Most people are going to say something along the lines of: "You are just playing 5 min blitz chess and you need to play longer time controls! Yada yada..."
Yes, it is true that longer time controls tend to be better for learning and exponentially so if you are constantly feeling rushed or often losing games on time. However, if you are comfortable playing speed chess (as your 2000+ bullet rating reveals), then I am suggesting something different:
- I recommend mixing up your time controls more often or less often based on your feelings on it. What can sometimes happen is the player conditions their brain into moving at a certain pace if they play the same type of time control frequently (for example, playing speed chess often could make you naturally want to move quicker than you should or playing long time controls often could make you naturally spend a bit "too much" time on your move). If you typically only stick to a particular time control, then mixing it up with uncondition your mind to that pace and will teach you to adopt better time management skills/time management awareness throughout the game. Similarly, if you mix up time controls too often, then you might lose on time frequently as you forget about what time control the particular game is until you are under time pressure or lost on time. In this second case, stick to a specific time control more often to see if you keep losing on time. If you are mixing up time control a lot, then try sticking to one pace more often and if you primarily play only one time control, then try mixing it up more; then see how your timeout ratio looks.
- Another consideration is that you would benefit from slightly longer time controls than you currently play most of the time DESPITE the fact that you can play bullet chess proficiently. What makes me say this option is because perhaps you are frequently getting a better/winning position due to the fact that you are taking more time than your opponent or that it takes you longer than your opponent to come up with winning plans because they have a stronger sense of how to proceed. In both of these cases, it may benefit you to try longer time controls overall just to see if you still suffer from time management.
Hi,
I keep having this problem where I lose on time in won/winning positions.
I am not talking about losing the occasional 1 off game. I am consistently losing on time. over my last 3000 games in 5 min here on chess.com. I have a whopping 35% lost on time rate. which I refuse to believe is normal.
I hit a rating of 1991 on chess.com, however I am 2100 on lichess.
I am above 2000 in bullet and I have no problem playing fast chess. My chess does take a significant hit tho compared to my greatest games but so does everyone elses in this style of play. In this style of play I just tell myself to play fast decent moves. Keyword being "decent" not great.
My problem is however that I can constantly win games in 5 min if I spend 3 minutes of "great" moves. Then after getting the won position. The rest of my games end up being "defend and win a 2 piece up position with 1 min against an opponent that shuffles queen moves". This always ends with me doing some shaky moves last 20 sec and then lose the advantage.
Simply playing faster as ive seen other people recommend feels wrong. I spend 3 minutes, I get a great position (I have no problem finding the correct moves). The only problem is that instead of my opponnent resigning, They keep playing with a queen down or whatever. This to me tells me that my chess is fundamentally stronger however it is very demoralizing to never "get higher results/rating etc".
I dont want this to sound like im completely ignorant and I know that I do play some / not great games regardless of my time use.
Is the answer truly to just keep playing and eventually this will even out? or is there some fundament part of this that I just dont get. I can beat almost all the chessbots, I start struggling against anything above 2500 but bellow that I can consistenly win if I spend enough time (1hour 2hour whatever)
I just felt like venting my thoughts, this might sound like a pointless problem "just play faster dude", but regardless I needed to vent this to not go mental.
Thank you for reading