I like the question, "am I about to commit a blunder" sometimes you can feel it, the move you're planning on is bad.
Of course later it may turn out your intuition was good and it was the best move, other times you're glad you ignored it. Chess is tough : /
How can you slow down your play? By playing more slow games, study time spent analysing positions, and not playing blitz. If you do that your play will naturally slow down.
What I find hard is calculating strong moves, like I've said before visualizing 10 poor moves is easy, calculating 3 strong moves is hard.
In my experience blitz makes me think in chunks of moves or patterns. This is not useful when you have over an hour on your clock, to keep the quality of moves up I force myself to go slow, one ply at a time... I don't know if others have to do this, but after years of blitz this is something I do that consequently slows down my play.
From the comments above, I'm not sure you are interpreting the time limit correctly. Note that in our game, you have up to 14 days to make EACH MOVE, (not 14 days to make a certain number of moves) and when you move, the clock resets and your opponent has up to 14 days to make their move.
Hope this helps to take some pressure off !!
Mike
From the book by C.J.S. Purdy "Fine Art of Chess Annotation and Other Thoughts" Noted from the back of the book, Purdy became the first correspondence chess champion 1953. also noted, Fischer said Purdy was the best annotator around.
From: The Purdy Player starting on page 173.
- - - - While It Is The Player's Turn To Move - - - -
- What are the moves I have to consider?
- How has the opponent's last move changed the position? What are the opponent's threats? What are the opponent's objectives?
- What are the key features of the position? - Material: - King Position: - Weaknesses and Strengths: - Development: - Breaking Points:
- Do I have a combination on the board?
- What short-term plan, with attainable goals, shall I concoct?
- Am I about to commit a blunder?
- - - - While It Is The Opponent's Turn To Move - - - -
- ... examine each possible move of the opponent's pieces and pawns...
- ( repeat as writen above) - What are the key features of the position? ... ect.
- If the opponent takes a lot of time in choosing a move, (you) can select a plausible move for the opponent, ect., until the opponent finally moves. ( or repeat the - - - - While It Is The Player's Turn To Move - - - -)
Personnal Note: I will be writing my answers to the questions above either on a note pad or on the computer note feature. I hope this can help get you started slowing your game. Share with others on this forum, what has worked to slow your game down. Thanks and good luck.