Thinking about Thinking: Quick Analysis on Low Time

Welcome back, everyone!

Today we're going to be learning about one of the most important skills in modern chess: time control. We're going to learn:

• Why it exists
• How it works
• How to budget it well
• How to keep making analyzed moves under time pressure
• And how to use it as a weapon to flag our opponents

Why do time controls exist?

Time controls are really important for modern chess! In the modern day, our lives move at breakneck speed, and unfortunately, we don't really have time to sit down and spend 8 hours on a chess game every day!

You heard me right: 8 hours. Back before the clock was invented, master games often took 8 hours or more! 8 hours was actually a fairly short match compared to some record-breakers, such as a game in 1989 between Ivan Nikolić and Goran Arsović, which lasted over 20 hours!

Now, in and of itself, this wasn't actually a huge problem. Players who didn't want to stay up that late didn't have to enter top tournaments, and they could also draw or adjourn games (adjournments, where each player left and had a break, were legal because people didn't have access to chess computers, so they couldn't cheat). 

The problems came in when people tried to exploit the system for their own good. For example, people often stalled the game, hoping to outlast their opponent in a simple contest of stamina, or hoping their opponent would start moving faster in the hope that it would move the game along.

So, two chess players, Joseph Henry Blackburne and Thomas Bright Wilson, invented the chess clock. Early chess clocks were analog, mechanical contraptions that had two buttons on top and two circular clock faces, with minute hands and second hands, much like an analog clock. 

The modern clock was invented.

However, it just wasn't enough for some players, among them Bobby Fischer.

See, as I'm sure all of you know, if you play a game and spend most of your time in the middlegame (which is natural, because middlegames are so complicated), you often have little to no time left in the endgame.

That's the main problem: flagging. Flagging is a slightly dirty but widely accepted method of winning, where you move faster than your opponent and hope they run out of time.

Bobby Fischer got tired of seeing players like himself lose because of a frantic time scramble, so he invented the incremental clock. (Technically, Fischer didn't invent it himself, but he was among the first to endorse it.)

This was basically the same as the old clock, except that whenever a player moved, they had a few seconds added to their time. That meant that rather than having to play a 30-move or a 100-move game in the same amount of time, the 100-move game would naturally be given more time.

What's the best way to manage your time?

Time management is one of the most important aspects of chess, and, conveniently, it falls into the three stages of the game almost perfectly.

The first stage, the opening, is a weapon. This is the time that you can safely build a lead in time! Premoves are one of the best ways to do this, but playing dense openings is a good way as well! Don't fall into the trap of analyzing. Instead, complicate the position. 

Let's look at an example.

So how do you move well even when you're in a time scramble?

Time scrambles are the place where good positions go to die. When you've played a little too slowly, and you're down to almost no time, you often have to play an endgame way faster than you really should be, and end up losing better or even winning positions because of time pressure.

So how do you deal with that pressure, and how do you manage your time well to avoid it?

Time trouble is hard to deal with, but there are three main ways to get rid of it:

1. Start studying! Doing puzzles and lessons is a great way to start intuitively seeing tactics and ideas without having to analyze 10 moves down the road. Game review is also a great resource that makes it less likely you'll fall for the same tactic twice.
   
2. Play against bots with time controls! Playing bots of all different levels in blitz, bullet, and rapid will really help you improve your time struggles because you can practice low stakes against all kinds of positions. This one is golden, I promise! Losing to Martin in bullet is a great motivation to get better at bullet!
   
3. Use a simple thinking process: What changed after that move? Are there any new open lines? Are any valuable pieces on the same line as my opponent's king? What squares are now undefended? Which ones aren't? Just looking at one or two undefended squares can often be enough to get an idea.

But time isn't necessarily the enemy! How do you use time to your advantage?

Time management is important, but it's less important than your opponents' time! 

There are a few tried-and-true (sort of) methods for flagging your opponent and coming out on top! 

Here's the first, best, and easiest: Play weird openings! Learn something that isn't super common and is hard to play correctly if you don't know how.

Good options here are gambits, the English opening for white, the Petrov's defense for black, and many others. Any opening will do, as long as it's uncommon. This won't always work, but it's a good start. 

The next trick is extremely dirty, and it only works when your opponent has only a few seconds left. It can totally backfire, because if your opponent has fast enough mouse speed, they may come back. But it often works and often saves games that were almost lost on time.

People often premove recaptures, or obvious moves. They also expect certain responses to their moves, but if they only have a few seconds left, you can be a jerk and play something completely pointless (Gothamchess's Rook B1 song/meme comes to mind). 

Play a move that accomplishes literally nothing, but forces your opponent to calculate for precious milliseconds. Don't try to play a move that gets the best position, do the one that requires the most calculation from your opponent. You'll soon find yourself winning by losing, which is a good laugh, even if it isn't the most sportsmanlike way to win. 

Well, ladies and gentlemen, there you have it. That's the best way to keep yourself on top of time and use it to your advantage. Play weird chess, stuff that isn't objectively perfect, but looks OK.

Hopefully, you'll be able to start winning time scrambles. It won't work every time, but it's a start, and you can start making stalling moves that aren't completely bad for your position.

Time pressure is unavoidable, but it doesn't have to be fatal.

Good luck with your speedchess.

That's all for today.

May your tactics stay sharp.