why am I so hopeless at blitz?

So been playing chairs for about nine months now. I’ve been slowly making progress and I went from 800 on the daily chest to about 1300 now. I’m pretty happy with my progress. However, I just can’t seem to make any progress in Blitz. Every game I play is a total wash. It makes me feel like I must be doing something wrong. Even games in which I feel like I am dominating my opponent, I just lose on time.

Obviously the time is a factor. But it is a factor from my opponent too. At one point I dropped to 250. I had to work my way up to 400. I thought as I got better at daily chess my blitz ranking would also rise. But it doesn’t seem to be happening.

Blitz also feels like a different game, people play very strange openings and quite often just try to win with their queen. I got a pretty good at stopping the Queen. But I’m struggling to make any progress. There aren’t really any lessons about hard to improve the Blitz. So other than just play more games is there anything I can do?

blitz is experience

playing more than 10 games a day can cause tilt

tilt is natrual i dropped more than 400 points once from 1100 i dont remember if it was here or somewhere else

i probably am not the most credible as i stopped actively playing chess, but look at the game count

also get your puzzle rating up if you can 

i got mine to 1500 after some struggle and rn it could be 1800 if i didnt stop playing

daily chess is over-analytical, some say its good but you could spend hours on a move, play rapid or something like 30 minutes or 15

i play 15 with a 2100 rated player these days to keep my skill up

just understand the ggame first before practice, game theory it is all but that takes time

im at 800 yes but i know probably more theory than the majority of 1600 from many years of it, honestly im just too busy to play

try some rapid games and spend some time thinking, this will help you think faster and more accurate, also try puzzles(not puzzle rush/battle)

Blitz is pretty stressful for most people (myself included) as people tend to play tricks and traps openings they would never get away with in longet time controls. But if Daily is your forte, I recommend you stick with it. Daily is excellent for sharpening your thinking process and finding deep tactical strategies. It also makes for some real quality chess games. Blitz and Bullet are only really there just for goofing around or testing out various openings. But if you really want to have the edge in Blitz, try to build a small but sufficient opening reportoite (collection of openings you are familiar with and use often). That way you won't have to think a lot for the first moves of the game and be on par or up on time with a balanced or advantageous position. Just my thoughts. Good luck with your blitz.

Oh and of course (I keep on forgetting this) play some puzzles. It would help build your tactical skills and pattern recognition which is very important in chess. Since you do have a membership, I'd recommend doing at least 20 puzzles each day for training.

Because you are hopeless at every time control, aside from daily, which no one really cares about. :)

Do tactics and play longer time controls.

Try to find and play the 5/5 Blitz time parameter. It is very popular but I think you may have to find it under "New Game: custom time". 3 minute blitz is basically 2/1 bullet, but 5/5 feels very close to 10 minute rapid. The 5 second increment per move makes it unlikely to win or lose simply because of running out of time in the endgame. Hear that <20 second death rattle? Don't panic. Move a passed pawn twice or shuffle a bishop back and forth and you're back up to 35 seconds on your clock. 

Thanks for the feedback

its because you cant think fast, push yourself to think faster and it will come naturally, this doesnt mean you have to move faster in long games, just think faster. this helped me get 2213 blitz but sadly losing points right not I'll cover up though.

now im 2080

Blitz isn’t real chess, it’s for fun rapid and daily are the true ways to improve

you should do some puzzles and play rapid, after some while try playing 5/5 or 3/2 and slowly from there you can slowly think faster and clutch low time games maybe

I love blitz and have friends who are in the same boat as you. Before getting better at blitz, one must get better at rapid (or maybe not who knows ) If you've been doing daily you're not used to playing a move with a time constraint, not really. Just do longer time controls and gradually get used to shorter ones. Trial by fire I always say!

The important thing to remember about blitz chess is it tests what you already know, not what you need to learn.

I was old school and hated blitz and bullet games. Until....

My wife and I live in rural Australia. Last year, my nephew, who had some personal problems, came from the city for an extended stay. It took some adjustments, especially his perchance for late-night online gaming. One afternoon he was explaining the intricacies of gameplay, which for a seventeen-year-old made perfect sense, but for a semi-retired… whoosh… right over my head.

That same night he approached me about my library, which is my private den; it contains my book collection (I collect first editions of favourite books), music, computer, and chess war-room. With trepidation, I gave him permission to use it.

"Hey uncle, mum said you were a chess nerd, but I didn't realise how much."

He told me he played online blitz and bullet, and would I play him? I said OK, but I only use the computer for work or research. I prefer playing OTB and working through GM games, which I find weirdly relaxing.

That night I got an old tournament set out, and we played blitz, starting with 5min games, then moved to 3mins. I had played blitz at club level for fun back in the 1990s and early 2000s, but then it was for a laugh and banter and quite a bit slower by today's time-controls. I used to play classic seriously but hadn't played competitively for many years; my rating OTB hovered between 2100 and 2200.

In the last 10 months, our house took on the atmosphere of a war-room. Every day was a 3min blitz mini-tournament. It was fun and chaos. For one, my nephew hummed and trash-talked as he contemplated his moves… but I did not want to let him think it was affecting me. It was the sense of effortlessness that got to me. Where I would carefully ponder the board wasting time, he would sweep in with lightning moves. Where I would carefully stick to the scripts, I had been taught he went off-piste.

We smiled and laughed a lot.

"Are you sure that's what you want to do, old man?" he would shrug.

And then he would deliver some punishing pin on the queen or a deft back rank attack I had somehow overlooked. When I made a move, he would retort, "I knew you were going to do that… But you have the potential for an oldie."

Sadly he's gone back to his city life, but he's leaving a legacy. This snarly old traditionalist has a new lease on life and discovered a love of blitz chess.

Nothing to do with the OP but I thought I'd share....

nice story dude.

Do not play blitz until you get solid foundation in slow chess 1600-1800.

Otherwise you will build up bad habits.

If you play for fun, it is a different story.