I am pretty much a novice, but people say that longer time control games lead to better habits as you will learn how to think over moves better. Blitz seems to be pretty bad for this. If you think 10 minute games are bad, try playing with increment or at 15+10.
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Thanks for the suggestion - I hadn’t explored the other formats
Jan 9, 2021
0
#4
For improvement even 10+0 is most likely too fast. 15|10 is probably the fastest you should go, and if you can play even longer games from time to time, even better.
The longer the better for improvement. When it comes to games you will benefit from quality not quantity. You are right about the pattern matching but use puzzles for this not quick games. So it is better to do lots of 3 minute puzzles and fewer 30 minute games for example.
Really appreciate all the advice here folks! My current project is trying to beat my computer nemesis "Maria (1200)". I've hit a wall so I'm back to puzzles and openings.
Tonya_Harding wrote:
Study endgames on a real board.
Play ONLY one 30mn game per day, and analyze it on the board before you look up what engine says about it.
Could you suggest me a good engine please? I am not entirely sure where to find one or how they work.
Jan 30, 2021
0
#10
The exact time control is different for different people. Some players naturally think faster/more accurately than others. Generally speaking, longer time controls are better for learning. You surely do not want to feel rushed in your games and you need even more "extra time" if learning/improving your game.
In my opinion, you should mix up time controls a little bit. By doing this, you prevent conditioning yourself into moving at a certain pace. Most players stay far away from bullet/blitz (or at least suspect they should) if they want to improve, but I think they have their place. For example, you can get more games in and this could be useful in some contexts such as if you wanted to test openings. Many GMs test new openings in bullet/blitz. They aren't as interested in how they lost the game later; just getting a bigger sample of games for their choice opening etc. There are other reasons, that speed chess might not be so bad (and even beneficial in some ways). Of course, they have years of experience and patterns in mind before undertaking speed chess. However, with this said, the vast majority of your games (especially when learning) should be longer - as is usually the case with higher rated players too; most of their games should ideally be longer time control too.
Personally, when I began playing on chess.com (and basically starting at chess), I played almost 10 minute games exclusively (most common chess.com time control btw). However, in addition to this, I also played chess with a physical board other times (with family/friends and later OTB at my local chess club and eventually in USCF rated OTB events) which was usually longer than 10 minutes for sure (30 min.-ish?).
Playing only chess games isn't the key either. Some players play literally 1000s of chess games (usually speed chess) and never seem to improve. All that is happening there is they are repeating the same mistakes and reinforcing bad habits. This is the danger of speed chess you want to avoid (one danger anyway). Another consideration is that strong speed chess players are usually also strong at longer time controls. It is easier to move fast and accurately if you can "save time" by memorized openings, or precise endgame technique, or even by sheer pattern recognition developed - a beginner (or even intermediate chess player) doesn't have these developed enough at the moment. Improving takes study, motivation, analysis and so on in addition to playing games. Longer time control games can give you better quality and that can give you better quality analysis, study etc.
Experiment with time control and see what you feel comfortable with; maybe even play slightly longer time control than you are comfortable with just to be safe. 10 min. chess is about as fast as I'd go; 15/10 (15 min, 10 sec increment), or 30 min games might be better long term. Again, it is up to you though - everyone is different. I myself used mostly 10 min. games when starting out on chess.com (I still like 10 min. games 
), but I also played longer time controls with them too.
Is it better to play lots of 3 minute games, since I can squeeze more into my schedule than 10 minute games or are the longer, well thought out games a better path for skill development?
My hunch is that lots of short games expose me to more scenarios and develop pattern matching of both strong responses and errors through analysis. Thoughts?