Nice question ... many great players, coaches and authors have advocated that playing slow chess (G/60 or more) helps burn patterns from short term to long term memory more accurately. It helps practice thorough analysis and punishes sitting-on-an-armchair handwaving. Finally, to quote a recent forum post I read, for those players who invest a part of their soul into each game ... where each inaccurate move they make stabs them like a dagger to their heart ... slow is the way to go :)
I wholeheartedly agree .... I can remember and replay a G/120 game from 2-3 years back where I lost a painful endgame ... I can actually see those positions in my head right now because of how much time I spent per move and also how burned I was by the loss. Now by contrast, I can barely remember the G/5 game I played online yesterday beyond the opening moves.
Another data point worth noting that the best bullet/blitz chess players in the world are also the best slow chess players. Like virtuoso pianists, they can play fast because their muscle memory was trained through 1000s of slow-practice pieces.
The verdict is to play a healthy mix of blitz with slow games ... though I'd use blitz more as a way to test my tactical strength and learn openings.
NM Dan Heisman recently posted an article saying Intermediate time controls actually do more damage than good. A good read.
http://www.chesscafe.com/text/heisman115.pdf
I have played lots of 10 minute chess games and Im not climbing out of the hole. However, I played a couple of day long games and won both. A quandry.
I am an air traffic control instructor with 30 years experience, an instructor pilot with 35 years experience and a bluegrass banjo instructor with almost 40 years experience. All of this instructing experience has taught me one thing...to learn something right you can never exceed your brains learning speed limit, whatever that is. Hopefully you can train to the point where you increase that learning speed. In chess, this includes the speed and depth to which you can see positions, do calculations, recognize potential threats and opportunities, etc.
It seems to me (especially now that I am actively studying the game for improvement) that fast games do not give me the opportunity to analyze the game properly (for my beginner level of learning) and thus I continually make newbie mistakes. To me this reinforces bad scanning and calculation habits not refine them, especially for a new student. Maybe fast chess is good to put a sharper edge on for higher level players but my instinct tells me I may be doing myself more harm than good with fast chess at this point.
So, what is your opinion about slowing the games down to the point where I can start seeing improvement, then slowly speeding up if I want to try faster chess for exercise.
With banjo students, every new student wants to play fast tunes because thats what they perceive banjo is all about, fast driving music. But any practice at a speed beyond what they can play CORRECTLY is reinforcing bad muscle memory and retards progress not advances it.
Surely the same holds true for a mental calculation game like chess.
Any advise?
tex