Budgeting Time

Hi Fellow Chess players!

I've recently been trying to take advice of higher rated members and look at opponents responses to my possible moves before I make a decision. However, I frequently find this to be an unending task, one that I could spend minutes, hours, or days, depending on what depth I really try to get. Of course, this is infeasible. Especially for the tournament that I want to play in this weekend (which is either G/30 or G/45). I'm a 1450 USCF rated player. 

With this short time, should I be aiming for a certain length of time to do as much calculations as I can per move? Or a certain number ply of calculations?  

To tell the truth, my thought process has always been a bit random and unorganized in this respect, but with a bit of help maybe I can find a better way to tackle each move.  

You could refer to the video Finding the best moves quickly by GM Igor Smirnov.

It is a good idea to know whether you play well in time trouble or poorly.  Oddly, to me, I have seen players who seem actually to play better chess when they have one minute to make ten moves in order to meet a time control.

However I play very poorly in a scramble so I just won't get into one. What I do is to play openings which are not very sharp and with which I am decently familiar. In the opening I can usually play pretty fast.  The exception comes if your opponent makes a move that you think may well be a clear mistake.  In that case I am happy to spend quite a bit of time working out why I think it is a clear mistake and to make a plan to exploit the error.

But that is very rare. As long as my opponent does not make any clear cut error I do not try to win the game in the opening and I move quickly.

This means that going into the early middle game I expect to be ten or even twenty minutes up on the clock. Now I might, with luck, have emerged into the middle game with some plans coming unbidden into my head.  In that case I am happy to spend some time sorting out which of the candidate ideas seems to offer the best chances.  If I have no ideas I will spend up to 30 mins on a single move trying to find something in the position.

If this period of thinking goes well you are laying down a foundation for quite a bit of the thinking you will have to do later.

When this point is passed and I have embarked on the idea/ideas I thought best I work out the average period of time I can take to play up to the time control at an even pace and I simply won't take more time than that over each move.  I also keep an eye on my opponent's clock and I am much more comfortable if I am ahead than if my opponent has more time than me.

Of course I will invest time in calculating a mating attack if such a thing emerges.  But short of that I look at captures, checks and threats for each of my opponents moves, ask myself why I think he or she played the move they did and otherwise rely on the broad sense of where I should be going that I laid down coming out of the opening.

Hope that helps a bit or at least does no harm.

Good luck in your tournament. :)

manikcharan: That was an excellent video! Thank you for recommending it!

I'm definitely going to rewatch it a time or two before this upcoming tournament. 

johnyoudell: Thank you for the recommendation. Instead of trying to pounce on my opponent's opening moves with much deliberation, I'm going to try to get all my pieces into the game and then spend most time in middle game planning and executing.

You're welcome. He has great videos regarding many common doubts in chess and they are all very well thought out.