live chess is a completely different art to correspondence. it requires practice. it's usual for the rating to be very different.
here's some of my own personal thoughts. take from it what you feel is relevent.
1. tactics, tactics, tactics. perferably timed like chess.com. you need to see patterns of attack before they happen. time is your enemy, responses to attack patterns need to be almost instinctive. other than hanging a piece, a tactic is the most likely loss/win of a timed game.
2. value your time. everyone has a finite amount in their day lives. you gotta play a lot of timed games to get better at them, but don't persist with a lost game. it's adding no value. don't be that guy that runs down the clock in the hope of a timed win. resign, review your mistakes, move onto the next game.
3. the obvious. stop hanging pieces. more on that later.
4. check to gain time when time is low or you're short of ideas. use your opponents clock to think, not yours. obviously it can't be a daft move, gaining tempo is a bonus if the opponent is forced to move his king and the move improves your position.
5. improve your positional play. if you can make moves on auto-pilot that are positionally sound, it gains you time. it's also important when you're not sure on what to play. as, again, time is the enemy. it may also restrict your opponent and reduce tactical risk. study a lot of master games and try and understand the positional nature of moves. a well formed army is better geared towards enabling your own tactical options and will also reduce your opponents options.
6. work out what you're best at. play to your strength. try and guide openings to positions you are most comfortable playing.
7. make sure your opening principles are strong and not just parrot fashion learned lines. often your opponent will throw in a curved ball to take you off mainstream lines. you don't want to lose before you've made it out of the opening. learn the f7 opening threats like the back of your hand. also, if you're that guy that throws random opening moves, make sure you practice some and that they are sound.
8. following on from above, know and practice the lines of gambits, not parrot fashion, the reasons behind the moves. in correspondence you have time to think. you can review all the combinations. under time pressure, you'll need to have practiced the various threats. you can practice with an engine. set the postion from an appropriate point in the opening, and then play the engine. on the first mistake, stop the game. review it and try again. the idea is to speed up your vision and learn quickly the threats. keep doing this and you'll know the threats when they come up. you're likely to learn some patterns too. you won't need to spend valuable seconds working out the response in the game.
9. if you lose a lot of games from hanging pieces then given a choice of moves, choose the safest. try not to leave too many pieces unprotected in your attempt at going for the jugular. you don't have the luxury of time to keep checking out your opponents tactical options.
10. be more passive? keep it safe? get your king out of line of sight as quickly as possible. any piece in front of the king could be disastrous in timed conditions. castle it away and keep an eye on that diagonal if castling queenside.
ie, remove pin threats. it's one less thing to worry about so you can concentrate on your own tactics. following on from this idea, remember time is the main enemy. so it makes sense to do whatever you can to reduce threats. win time back by reducing all the options you have to keep thinking about? you don't want to spend valuable time looking at all of the possible threats against you. reduce permutations of risk.
castle early, play safe, keep pieces protected as your progress. it may be more passive, but most games are lost in time control from mistakes.
if you can statistically reduce the likelyhood of mistakes? then statistically you should win more games?
that's my thoughts anyway.
Hello All. I have a generic question here. I have a 1770 rating for correspondence but only 1550 for live chess. What do you think must be the reason for this difference in rating? The only things I can think of as parameters are that I know give or take which lines to analyse in a position, but am lacking in speed of thought and visualisation. I also tend to throw away wins in advantageous positions much more frequently in live chess, and make many more blunders. Any suggestions? (hope this isn't too much of a dull topic!)