I forgot about pre-moves! That's a huge timesaver, catdogorb.
So let's have a running tally for Online Blitz:
1. Pre-moves
2. Mouse
3. Unobstructed 2D View.
Catdogorb, do you play both rated online blitz and rated OTB blitz? Are you better at one or the other?
Massive difference between online and OTB
1) OTB far slower to move than mouse 5 minute game OTB more like a 2 minute online
2) Manual dexterity and fast hands become very important OTB. Very easy to knock pieces over etc, and slow hand speed on the clock can be fatal
3) Illegal moves very common OTB and decide games. Illegal moves online not possible
4) More dodgy practices OTB Hiding spare queens, holding down clock etc
5) Field of vision very narrow OTB Hard to focus on whole board.
strategies to help in OTB
1) In time trouble move pieces near the clock
2) have a replacement queen ready
3) stay ahead of your opponents clock
Good points.
And I forgot about illegal moves, that's definitely a different aspect of OTB speed games.
It's not always nefarious either. People will play illegal moves accidentally.
Imo the amount of new rules in OTB blitz is ridiculous. We have One guy at club who swats up on them all and any slight trasgression he is screaming for forfeit. One he got me on was queening a pawn. I removed the pawn from the 7th rank and plonked a queen on the Eighth. According to him I was supposed too physically place the pawn on the eight rank and then swap it for a queen, or something like that.
Good points.
And I forgot about illegal moves, that's definitely a different aspect of OTB speed games.
It's not always nefarious either. People will play illegal moves accidentally.
Imo the amount of new rules in OTB blitz is ridiculous. We have One guy at club who swats up on them all and any slight trasgression he is screaming for forfeit. One he got me on was queening a pawn. I removed the pawn from the 7th rank and plonked a queen on the Eighth. According to him I was supposed too physically place the pawn on the eight rank and then swap it for a queen, or something like that.
No one takes on line chess seriously except those who never had the real thing.
Not surprisingly it's the same with sex.
Very true, only time any club mates talk about online chess is to have a laugh at some of the antics that go on. The general view is it no more than a distraction, full of cheats and not to be confused with real chess.
This is what prompted the question. Wesley So won the 2018 Altibox Blitz Tournament ahead of Magnus, even though Magnus beat Wesley in their individual encounter. In fact, Magnus finished in 4th place, behind Hikaru and Vishy Anand.
Now granted, Magnus won the 2017 World Blitz Championship in Riyadh.
However, I am thinking of when Magnus utterly destroyed both Wesley So and Ding Liren in online Blitz matches in 2017. Magnus's dominance was so one-sided that the commentators (I think it was Danny Rensch and Eric Hansen) proclaimed that Magnus was the greatest Blitz Chess player in the history of the game.
I watched a good portion of Magnus's online blitz matches against Wesley and Ding and he was listening to music, his head was bobbing to the beat, he was occasionally laughing, and also watching soccer on tv. Wesley and Ding were deep in thought. Magnus smashed; Magnus was the Hulk.
Now we come to Altibox 2018. Magnus does not smash. Why? So I'm speculating that perhaps there is a difference between OTB Blitz and Online Blitz such that it affects some players' results. If so, what is it? OTB blitz doesn't use a mouse. Is that enough to account for a statistically significant difference?
This question is really for players who play both OTB blitz and Online blitz, preferably rated blitz. Do you find that there is a difference? If so, what do you think they are?