How do I survive longer against better players?

My challenge is to survive as long as I can, playing with white, knowing, I will definitly loose the game. I just have basic knowledge and about 5 hours of additional learning time. My opponent is a very advanced player. I will get about 12 minutes of time. He will start with 2:30 minutes.

Which opening / stategy would you recommend to me?

Thanks a lot for helping!

I'd try the Parham.

Try moving the pawn in front of your king. It helps to move your bishop out of the way so you can castle faster, and it gets your queen into play! Good luck! 😃

The best advice I can give is to not rush your moves. With only 2:30, your opponent will be moving very fast. Don't let that psych you out to move just as fast. You have five times as much time, so use it!

I could give you all the usual advice, develop knights and bishops early, don't unnessarily trade pieces, control the center, but against a superior opponent try to get into symmetrical positions with exactly one open file and eventually place your rooks on the open file.

Your scenario is pretty silly at the outset ... any advanced player can smoke a beginner with 2:30 minutes on his clock regardless of whether his lower-ranked opponent has 12 minutes or 12 hours!

Is the challenge about surviving N # of moves till checkmate? Or trying to flag your opponent on the clock? What are the exact metrics here?

Not necessarily good advice for chess in general, but given your unique set of circumstances, here are some ideas to avoid just GIVING the game to him :)

- Avoid initiating trades of pieces in general unless you get something good from it or if it stops a dangerous attack. Let him make the trades on his own move!  

- Activate your pieces fast BUT don't waste time moving the same pieces more than once in the opening (unless there's a tactical reason for it) or get your queen out too early!

- Keep your king safe (castle early if you need to).

- On each move, just focus on not hanging pieces+pawns leaving them unprotected.  Remember that that your opponent needs to conserve his time more than you do so easy treats (like hanging material) is just making his job so much more easier. So even before you touch the piece, ask if you are hanging anything anywhere on the board.

- Avoid 1.e4 e5 type open games as they are statistically more likely to have early tactical shots that will be what your opponent is counting on. 

- When a piece of yours is attacked, as a thumbrule consider MOVING it away as opposed to defending it with another piece or counter-attacking. This alone stops a lot of tactical ideas based on your pieces tied together.

- As the earlier poster mentioned, take your time...as this is your key advantage. If you feel there's danger, take even more time.  He'll be playing really fast and it is just silly to try to match him in speed.

As a general rule, think of yourself not as your opponent's opponent but as a "puzzle maker". Each move you make is trying to create positions that are hard for your opponent to solve.  Even if he solves it ... be sure he wastes time on it!  So whenever you are given a choice of moves, ask "which one is going to be easier for him to react to" and play the other! :)

Hi guys, 

that looks like very usefull hints. Thanks a lot!

I´ve just read a little about the evans gambit (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAUjAuv1L7E), which looks quite easy to understand for me. But since my opponent finished second in our Berlin Championship once, do you think he will know my plans and this is gone be a very bad idea, in order to stay alive for a long time?

wow. i really like comment from Shivsky

Sorry Shivsky, 

fogot to answer your question: This game is part of a chessboxing fight, which means, we play 6 rounds of chess and are boxing 5 rounds. My only chance to win, is to knock out my opponent in the ring. So I want to get as much boxing rounds, as I can get. Unfortunately they wont let me play chess too slow, when they realize, I´m playing on time. So I need a strategy with as many moves as possible, cause every move brings me more boxing time. 

In that case, I think the best strategy is to make sure the boxing happens just before the chess, and smack the schach out of his head!

Yeah, forget about the body.  Work the head.

Remember two things:

1. Pawns cannot go backwards!
2. Do not resign.

Alot of the suggestions posted are good ones.  But, here is one more to the point given the info. you provided in your original post. 

Because he has about 1/6 the time you have he must initiate an attack early and on the flank.  Other wise he will not be able to generate a winning advantage or lasting initiative to run you out of time under pressure.

The fact that you need to be aware of is, that the early flank attack that he generates against your position (usually your castled king position) is doomed to failure if the center (squares d4, e4, d5, e5) is open and fluid.  The rule is that a flank attack will fail if the center is open and fluid because that is where you are supposed to counter attack (in the center0 in order to stop (thwart, rebuff, repel, etc.) a flank attack. Warning, do not allow him to block up the center because this will cause his flank attack to succeed.  You will have no way of counteattacking in the center. 

Keep in mind that in tactical complications he may have the stronger tactical visualization pattern memory bank, but you have way more time to study some of the defensive/offensive tactics. 

When defending almost always choose the indirect defense(threaten to do something worse to your opponent than he his threatening to do to you, ex. your opponent is threatening to take our Q, so threaten to checkmate him if it is at all possible.) By choosing to defned indirectly rather than directly you retain the initiative (attack.)  in this way you turn defense into offense.

It would help tremendously if you would post a sample game or 2 against this opponent.

Plan on winning in the ring.  Pushing wood won't do the trick.  Sorry.

Your end game is most important -try to move your most important pieces to the top of the board-to atack the king

See what I mean?

Blows to the head.

I find the rope-a-dope method works for me.

Thats not really how to play the engame at all... And you say that you will teach people rated 1000-1400 when you are rated 1004 yourself in bullet and in the 600s in correspondance. How does that work?

Patrick (the pink starfish) Spongebob Squarepants friend says' "...I know about head injuries..."

Once again: Thanks a lot for the plenty hints. I´ll try to keep all of them in mind. 

What do the advanced guys think about my idea of the "evans gambit"? I had one test game against my opponent two hours ago and found my self in the situation, where i could try this gambit (1. e2-e4, e7-e5 2. g1-f3, b8-c6 3. f1-c4, f8-c5 4. b2-b4 -> if c5-c4, then 5. c2-c3, b4-b5 6. d2-d4, e5-e4 7.e1-g1(0-0), d4-c3 8. d1-d5, e8-e7 9. d5-f7, e7-d6 9. f1-e1, c6-f4 10. f3-d4...) 

Are you exspecting my opponent to make this mistake. And if not, is it a bad idea to play this opening, cause its failure will cost me a lot of time by getting an earlier checkmate?