Is it okay to suck at blitz chess?

Costelus wrote: ...I look up the move in the database: white scores 35%, Black scores 65%. Damned, I'm cooked! How come Ivanchuck did not see that move 19th? I used chessbase to navigate through my 10-million game database and suddenly Fritz starts and shows 20. Qe2. I swear I didn't start it on purpose - what a crap software, perhaps I should buy CA...

Costelus, I truly laughed out loud. Very funny.

Two points in response.

1) No, no, no, it isn't like that for all CC players here... Some? yes... but not all, and not most.

2) I think you (and many others including I suppose myself) have underestimated how much skill is involved in ICCF style CC chess, where the use of engine analysis is allowed and essentially required. It's a fair contest. The playing field is after all pretty much even. And I don't believe it's lazy man's chess at all. If engine chess was solely about having the best chess engine running on the best computer -- you'd see very weak or even non-chess players winning the ICCF chamionships. At the moment the people who win ICCF championships range from strong to very strong chess players. The evidence suggests ICCF style chess is some sort of real test of CC chess ability -- though frankly I don't quite understand how. I'm not too terribly interested in that kind of chess, my guess is a lot of patience and data-slogging is needed, but my impression is that ICCF players are the furthest thing from lazy 'engine cheat' type players. I think true ICCF centaur players are very real very intense chess enthusiasts and their champions deserve the respect and admiration we give to any champion.

Can you elaborate on what kind of skills are involved in this kind of contest ? It would seem that they are more computer and research skills than chess skills.

The point that it is a fair contest does not prove that it is a chess contest.

As much as I like cc, I'm not interested in any computer stuff. But when you have more time to think it can become a very deep battle of ideas, which is why I like the game. You can find the truth of the position compared to when you don't have enough, but with hard work and analysis.

"The 3 days per move opening goes 18 moves deep in a closed Ruy Lopez following the game Anand-Ivanchuk from Linares last year. Neither me nor my opponent had any idea about the motivations behind those moves, but that's not important. Everything looked fine for me as White since Anand eventually won that game at move 62. My opponent heads into uncharted waters on his 19th move. I look up the move in the database: white scores 35%, Black scores 65%. Damned, I'm cooked! How come Ivanchuck did not see that move 19th? I used chessbase to navigate through my 10-million game database and suddenly Fritz starts and shows 20. Qe2. I swear I didn't start it on purpose - what a crap software, perhaps I should buy CA - now I have to think about my next move. I will take three days and analyze extensively. The position is not sharp, therefore the moves are not forced. This makes things even more difficult for me, since I have to go over many different lines, at least 9-10 moves deep each. I put everything in the notes. At the end of the 3 days I conclude that 20. Qe2 is indeed the best move. Not because Fritz told this, but because of my analysis. What a strong player I am!"

Nope. Sorry. Only the most subborn cc players (not necessarily interested in a ton of chess anaysis by themselves!) would be anything, anything like that. WHen I look at a database, I try to be enlightened on why my idea may not be the most popular move and it eliminates the need for a ton of preparation before a game. It might take 1 second to make a move played by a master, but say you have 5 good choices played by masters, it would take a ton of time to sift through the possibilities in detail and you have to make a pick based on your taste, maybe even practical chances in addition to objective value. CC is the type of game for deep thinkers, where understanding really counts.

Don't get me wrong, though, my favorite games are OTB standard, but it's best to go to an actual tournament for that, so I end up playing cc. It's relaxing too.

Don't know why people keep saying CC chess is for deep thinking and actually understanding the position.

Take a 1200 - 1500 - 1800 - 2100 - 2400 - etc rated player and give them 30-60 minutes to analyze a position.  Do you really think they're going to delve that much deeper if they instead had three days or a week?  Only in a very sharp position and it will be tactics that are uncovered not understanding in terms of evaluation.

Tactics aside, GMs "understanding" in OTB games is better than any non-titled players understanding in a CC game even if he had 10 years per move. The idea that such a long time control bestows true understanding of positions is laughable.

yep yep.

I agree with the last paragraph, but not with the first two, (thus the colours ). No one spends 3 whole days on a move of course, but the thing about CC is that you have the chance to think for 40 mins on every position. In a live game, OTB or online, you only get to dive that deep in positions once or twice, and you have to choose those critical positions correctly or you'll end up having lost 30 mins calculating a speculative sacrifice, finally come up with a refutation and change your mind at the last second every time. You won't have that chance again when your opponent suddenly changes the course of the game.

This becomes especially crucial in the endgame. I never had the chance to play a 2 hours for the first 40 + 1h for the next 20 type of game because it's very difficult to find opponents in those time controls, and in the 60' 30'' games I played, because I'm a horribly slow thinker, I never had an endgame where I had the chance to go deep into the position, and in most cases the endgame was a complete swindle in time trouble (I'm talking about only slow live games, by the way. For blitz, everything is a complete rubbish in my games. ). In CC however, although I still suck at endings, I do have the opportunity to cut down on such blunders.

And this is definitely not limited to tactics while evaluation stays the same, because tactics do change evaluation of the position. You notice key factors, subtle details as you go deeper and deeper in positions. Suddenly your mighty outpost on d5 or the connected queenside passed pawns don't mean much...

Orangehonda, you're missing my point. I agree with most of this post, but I have a lot of understanding of the game (relative to those similar to my level) but the tactics always seem to override it. With an analysis board tactics are of course much easier to analyze tactics and (not that I want to be lazy, I still have to find the moves which is the hard part) in particular the plans, since you can make "fantasy positions". But when you're only 1700, such things won't matter nearly as much in OTB, but I noticed that I have been able to exploit it much better in CC. You are correct if you were saying that someone who doesn't understand many positions suddenly will given lots of time. But at the same time positional chess is not impossible at amateur level. It's just what I'm good at and enjoy, it's not because I thought that was the best way to be a good player. If one has the understanding, hopefully they should be able to exploit best in cc. If not, then I agree it won't help much.

"Do you really think they're going to delve that much deeper if they instead had three days or a week?  Only in a very sharp position and it will be tactics that are uncovered not understanding in terms of evaluation."

Whoops. You must be asking about what the significance of taking days for a move are. Well for 99% of cc players it doesn't relate to the complexitiy of the game, they just don't feel like making their move yet. There were times where I only felt like making a move or two a day. The real part of cc is the fact that you can take as long as you want (virtually!) to analyze a position of every move if you so choose. In OTB, you can't keep doing that obviously. The extra days are just for convenience and for it to be more relaxing, not under pressure to make a certain amount of moves per day and take it slow.

*Quotes spliced up to save space

@ philidor_position

That's true, and Elubas made the same point afterwords, I guess what I'm trying to say is that even with extended thinking time CC chess doesn't represent best chess.  It's the initial understanding of the player that produces good chess and we find the most knowledgeable players are the OTB top 10.

This is true in one sense, yes.  But the thread of the game, what's really going on, happens outside of what tactics are available.  You're right that it's impossible to separate tactics from chess understanding, but I'm talking about the strategic evaluations GMs make all the time before they even decide what to calculate, this is what I think of as chess "truth" the thread of the game.  Often such evaluations have nothing to do with any sort of tactic.

I can relate

@ Elubas

I agree that's it's not impossible at amateur level.  Also, I can appriciate how some tactical shot overrieds 20 moves of winning positional manuvering (happened to me last night ) so I think I understand your point of view where even a long OTB game can be thrown away with a blunder while CC is closer to representing a finer tuned game.  I would go on though to qualify this chess truth as closer to the specific players true ability and understanding, not chess truth in general.  So in the end that's just semantics, it seems like we agree with eachother... at least I agree with you anyway

I find even most long games have many moments where it's all a tactical slugfest, so I've been doing tons of work on tactics and it's been paying off. But in cc chess, there seems to be a much better balance between the two.

Im amazed at how long this discussion has lasted.  I'm not talking about this site, but the question in general.  I heard a young man say the other day,  "Blitz has ruined my game."  Nakamura plays tons of blitz, Carlsen too, and they're young.  I'm sure Korchnoi doesn't bang away on ICC, but he's old, but he might feel he's taking time away from the grandkids.  And he did beat fischer once at Herci Novig in blitz (the only one).  Has anyone done any statistical analysis of the relationship of blitz and long games?  I think that the relationship is pretty close, but that's only my opinion based on me and the players i know.  Anacdotal would be the operative word.  Reports of witches and monsters at the edge of the world were mostly anecdotal and i firmly believe that hats cause baldness, but, again, that's just me.

Two things have convinced me that blitz chess is slow chess played fast, not a different style of chess. So again, it's my opinion that it's better not to suck at blitz chess. 

Bullet chess?  There may be a few on this planet who can make bullet chess look like slow chess. I don't know.

1. I have read that Gary Kasparov's playing strength only decreases by 100 points when playing blitz chess.

2. I've watched GM's play numerous 3 minute blitz games on the playchess server. There are many observers watching as well. To me, it looks like high quality slow chess played rapidly. It's truly amazing.

http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=2461

Significant prize (10,000$ for the first place). Several teams formed by GM's. The winners? A team of two players, one 1300+, the other 1600+ USCF. Conclusions? I guess they are clear. Sure, nobody says that good results in cyborg chess are obtained without work. But the skills involved are not related with chess.

Shocking, but quite convincing.

Muskiamole, that is very interesting. I wonder how a GM plays blitz. But I can't say the same for myself, because my play drops hundreds of points (don't get quality confused with actual blitz rating, as of course in blitz you're playing against someone who also has little time). I would have no idea why Kasparov's playing strength only drops by 100, as it seems weird: don't you need more than 5 minutes for making a detailed plan and calculating the really complicated stuff? i don't know how that works, but for me, my playing strength indeed decreases quite a bit, as should everyones.

"To me, it looks like high quality slow chess played rapidly. It's truly amazing"

Well Muskiamole, lets say for illustrative purposes GM blitz plays like NM's with two hours. Well, for most people including myself, both look like games of very high quality, and we sometimes can't even tell the difference because we're not that good.

In all platforms I play, there's been more than 600 points difference in my blitz & slow ratings, that even includes chesstempo's standard and blitz training types. I do agree there should be a correlation, especially at the top this is very strong, but for me, they are different styles of chess.

is it ok to be around 800 ratings in bullet chess? because i am, at blitz, im 1020, at standard, im 951. are those good numbers? please respond, because id really like to know. and one last thing, what's the difference between blitz, bullet, and standard? the differences are really confusing. its twisting and bending my brain. my brain aches so much i feel dizzy.****FALL DOWN AND SLEEP****

HELP!*****Thud*****   

Not everyone... before I wanted to be a more serious player my bullet was about 100 higher than my blitz which was maybe 100 higher than my standard.

Out of all of them though it seems to me that the pure 5-minute pool is the hardest to get your rating up.  Right now my 3 minute blitz rating is nearly the same as my 15 minute standard rating, and my 5-minute rating is 100 points lower.  So take what you want from that.

I swore off ICC at the beginning of the year though because I started to stay up late playing for 3+ hours.  Remembering makes me want to go back .  I haven't played 1 blitz game for about a month now and I think it's helped my game.  Blitz has it's merits of course but it can hurt too, the problem for me is 1 game is never enough...

Well I looked it up and actually I only have completed 5 games in the 15-minute pool... so maybe it will go up from there and my blitz rating will actually be lower in the end, I dunno.

Still though let me know if you play in the pure 5-minute pool, seems to be pretty tough comparatively...

For most people, 5 minutes isn't enough to make a good plan or make particularly good decisions, so it emphasizes intuition and short term tactics, obvious moves, stuff like that. People who find that stuff really quick will be good blitz players, but I prefer to use all strategies available that I often can't make use of in a really short game.