Bullet Under 800: Mind Games

    Welcome to this next post in the Bullet under 800 series, Mind Games.

    In Bullet Games, oftentimes confidence will be what wins a game. Logically, the next question is how to chip away at your opponent’s confidence. First, you must memorize the weirdest opening you can think of. Not bad, just weird. Here’s an example.

It’s not exactly the most common opening, if you know what I mean.

    That being said, you probably would not want a weird opening as White, only as Black, because in the first post of this series, I showed the best opening for White.

So here’s a weird opening for Black:

    Obviously, these are all just suggestions. But these are the best openings in chess and they have the best win ratios: 0-1000 0 % win ratio.

    Just kidding, I have no idea about the win ratio. But if you want to confuse your opponents these are good openings to try. You will probably sap 20 seconds out of their clock as they try to defend.

IMPORTANT NOTE:

THESE OPENINGS ARE NOT BOOK OPENINGS AND I HAVE ONLY STUDIED THEM FOR MAYBE 20 MINUTES EACH.

However, I am sure that you understand what I am getting at.

    My second tip would be to make moves at weird seeming times. Example: think about a move for a half a second longer than you need to. Likely, your opponent will be calculating at around the same time as you. This means either make your move before you are finished calculating, or wait a half second after you are done. Either of these options will likely throw your opponent off.

    Under 800, players will likely take a while to calculate moves. Therefore, you need to learn patterns, and, in bullet, there are many of these such patterns. For example, a trading pattern. Rather than traditionally calculating all options, you should count the number of pieces, as well as pay attention to whether you have a higher value piece that will end up taking before a lower value piece. Here is an example:

Another example, very similar but in this position white will lose material because they did not look at the value of the pieces.

You should be able to see how that would translate into a real game, and more than likely, you have seen that last idea happen against you. I would recommend solving tactics on chess.com to improve your calculation speed, or get a chess book and use that. When using a book, I would suggest solving straight out of the book, rather than setting up the position. Additionally, Puzzle Rush is a great way to improve your speed.

Third, always try to complicate a position, especially if it seems like you are in trouble. This will likely cause your opponent to waste valuable seconds off his clock.

    Finally, my last tip, although not related to mind games, is to play a couple games of rapid before playing bullet. This will turn your brain on, and let you get some tactics and positioning in before you play bullet. Just be careful that when you play bullet you remember your time management. 

    In fact, my next post will be on time management. Look for that to come out soon, and please don’t forget to like, comment, and follow.

Until next time,

TheDom77nator