Losing on clock most games. Stuck at ~100 ELO.

Hey, I've seen games where an opponent attempts a queen and rook fork not seeing the unusual pony location. Hakaru said that's why you move your pony there lmao. But you're taking me too seriously with this.

Last couple games I've played have been 15|10, and unless there's a lot of variance and I face much stronger opponents in my next games, it looks like I'm going to be rated over 600. Only problem is these games feel painfully slow, like I'm just wasting all my time. Still prone to blunders because I have a constant urge to finish as fast as possible that I'm fighting against.

still, Nh3 isn't worth it, it is bad unless played as a joke

but anyway, I think playing bullet and rapid will help your blitz a lot

So yeah, while I've had a few good games with 15|10, usually it feels way too slow and I just feel constant time pressure regardless. Extra time on the chess clock doesn't alleviate the pressure that causes me to blunder obvious stuff. 

If you play say, 5|0, and run into time trouble and play 15|0, triple the time, why are you still feeling that same time pressure? Are you following a mental checklist each position? Or are you getting caught up in a position, drain half your time, then have to scramble the rest of the game?

-Jordan

Well said. To people asking why it's bad, I ask you, what's good about it? If you're trying to let the bishop and queen out, e4 does the same while fighting for the center. If you want to prepare d4 b*tch you're white. You get first move. Play d4 then protect it after. e3 just wastes time.

It's both that there's a lot of external time pressure, and the whole getting caught up in a position thing. Having more time just means I can spend it overanalyzing which is what I set out to fix in the first place before I switched to longer time controls.

But the whole reason I was playing blitz in the first place is that anything longer feels like way too much of a time commitment. Most of the time I'm playing chess while taking breaks from other stuff I'm doing so the flexibility of 1-3 games of blitz is far more appealing than being stuck in 1 game of rapid.

I get having issues blocking out a significant amount of time in one sitting, I am the same. Have you tried Daily chess here on Chess.com? This would allow you ample time to consider each position, without having to commit significant time in one sitting. It's essentially online postal chess, with as little as 1 day to make your move, to like 14 days if you accept a game time control of that amount. Most do 1-3 days/move games (which I recommend), and you can play as many of those concurrently as you wish, so you could for example have like a dozen games going simultaneously giving you several or more positions each day to work on and decide on your next move, without any real time pressure involved as you have in Live games like blitz/Rapid. 

As for overanalyzing, that sounds like a classical case of not having a set mental checklist you run through each position and doubting yourself. If you train yourself to look at each position in a systematic way, you'll find over time you begin to do that subconsciously and more quickly allowing you to come to conclusions on your next move more effectively and timely. If you need help getting started on that process, I recommend the CCT (Checks, Captures, Threats) method, which is a basic method that makes you see how all the pieces are interacting in each position and looking for anything immediately concerning (like undefended or under defended pieces, 1-2 move checkmates, ect). Daily chess could be useful to practice doing that starting out as well.

-Jordan

That’s not time pressure then

thats life pressure

and nothing in chess is gonna help with that

just try to make smart life choices ig

I already run that type of mental checklist. When I get stuck, I'm usually running through it over and over again trying to find something I missed, or I'm thinking too far ahead trying to find a winning strategy. I've been considering playing correspondence type games but don't think it suits me when I can just analyze stuff instead (without the engine so I'm actually practicing thinking). I also don't like the idea of having games open and then accidentally getting in trouble because I analyze something else with a game running.

Anyway, is it normal to have a rapid rating 400 points higher than blitz? I seem to be settling in at about 600 rapid. Of course I still want to focus on blitz but it's annoying if my rapid is so much higher.

Something I've realized that might be a major factor here, is that I really like to play with weird styles. I love blitz because you can use time pressure to make your opponent blunder if you play weirdly at least at low ratings. I find it far more enjoyable to mess around with bad openings and then win with better tactics and capitalizing on blunders.

The result of doing this, as well the fact that I avoided learning any basic beginner openings in the first place, opting to just figure stuff out by thinking it through and trying my own ideas with a bunch of games, is that I end up in weird positions where every move has to be considered carefully.

I might say it's just mind games, but the reality is I'm giving the opponent the edge at the beginning for fun, and then trying to fight my way back, rather than fighting for an edge at the beginning. From my understanding, it also means that I'm playing trickier positions even when I have the edge.

And to expand on my previous comment, I'm not just checking for the basic stuff a beginner should, but I tend to look for weird sacrifices and other complex things that people of my level miss. Which is a problem, because I'm not experienced enough to do this fast enough. I'd have a better win rate if I kept it simple and just focused on avoiding blunders, but I can't help but worry I'm missing some great victory idea.

Which brings me to a question. Are there many players that start off really bad (blitz), but after gaining a lot of experience stuck at very low ratings, suddenly start gaining quickly because everything starts to click?

Try playing a Daily game.

The reason people play long games is primarily to obtain a thinking algorithm which will prove beneficial eventually for blitz because after you learn how to do in the training wheels in long games, you will eventually be able to do it after and be able to do it with faster time controls.

This is the algorithm, as been said many times over and over again, books have been written on the subject, especially books by Dan Heisman:

Before you make a move look for candidate moves. Don't just make a move that comes right from the top of your head, think of several moves, and consider the outcomes of this move. Don't go too deep at first, keep trying until you find your opponents "best reply," once you find this move by your opponent calculate the critical line. You will have to to go over other moves just in case your opponent does an inferior move, so you will be ready for it.

Dan Heisman has a different version of this algorithm, and there are many more things one can do to improve the blunder checking part of making a chess moves, but that is the basics. Notice you don't have enough time to do all of this in a speed game, not at first at least.

The trick is, after you learn how to play long games and applying these thinking methods, you will soon be able to do them faster and faster until you can do them in blitz. That is quite plainly why people say learn long game before blitz. Starting out with blitz, you don't know how to play, and it's like trying to do calculus without first learning arithmetic.

I said previously you will learn bad habits if you play only bullet and blitz because when you play those time controls without first learning how to think in chess (play the algorithm I showed you), you will mostly be rushing moves to the point of just making moves for the sake of making a move. This is a problem, and when you try and play slow games at first after doing this you will have a tendency of moving too fast and making a lot of mistakes because you have the "bad habit" of playing moves for the sake of making them. Your games will always be riddled with mistakes. This is why most people fail at chess, because no one wants to obtain the discipline of playing slow chess, they just want to play fast. I've been playing blitz for over 20 years, and I'm still not over 1500. Yeah, you will eventually get better, maybe, but there are no guarantees. That being said, depending on what your strengths and weaknesses are, you may never get better at chess just by playing blitz or bullet. Bullet and blitz are actually chess variants. They are not real chess. They are generally not conducive of learning how to play chess. If you don't want to be like me, and not be that good at all after 20 years of play, play only blitz. But if you want to get better, by first, playing slow chess, you will be rewarded. I started playing 10 minutes at my local starbucks and I've improved just by making a transition from 5 minutes to 10 minutes. Granted everyone there wants to still play 5 minutes (the adrenaline rush is hard to say no to), I make them all play 10 minutes, because I tell them, "Have you gotten better?" They reply, "No," Then I say, "So what is the problem?"

You must play a mixture of slow chess and speed chess, but you must speed most of your time play slow chess. If you can't do this, then you are playing chess just for fun. Which is okay. Just know that you won't improve much. That's the cost of not playing slow chess.

Stop playing bullet. If you need to play shorter games do 5min blitz.. otherwise play rapid, the longer the better.

Work on recognizing common patterns and tactical motifs. The more familiar you are with typical combinations, the quicker you'll spot them in your games.

hi hala\