pole position

Hello chess friends,

I had received a question about the difference between tactical and stratigic positions. Positions where you need to calcuclate versus positions where only general ideas can be helpful.

First, let's look at two positions, with the question "which one would you spend a minute on versus automatic intuition.

These are imaginary positions; however, if you could tell that you should probably spend more time on the first position, you'd be right.

But why? the reason being There is more tension, whereas in the second position, you know that the plan is "put your rooks on the openfile, put your knight on a good square, find activity for your bishop, etc." tension in a position alone should tell you that there is something that could happen.

At my chess club, People my age and younger all seem to have a problem with playing too fast. I haven't had this problem as much, even when I was learning how a tournament worked, I wasn't very anxious. If anything I'm a parody of efim geller or any other player that always seemed to get into time-trouble. That doesn't mean that in time-trouble I let my clock run, no-- I've had many games where I'm playing thirty moves with a minute left on my clock. please don't take this as bragging, my point is We should work on staying calm in a tense situation. How many times I've seen someone I know with a winning game (and a high enough rating for blundering to not make much sense) to lose or draw it because of time-trouble(myself not excluded), I'd rather not think about. we all need to focus on keeping calm and playing fast in such positions. In the US tournaments are thirty minutes to two hours with a 5 second delay, I suggest that you take a calculator for a spacific tha you'll play in.

take it and divide the minutes by forty. Let's say for examples sake, you're playing in a G/60 tournament. 60 divided 40 equals 1.5. now in my mind that should be a minute a move (generally.) now when you play an opening you know fairly well, you may not use as much time in the opening, ergo you can use more time in the middle-game and endgame. the reason I used forty is because I game of chess can probably be decided in that number of moves. However the extra time you accumulate is conversion time, the time you have to blitz out your moves and checkmate your opponent. If you "win" the game before forty moves(which may happen)then that gives you more conversion time. if it takes you longer, the less conversion time.

This of course is just how I try to manage time, if you don't like it, you don't have to use it. In fact you may have a better idea, in which case, I hope you share.

sorry for the inactivity, Hope you enjoyed this "more general advice and ideas" post.

Robert...