, this is @Phantom_Beast23, and in this blog, I just wanted to talk about some basic to mediocre tips on becoming a decent to intermediate bullet player. It's been about time I made this since I had been procrastinating, mainly since I had been spending a LOT of time on tactics, and of course school work and outside competition. You may have also noticed the 'Part 1' in the title. This is because I'm going to be starting my first blog series--On bullet!

Also, not like most people will care, but I've become rather inconsistent in blogging as a whole. It's been really stressful with a lot of pressure from school and home, so just overall rather pressurizing. I also feel like I won't really be getting Top Blogger, as everyone seems to be denying me, so at this point, I'm blogging for the fun of it. But after my exams are over, which will be a month or two, I should be more active in the blogging area.

Also, before I start, if you want to start focusing on bullet, you should definitely enable premoves. If you don't know how, go to https://support.chess.com/article/642-what-are-premoves-and-how-do-they-work. Anyways, here are some tips that I hope you find really useful and can apply bullet play depending on your level

1 - Don't blindly play moves thinking you'll flag your opponent

Something I want to make clear; Don't blindly move pieces thinking you'll win. Probably my most obvious tip, and you probably don't need it especially if you're 1100+, but it's a common stereotype with some people I know, is that Bullet is blindly playing moves while winning on time. Now of course this can be applicable to Ultra-Bullet, which is 10 to 15-second games (Which I'll come to that later), But, this blog will be mainly focusing on Hyper bullet or Regular Bullet.

Of course, this can change when there might be 2 or 3 seconds on your's and your opponent's clocks. By that time, you're going nuts trying to win, not focusing on making the right move, rather winning on time.

Now obviously you should probably play fast if you want to gain rating-which doesn't mean you need to blindly move pieces.

2 - Make sure you know what opening you're going to be playing before the game

Opening preparation is one of the most key things to bullet success. Unlike a common misconception, where I've seen people say openings don't matter in bullet, they actually do. I feel like the more you play that opening, it starts sticking to your brain, and so the more you play it, the more responses you see and you end up developing a sense of knowing what they'll move and how to respond before they even play it.

There's a lot of set-ups that are well known and used, some are mentioned below.

These are decent, mainly because you don't have to worry about your pieces being attacked early. Fianchettoeing is a common thing in bullet, and is really helpful, mainly since it can control so many squares early in the game. Now, some downsides would be not getting your Bishop to common squares like c4 and b5, but the fact that the bishop controls so many squares is great compensation.

3 - DON'T Play Ultra Bullet

What's Ultra Bullet? In case you don't know, there are 2-3 types of Bullet.

• Bullet, which is 1 minute
• Hyper Bullet, which is 30 seconds
• Ultra Bullet, which 10-15 seconds.

A lot of people, including my coach, say Bullet in general is bad and does not help your chess at all. From my experience, I would say Bullet (1 minute) is fine to play, but anything below that isn't good. I feel like 30 seconds is OK, but I would prefer not to play.

What you should NOT play though is 10-15 seconds bullet. I think it worsens your overall chess, and also just consists of random moves. Playing once in a while is fine, but playing too much can worsen your chess unless you're a pro.

4 - Don't try to Lefong your opponents

This ones gonna be short. Don't Lefong your opponents. What is Lefonging you ask? Lefonging is playing a "Dirty" move where you play a move that opposes a move that is commonly played or premoved.

Here's an example:

It looks very cool but is definitely not recommended. I feel this is alright for 30 seconds or Ultra Bullet, but is not suited for Bullet in general. It's more based on chances and doesn't help your chess grow overall.

It's named "Lefoning" from Lefong Hua -- more on that later.

5 - Know when to stop

Last, but definitely not least in our list, is knowing when to stop. Bullet is often compared to being a drug since it's so addicting and if you start tilting, you won't know when to stop. You'll try to get your rating up no matter what, but you won't end up succeeding. You'll end up just tiring yourself out, and your rating will end up much lower than what it was, to begin with.

If you're at this point, then some things you could do, are just taking a walk outside, or practice some tactics. The point is, you don't want to go back to bullet for a week. Maybe practice your blitz or study openings. 

I have an upcoming blog on that so I won't discuss this matter too much

6 - Play it safe

I know I said my 5th tip was gonna be last, but I wanted to just express this for the people that are about the 1200 - 1500 range in bullet, like me. From my experience, I would recommend playing defensive. Adding on make sure to always develop your pieces, as the more pieces developed, the more tempo or time you will have gained.

That's all I have to say for this tip, but I think it's very important, especially for the 1200 - 1500 range to make sure you have your pieces developed and I would definitely recommend playing it safe.

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Now, for fun, I decided to make a section about 5 popular bullet players ( Thanks @Achosneeze for catching the error), who give me confidence if I've tilted, or anything like that.

1 - Hikaru Nakamura

Watching Hikaru is always entertaining since he's so good with interacting with viewers, calculating moves, and rushing premoves all at the same time. He's also known for hosting things like PogChamps, which is an event where famous streamers that play video games come out and play chess. He also does collaborations with other streamers such as Levy Rozman and Anna Rudolf. He is also known for such things like the Bongcloud, which is going 1.e4 e5 2. Ke2!

2 - Daniel Naroditsky

Also sometimes called Danya, Naroditsky is a Grandmaster, who is exceptionally good at bullet and hyper bullet. While he's not as recognized as Hikaru, he's still extremely good. He's also known for coming in with chess commentary to big events that happen, such as the Pro Chess League, along with Robert Hess, and sometimes Daniel Rensch.

3 - Andrew Tang

Andrew is mainly known for interacting with his chat while playing exceptionally fast bullet chess, also known as ultra bullet. Sometimes he hosts tournaments for viewers to participate in or just online tournaments. He's also pretty young, as he's just 21 years old. He's very fun to watch and it just gives me motivation for when I'm tilting.

4 - Aman Hambleton

Aman is probably the most famous ChessBrah, along with Eric Hansen. He's known for playing bullet and like the others, is also a Grandmaster. He also even offers lesson about bullet here on chess.com, and like others, is also good at interacting with his chat.

5 - Lefong Hua

Hua is another ChessBrah on this list. He's a Fide Master, but he specializes in bullet, occasionally blitz, and often does some puzzles on stream. He also does a lot of collabs with a lot of other masters. He also came up with the term "Lefonging" which is making a move that counter plays the intended move, while the attacking piece have no back-up, often called a dirty play.

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Anyways, that's basically it for this blog, I truly hope you enjoyed it if you came all the way here took me a good amount of time to make this, so I appreciate all the support Bullet is a very interesting part of chess, and easily the most addicting. While grinding bullet is obviously fun, tilting can be infuriating.

And as always, make sure to check my other Blogs, They're pretty good as I take my time and effort to do them! I also hope to get Top Blogger soon so your support would be much appreciated!

Thank you,

@Phantom_Beast23