One thing I hate about timed games

There are many reasons to play chess, but one of them is the intellectual challenge. The intellectual impetus to find the right moves, the right tactics, and to see what your playing strength is. Sometimes positions are such that they really test your capabilities and strength, and can be very interesting intellectual exercises.

And then, sometimes time controls just go and ruin the whole experience. I sometimes find myself in a situation or position that's highly interesting and challenging, and I would really, really like to think about it, read the position, apply all my knowledge of playing chess, to try to beat my opponent, or at least survive to a draw, to overcome the challenge, to find the right moves and the right strategies... and then I either just cannot do that because I have 10 seconds on the clock, or the game just ends when I run out of time, and it just ruins the experience.

In a recent game, for example, it looked like I blundered my queen, but it turned out that in actuality I got an exchange of my queen for two rooks and a bishop. In other words, my opponent had a queen and a bishop, and I had two rooks and two bishops. Quite clear, but very, very unusual material superiority. And my opponent is a bit stronger than me to boot. Can I hold the position? Am I strong enough to take advantage of my theoretical material superiority in order to attain victory? This especially since my position was a bit cramped and I had great difficulty in activating my rooks and one of the bishops. Could I overcome this challenge in this highly unusual asymmetric situation?

Well, I will never find out because of course I ran out of time, completely ruining this one-in-a-lifetime situation which (at least for me) is extraordinarily rare. Also, my last moves were made under time pressure, so they may not have been the most brilliant ones. Which is one of the main reasons why I hate the clock so much. It just outright ruins games that would otherwise be really interesting and challenging.

Sure, I could just analyze the game from this point forward, but it wouldn't anymore be the same game against this same opponent, to see if I could indeed win this, if I had the playing strength required for it.

The point of timed chess is that it prevents the best moves from appearing on the board all of the time. The element of time adds an enriching feature to the game. Now, instead of just thinking, you must have instinct and a deeper knowledge of the position to find the best moves quick and efficiently enough. Faster time controls mean that it is even more important to find the best move in a timely manner. It helps you learn.

But the thing is, there are situations where it would be really interesting to have been able to continue the game eg. because the position is very interesting or unusual, and challenging. Running out of time just ruins the entire experience. It's like being interrupted in the middle of you doing something that really interests you and you are really concentrated on... and then never being able to continue it.

I agree, but without time controls the element of competition would be gone. Analyse your games to discover the mysteries of chess

Playing with increment helps mitigate this issue somewhat. 

The clock is part of the game. If you don't want the clock, play correspondence.

If you want to play the best chess you are capable of, then correspondece (daily) chess is the right time control. You can also play live games with longer time controls than 10+0, such as 15+10 (10 sec/ move are usually enough to finish the game when you have a dominating position) or even 45+45 if you can afford to spend that much time for just one game. When you play games without increment, you just have to accept the fact that time management is just as important as finding the best moves.

I am slowing realizing just how much the clock is part of the game. How to play time controlled games, like everything else in chess takes practice. What I have been doing is playing the bots using different time controls. The harder the bot for me to win, I set a 30 min game or a 45|45 game, for the the easier bots for me, I set a 10 min game or a 15|10 clock.