I'm 1600 blitz now, and weirdly enough, MORE of my 3 min games are being decided by 'easy' tactics than ever before. And it's not just because I'm not missing them anymore - computer analysis confirms the blunderfests on each side!  

Granted, these are 3-min games, so blunders are def gonna happen. But there are some real doozies still going on at 1600, where I am.

Check this gem of a game out where I make a few errors in the opening, he makes one back (all tactics), and then I win his Q, and chase his Q all the way into my qside for the near-inevitable mate.

And then I hang my Q. Put it RIGHT in the capture square of his N, zero compensation. Doh.

And even more funnily/sadly, he had plenty of time on his clock (at least 50sec), thought for a good 25 sec - and then resigned before capturing my Q! 

So 1600-blitz games are unfortunately still ridiculous blunderfests at times. I will add however, that we do have our share of remarkably accurate play, with <12 centipawn loss in like a 45+ move game for either side at 3 min.

Playing london which is very solid and you lost a piece in 12 moves lol... 1600 3min blitz players here are still pretty bad in both time management and simple tactics. At fide arena server i'm playing 3 min some players with real otb blitz/classic fide rating of 1800-2000  and they are pretty damn hard but  still we manage to lose a piece somewhere midle/endgame if it is very complicated. GM Hansen which is fantastic bullet/blitz player is also losing pieces to forks etc/tactics when playing vs Hikaru. So yea almost at any level tactics is huge factor.

You have played more than 12 500+ blitz games (with possible more at other sites) and only now breaking 1600? With that much game experience you should be stronger, but a lot of people are like that...

Yeah, if the opponent is pushing the limit of your ability (strategy and opening and all that) then you're likely to overlook something simple at some point. Probably not every game, but if you play 10 games a day there will probably be at least one of those "doh" moments where you do something totally stupid.

And whenever my opponent stops for a long time (although 25 seconds isn't so long) I tend to think they had to pick up the phone or kids started fighting in the background or something like this.

Dude, games are all about easy tactics. My games are also decided by them and I am 2200. The thing is that the higher rating you get the more tactics you can see and create. This is normal for 1600, and 1600 should not be able to see too much..

Example:

I think I'm actually pretty typical of the 'joe-average' talent curve in chess. When I started playing chess 'for real', meaning trying to seriously get better, I started at around 1100-1120 on chess.com. And was really stuck there, not like I was totally green and would start raising my rating just by playing more games. 

Took me a whole year to climb to 1250 from there, and since there, about a year to get to 1400 and another year to get to 1600.

I've seen quite a few folks on the forums though that are clearly a lot more talented - they talk about starting out at 1800 blitz level without any particular studying, and just playing games, which obviously is out of my league. 

I'm pretty happy with my improvement though - 200 legit points in 2 years from a real plateau is pretty good, and a lot more than most players here can say once they hit a real plateau.

I am also amazed by how many blitz games I play. Statistically, it probably averages to about 12 a day (!!) Most of those are 3 min games and often come in big bursts on the weekend of 20+, which seems like a lot, but in reality, is less than 75 minutes of game time for all of those combined. 

I have been studying about 30 mins to 60 mins every day though, on top of the blitz, and that def is required to keep improving if you only play blitz, like I do. I actually play ALL my blitz games during M-F at work during downtime, which is usually at the end of the day between 4-5PM, and get the tactics studying in either before work or during a gap in work otherwise. 

Yeah, and it will remain that way.  There's a well-know teacher in Pittsburgh who tells everyone, "All of your games are decided by tactics U2200, whether cashed in or not."  He would alway look for opposition to prove his point.  "Let me see one game," he'd say, suggesting he could illustrate that the person claiming otherwise was wrong.  He never lost one of those challenges, so far as I know, as he was ever able to point out a tempo gain that set up a tactic or an actual present shot that one or both sides missed.  I recently had a USCF game that I blogged about (from the Great Lakes Open in Battle Creek), where I missed a super simple game-winning shot against a 2300!  I believe I've heard one notable titled player say that strategy doesn't start winning games until you are in the 2100's.  

My suspicion is that this is why youths move up to 2000-2200 so quickly: the degree of neuroplasticity they have admits fast pattern acquisition, so they would climb through the ratings quickly if much of chess U2100 were tactics.  It all seems to fit together.  Moral: kill yourself burning tactics into your brain, if you are older than the 18-25 range.  

Playing on 5inch phone expecting easy game but not that easy lol. Average non OTB ~1600 online blitz is just terrible from every angle. 5min game. This one had 15 000 games. There are some 1350 which plays better even.. but they are usually sandbagers.