Try sitting on your hands.
Write down the game move by move as if you were playing otb.
Then sit on your hands again.
Getting out of the blitz mindset
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Haha I've seen that advice in the "most frustrating chess advice you've received" thread (hand sitting I mean). I never took it seriously, but now that you mention it it might be a good idea. I'm actually going to try it next live game I play.
slow time control = 1 month or more per move . Not offered here, sorry :)
How about this:
1. Make your move, but don't click the "Submit Move" button yet;
2. Click "Details", click "Flip the board", and look at how your opponent looks at your formation - and how he'll probably attack it;
3. If you see a better move, change your move. If none, submit your move.
Just... :)
yoshtodd wrote:
By now I've played hundreds, maybe over a thousand game online, and almost all have been blitz or at the very most 15 minute time controls. It seems like all the good players recommend you play slow time control for maximum gain, but I have a real hard time using up my clock at 30 or even 20 minutes. It seems like the longer I spend looking at the position, the more my confidence starts to ebb. I played two games recently at 30 minute time control and almost gave myself a headache trying to stop and study the board every single move. I enjoy correspondence chess but even there I spend maybe one to two minutes average choosing a move (unless it's a very clear endgame calculation where i'm double checking math basically). To the people who play with slow time controls, any tips for slowing down and keeping prolonged attention and focus?
getting physical pain is a sign of you forcing your brain to reorganize those old synaptic patterns. the brain will also fight you every step of the way, as we have a built in mechanism to avoid 'unnecessary' work and to save energy (ie. laziness). keep forcing those deep thinks, and you'll become better and better at keeping focused at it. don't let yourself off easy.
excluding trivial moves, I use anything from an hour to dozens of hours of effective analysis time on a single CC move. distributed over up to a couple of weeks. I also try not to move during the first hour I see my opponent's move. time, breaks, and especially sleeping on it, are mighty problem solvers. also, long thinks will do wonders for your general chess understanding and especially the ability to plan.
although I must confess I have succumbed to blitzing on this site so far, to get things started, which has already landed me to many unnecessary difficult situations. and will no doubt cost me games sooner or later if I don't get a grip..
Jul 31, 2008
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#8
yoshtodd wrote:
It seems like all the good players recommend you play slow time control for maximum gain, but I have a real hard time using up my clock at 30 or even 20 minutes.
It may seem like that, and it is true, but what do you find them playing?
BTW, Botvinnik is not the originator of "sit on your hands." The Russians didn't invent everything.
First. I think solving difficult puzzles is a way to get out of the blitz mindset. You want to sit with a position for a while and really probe it. Stretch out your calculation muscles, your board visualization muscles. Tactics trainer with no timer is good. So is the book "imagination in chess" by Pata Gobbledygoobledyvili ... sorry can't remembr his last name, it's a great book full of difficult positions. Ct.Art 3.0 is highly recommended as well.
Secondly. I think Jeremy Silman's books give you lots of tools to analyze positions with... What's the point in slowing down if you don't have full command of the strategic issues of the board needed to understand a position. Silman is a big help... but not a 'quick fix' -- although his ideas are pretty easy to grasp, applying them with positive results IMO requires patience effort and practice.
Lastly. Correspondence chess! Just slow down and find better moves! Use the analysis board. Go wide! and Go deep. Write down candidate moves and explore them thoroughly.
You don't have a beginner rating, but your best win is against a player 150pts below you. If you can do this at 2 mins a move you can do better, slower -- but you will have to be pressed to do it IMO. Take on some higher rated players that force you to play your best and slow down with the determination to win or draw. 1800-1900s should challenge you and punish hasty moves.
Analyze deeper! It will help you avoid traps! Also, when you are done thinking, look to see if you blundered!
I know you've probably heard this a billion times, but it works like magic!
I can often move in 1 or 2 minutes but I am slowly trying to extend this to several minutes (as a minimum) as if I were playing OTB.
I think CC affords us some extra tools we (at least I) don't always use.
More time, analyse board, notes, being able to 'touch'/move a piece before commiting.
I often view a position ocassionally jotting down notes, then leave it.
I use analyse board for a few minutes whenever I allow myself the time.
When I make a move I sometimes place the piece on the intended square on the board (as most of my blunders I see about 1 second after clicking submit) I leave the piece in place and sit back in my chair and look at the board again, something might just jump out at me.
They work for me, I suppose everyone has to find something that works for them.
I play only correspondence here, and I *always* download the pgn, ['moves' tab -> 'get pgn'] copy the position on a physical board and think away from the computer.
Do Kasparyan's 'domination in 2545 endgame studies' before playing another game! [no idea whether it is still in print - my copies are from when the USSR existed...]
Ok, for each study you successfully do from above, reward yourself by playing two games ...
Thanks for the good ideas everybody, I'll be giving various stuff a try. My concern is mostly live chess... in correspondence I do usually stop and analyze awhile (played lots of CC on another site before I found chess.com).
drd wrote:
yoshtodd wrote:
It seems like all the good players recommend you play slow time control for maximum gain, but I have a real hard time using up my clock at 30 or even 20 minutes. It may seem like that, and it is true, but what do you find them playing? BTW, Botvinnik is not the originator of "sit on your hands." The Russians didn't invent everything.
Maybe they play more blitz now, but I'll bet when they were learning they were taught, or just were inclined to use up their clock in slow games. At least that's what I want to think, because it's one more thing I can blame for playing so many games and not increasing in strength! Other things are not studying, not analyzing any games, replaying only feel good wins so I can conratulate myself and trying to forget losses without learning from them. I have lots of bad habits I'm trying to unlearn and I hope eventually I'll be able to play better.
Hey if anyone else is having trouble with this I tried an exercise last night that really helped me. What you do is sit down at your chess board with a watch. You can just mark the time or do what I did and set it on stop watch. Now play a game against yourself but each and every move take exactly one minute before you move your piece. For the first time today I was really able to use up a full 30 minute clock, without losing interest or moving too quickly. Played the opening quickly, but about 8 moves in I started getting into the rhthym of one minute per move (a little more at critical junctions). You could increase the time gradually to two minutes or more in the exercise if you want to slow yourself down even further. I appreciate everyone's suggestions too, it's good to have a lot of techniques to fall back on when getting rid of really stubborn habit.
By now I've played hundreds, maybe over a thousand game online, and almost all have been blitz or at the very most 15 minute time controls. It seems like all the good players recommend you play slow time control for maximum gain, but I have a real hard time using up my clock at 30 or even 20 minutes. It seems like the longer I spend looking at the position, the more my confidence starts to ebb. I played two games recently at 30 minute time control and almost gave myself a headache trying to stop and study the board every single move.
I enjoy correspondence chess but even there I spend maybe one to two minutes average choosing a move (unless it's a very clear endgame calculation where i'm double checking math basically). To the people who play with slow time controls, any tips for slowing down and keeping prolonged attention and focus?