How to improve my speed

How do i improve my calculation speed? Does it come with more consistent puzzle practise or shall i start playing  lots and lots of blitz games. Iv heard the latter is a little counter-productive from many experienced chess players 

I've played time controls ranging from hyperbullet to OTB tournament games lasting longer than 5 hours. During these times there are many things related to my calculation that I wished I could do better such as visualizing more clearly or choosing candidate moves more efficiently. But never once did I wish I could calculate faster.

So it's a strange question to me. I think maybe you're either unusually slow at calculation, or maybe you mean something else... for example maybe you wish you could verify a move is safe more quickly or something.

thanks for the response but i really dont know why its strange to you seeing that you play alot of bullet....which is all about calculation speed. Its how fast you can calculate puzzles/see lines

There's almost no calculation in bullet. In fact it's been on my mind that before I go back to playing 3 minute chess I'll have to get used to calculating again.

What bullet does use is a lot of pattern recognition.

yes you are right about bullet, it is more pattern recognition i suppose, but how about blitz and rapid, calculation of different lines faster to eliminate bad ones etc

I'm about to sleep so I can't articulate it very well, but for example, when you hear the best GMs talk about their games in the press interview, they will typically give a line that's 4, 5, 6 moves long when talking about what they were thinking.

In other words strong players don't calculate a large volume of moves, but they do calculate very accurately.

It's the same reason a GM can play 50 people at once. They are definitely calculating less, because they're outnumbered 50 to 1, and usually taking less than 5 seconds per move... but the few moves they do calculate are much more accurate. 

Contrary to popular belief, blitz chess can be beneficial to you: https://www.chess.com/blog/WSama/get-better-at-chess-playing-blitz

I once saw female master on video respond to fast chess being degenerative to progress. She answered she didn't think it was the case, so long as she later analyzed her games.

After reading my blog, you'll understand that you just have to change the way you play blitz for it to work in your favor.

So when you talk about speed... what I think of is you don't have a clear threshold in your mind for what you're looking for, or when to stop.

Let's use a simple example for the sake of keeping it short. Let's say you only have 2 legal moves. A beginner might calculate both moves as far as he can. If it's 5, 10, 20 etc moves, that's fine, he'll just do it forever until he can't keep track of the position... but this is a waste of both time and energy.

Thinking logically, what's the most efficient criteria when choosing between 2 moves? The only thing you need to do is prove to yourself that one is better than the other. That's all. You don't need to find an answer to your opponent's sharp attacking move that will appear 5 moves later. It's totally irrelevant as long as you can determine your other candidate move is clearly worse... for example it may lose by force.

Thankyou that was very helpful, do you think blitz can help my calculation speed?

I just played a 3|0 where I had to grind out the win because my opponent was up on time and they had hopes of winning that way:

Just keep them strategies coming, then you have something to work towards.

I dont understand what you are saying to be honest. 

Firstly  your simple example of 2 moves is hardly fitting for a chess game where there are multiple moves, and you need to prove which one is best quicker.

When you say

'you dont need to find your opponents move that will appear 4 moves later'.

...well you definitely do need to do that if the opponents move is causing you to lose? Hence you would not take that line and play an alternate move. The faster you can see that, the better you can eliminate it, in timed games.

'In other words strong players don't calculate a large volume of moves, but they do calculate very accurately.'

Im not talking about the volume of moves, im talking about the speed.

Theres a difference between calculating accurately and calculating quickly, im talking about calculating accurately but quickly,  im talking about how quickly they find accurate moves. On twitch, I have seen GMs quickly eliminate lines that are losing a few moves down, or which can be refuted.  It takes me a while to eliminate a move which loses in 3 moves because of a hidden tactic, but a GM will eliminate it quicker. Thats calculation speed. 

 The concept of calculation speed is renowned in chess, so i'm surprised you are attempting to challenge it. 

Puzzle rush

This has nothing to do with calculation. As I already explained it's pattern recognition.

But it sounds like you don't understand (or don't want to understand) my posts, so I'll go ahead and leave you to have fun with the 12 year olds meming this topic.

thankyou for leaving

I would like some proper advice, not an attempt to substitute 'calculation speed' with 'pattern recognition' 

https://scholarship.rice.edu/bitstream/handle/1911/93846/Speed-Chess-author.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y Here is a peer-reviewed study which contradicts what you have said here.

In the world of kung-fu, speed defines the winner.

If I was to be honest, practice makes perfect, keep playing a lot

When an opponent is beaten as such, they must find a new strategy, and fast - corner the next guy into a situation where speed doesn't factor 100%.

Stalemate has always been a life saver for thousands of years, too.

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