45/45

Nice job chess.com finally putting the 45/45 time control in their live chess.  30 minutes is still too fast for a standard game in my opinion.  

What would constitute a "slow" game? Would a "slow" game have to be over 90 minutes per side, or could it be faster?

I think 10 mins per side is a pretty slow game :)

I cannot play blitz chess - I lose at least half in a winning position because time runs out; and I'm playing as fast as I can without being wreckless.  I simply can't think fast enough - my brain just doesn't work that way.  When I was a kid back in the 1970s, I didn't enjoy "speed chess" (what's called blitz or bullet today) and I still haven't changed.

I recently switched from the 10 minute live games to 30 minute ones and my win percentage has gone way up.  30 minutes is enough typically, but I'm glad to see a 45 minute option too as this is what it takes for a really thoroughly thought through (now theres an alliteration for  ya) game - at least for me.

-Mark R.

You've played since the 70s and have a rating of 1350? God bless you man I started just a year ago

I took 40 years off...

'Course, it probably wouldn't have mattered much had I played through!

I played my first game of 45/45 today.  Both my opponent and myself were very slow players.  It was a lon~~g game (which I didn't mind at all).  I was losing, but I was going to play till the bitter end and at move 38, my opponent disconnected on me.  I guess he realized that I was not going to resign and would keep playing and it would have meant another hour of playing. 

45/45 is for someone who at least has two hours to play, I think. 

10|0 is fine for me personally. Against friends I tend to prefer slow games. We usually play 90|0 when we want to play our strongest. We also play some stupid time controls like 1|0 just for laughs.

Sadly, it seems very few people are playing 45|45 on live.

Might be that people who are most comfortable playing 45/45 on live are even more comfortable playing correspondence, since then they don't have to worry about time controls at all.

macer75 wrote:

Might be that people who are most comfortable playing 45/45 on live are even more comfortable playing correspondence, since then they don't have to worry about time controls at all.

You would think that that might be the case, but for me, I prefer to finish the game in one sitting and I am a slow thinker so 45/45 was great for me. I tried one correspondence game and it did not suit me (found it difficult to focus with such long intervals in between)

I also prefer 45|45 to other time controls, and I also prefer it to correspondence.

But hardly anyone seems to play it.

So I'm usually stuck with playing 15 | 10 or 30, which is far too quick for a proper game of chess. I often end up ahead in these games, 'cause I put some thought into my moves, but then I lose on time.

The slow chess people are making it more difficult to get a slow game, I feel, by promoting different varieties of slow chess (90|30, 45|45, custom,...)

If they could agree on sticking, mostly, to one slow speed then maybe there could be enough players so we could actually get to play a slow game "on demand"?

Meanwhile I'll be choosing the 45|45 option every time I log on, and waiting for several minutes to see if anyone bites - if other 45|45 players do this then maybe things will get better. 

In the mean time, maybe the best stance is to play 30 mins *as if* it were 45|45, and not care about losing on time. You'll still probably win a fair number of games. In my last game, I just slowly and carefully took most of my opponent's pawns, and he resigned (he had 25 mins left on the clock, I had 10 mins!)

For people interested in quality 45/45 games, I suggest you check this place :

http://team4545league.org/

Hi, I am a beginner at chess. What does a 45|45 time control mean exactly?

Each player gets 45 minutes to make all their moves and an additional 45 seconds is added after each move is made.

If you are someone who is new to chess, I'd 100% recommend 45|45 games. Why? Because it gives you a lot of time to think. While a lot of people might argue that 30 itself is more than enough, I would agree with that too. But if you think 30 is more, you could just go for 45|45. It gives you a lot of time to think and analyse your opponent's moves. While I'd still recommend 30 minute games, I just wouldn't recommend newbies to play a 10 minute game or anything less than that because if you just start playing games that have less time, you wouldn't spend more time in thinking to make better moves. I'd like to conclude that 45|45 is highly recommended for newbies and maybe everybody! 

45|45, in my opinion, would not be good for complete newbies. Give them too much time and they will start to be bored. I don't think they will take much longer time than usual to make their moves, and once boredom sets in, they might lose their interest in playing.

15|10 or 25|0 would be a good start for them. Over time, once they know some basic stuff and gain experience, 45|45 could then set in.

I can't remember if there is a club here for players who enjoy playing long controls. There might be one, but I'm not too certain.