how do i improve my bullet skills?

honestly this has been botering for a while, i am a self taught above average chess player,with a 1776 FIDE elo, yet i suck at bullet, ,i mostly lose on time,but i still lose. so how do i stop feeling pressured by the time and start playing like i do in standard?

It involves some skills that are unique to bullet, so playing a few hours of bullet a day to practice will help.

In particular the evaluation of the position is different. First of all, initiative is worth a lot more. You can be objectively losing (as evaluated in a standard game) but if your opponent has to deal with 20 moves worth of initiative then you'll probably win on time before they solve their issues.

Secondly, time is also a big part of the evaluation. People who are about to lose a piece and stop to think always make me chuckle... it's much better to give up the piece without hesitation, being down a piece isn't nearly as bad as being down something like 20 seconds.

This changes endgame evaluation a lot. If you are 20 seconds ahead, all you have to do to win is play as fast as the opponent. Often technically winning endgames require 30 or 40 moves if you make them play all the way to mate. So going into a "lost" but long endgame up 20 seconds should be evaluated as a win (until you face stronger players who can literally premove the whole thing).

To help play for time, other than being aggressive to attempt gaining the initiative, some players play the first 20 to 30 moves as a fortress and only then switch to aggression. This may sound odd but it's effective at every level. For example systems like an old indian, colle, hippo, or stonewall. They will premove as much as is safe for the first 20-30 moves.

As for premoves, if your opponent seems to be premoving every move, then you can usually get away with moves like queen takes knight even if the knight is defended because their premove wont allow them to recapture. In any case, you'll need to be prepared to face these premoving system players, have your own setup in mind that you can premove in response so that you wont let them get ahead more than a few seconds.

So for yourself, premove as much as possible, but only when it's completely safe. At first start with recaptures. If your opponent can capture your last move, immediately premove the recapture every time. For example e4 e5 Nf3 Nc6 if you play d4 immediately premove Nxd4. Lower rating usually capture in bullet every time it's possible.

As you get better you'll more quickly identify when other types of premoves are safe (when there are no captures or threats for your opponent). When you can't premove, hover your intended move for example:

After 1.e4, while it's your opponent's turn, pick up your g1 knight and move it over the f3 square without letting go of the button. In your mind, identify the 1 move that will cause you to not make this move (1...d5) and focus your eyes on d5. As soon as you see any movement from the black pieces, release your finger from the mouse to drop the knight on f3... unless of course the movement is to the square you're focusing on (in this case d5).

You sure seem to know a lot about bullet despite not having played a single game. Impressive.

Looks like he's playing right now, it's already 5 games.

I am sure he

had played before that.

I was talking about you.

Oops, I misread it. I thought it said in spite of having played a single game. I thought you were making fun of the OP for not liking bullet when he hadn't really played it on this site yet (when I check I thought it was only 1 game).

But yeah, even more impressive I think is after the first 21 blitz games of my life, I got an 1800 rating on this site.

I mean... it's either that or chess exists outside of chess.com.

My longest session of bullet was about 150 games of 2/0 played without any breaks (except trying to find another game) that lasted around 8 or 9 hours. This was before chess.com existed

I remember it clearly because after no eating, drinking, bathroom, or even standing for that long it was physically painful at the end, and I swore to never do it again.

Now that's a real internet chess player

thanks for the advice, i dont like losing but i will try to play more bullet to get used to the time control,and maybe starting playing a bit more tricky

Bullet? Skills?

Daybreak57 wrote:

I tried that trick. After playing e4, I then click on my knight and move my mouse curser to f3, however, most people at my level flip flop around from playing e5 to d5. So I end up wasting time moving my mouse back to the original square of the knight so I can play exd5... .. It happened so often that I just decided to stop doing that sort of stuff in the opening.

 There's another type I didn't talk about actually where you combine the two. In this particular case you can play 1.e4, premove exd, and hover Nf3 (all before your opponent moves of course).

When I'm cheeky and want to move fast, I'll do this sort of thing all game long i.e. I'm usually moving 3 pieces on my move   First move is the move that's made, 2nd move is a premove, 3rd move is hovered.

For example in the position below I would move d4, premove Nxd4, and hover 0-0 while looking at a6 (if a6 then I'll need to cancel my hover because it's a threat).