So I've been trying to improve, and I think I'm making decent progress, but there's one aspect of the game that I still don't have a handle on - playing fast. Most of my tournament games are at G/75 or G/120, and I prefer the G/120, because the G/75 seems a little bit fast to me. Not a lot, and I'm usually ok, but I sometimes feel the time pressure at that speed.

But when I get down to less than half an hour on my clock, I start to move faster and often make dumb mistakes. And when I try to play blitz, I'm just awful at it. Even though my blitz games are never faster than 10 minutes, my blitz rating on FICS is about 600 points lower than my standard rating.

Now I know that theoretically, improving my slow game will make me a better blitz player. But I still feel that I really need to get better at playing in time trouble, since it does happen in tournaments when I get down to only a little time left on my clock in slow games. When I get in those situations, it's not just that I make poorer decisions overall, but I often just plain forget to blunder check my moves.

For instance, last night I played a 15 minute game on FICS. I managed to do well early and get an endgame where I had a rook, bishop, and pawns, while my opponent only had a bishop and pawns. So I moved my rook to a square where his bishop could take it for free. I still won the resulting even material endgame, but I felt pretty stupid for hanging the rook, especially since I had about 3 or 4 minutes left, so I did have time to take 5 seconds to blunder check every move.

I know my time management skills when I have a ton of time left are fine. I don't move too fast and make dumb mistakes because of it like many people. But how do I get better in situations where I'm running low on time? I'm trying to play practice games every day, and I'm intentionally making some of those blitz games at 10-15 minute speeds to get used to speeding up my thinking.

This is part of why I think endgame study is so important for me at this point. Many of those situations where I'm running low on time are endgames, so the more I know about how to play them, the more instinctive it will be, and the less time I'll have to spend thinking.

But I suck at playing fast, and I'm not sure what to do about it. Practicing making the same mistakes over and over won't help prevent those mistakes, but besides playing blitz games to get used to it, I don't know what else I could do to make my practice more useful. Any suggestions for how to force myself to blunder check on every move, even in limited time situations?

--Fromper

I'm not speaking in general, but I play moves on instinct during blitz games. I don't necessarily check, double-check and recheck my move.
My speed in the opening is a little slow. My speed in the middlegame is fantastic. My speed in the endgame is a little slow again. At any point of the game I can make a move in say 8-16 seconds. And it would be the best move in 90% of the cases.
My opponent's timer is a bonus. Extra time to consider my plans.

Enough about that. You want to improve your blitz technique. You're losing time somewhere along the line. Find out where.
Loss of time in the opening is reasonably easily remedied. It just involves (more) memorization of your lines so you can gun out your moves, gaining time.
In the middlegame what I call 'pattern recognition' helps. Recognizing strategical and tactical patterns that may occur. When I embark on some strategical moves/tactical combination, or threaten to, prepare it, etc., in many cases it's a motif I've found long before the game. I will have found it in a puzzle, or in a game (not necessarily my own). You should always have a large arsenal of 'idea variations' to assault your opponent with.
The endgame is pure technique in most cases. You'll just have to sharpen it up if that's where you're losing time. Study all sorts of common endgames etc..

For whatever it's worth, good luck.

One strategy in such a situation is to purposely plant your pieces on squares of the opposite colour to that of your opponents bishop. That way you can't blunder a piece unless you let his king take it and usually you can see that one coming.

Until you get down to five minutes you should play as if you have all the time in the world. My plan in most games is just to stay at least a little ahead of my opponent on time. That is usually all it takes. Where you have to make an obvious move just make the move. Don't sit and analyse the position. Take the rook that is checking your king. Also don't waste time in the openings. Know what you are going to play for the first ten moves or so, so that you can play them within five or ten minutes of clock time.

The amusing side of this strategy is that occasionally this unnerves your opponent who fears that he is getting into some prepared opening trap and so plays a second-best move to get out of your preparation. As soon as something that I don't recognize gets played I slow down and take a close look at the position and ask myself, "What is wrong with my opponent's move?"

Play fast games with your computer. Maybe even ridiculous time limits like two minutes or one minute. Play one hundred games like that.

With endgames piece activity is more important than material in many cases. You need to know the winning themes especially for rook endings and maybe queen endings.

Personally I think that I may never play a blitz game again if I have my way. They introduce bad habits.

Crash

One of the authors that I read recently suggested that you make sure that you write down the time used for either every move or every five moves to get a handle on where you're slowing down. Half of the books that I read recently talk about time trouble but I must confess that I don't pay really close attention because this is one area where I don't have a problem unless I am playing Game/30.

Crash

I actually don't think pacing is my problem. For instance, last night's blitz game was 15 minutes, and I had about 3 or 4 minutes left in the endgame when I blundered. I didn't move too quickly early on and blunder, but I also didn't use so much time that I had nothing left for the endgame. That's pretty good pacing, I think.

I've gotten good enough at my openings that I can make those moves quickly. And as I said, I'm working on endgame technique so I'll be able to play those faster without thinking. And I can spot the really obvious tactics pretty quickly these days, after doing tons of tactical puzzles along the way. I'm a little slow on calculating tactics that require calculation, though, but that's not a major complaint.

My problem is really just that I blatantly blunder when I get into time trouble. Hanging my rook last night is a perfect example. I've done similar stuff in other games, either slow games where I get down to 15 minutes or less on my clock, or else when I try to play faster time limits. I just need to find a way to force myself to blunder check for 2-3 seconds before making a move, just to make sure I don't blatantly hang a piece or something similarly stupid.

--Fromper

Maybe make the move in your head, close your eyes and take a breath, exhale, then look at the board every move? That seems like just a 3-5 second pause and could bring you right back to the moment so you can make your final check.

Its just an off-the-cuff idea. I think it needs to be something you do every move so you don't need to "trigger" a new behavior...when would you start it? Before you realized you were going to make a mistake...that would mean there's no problem

Visualizing is an important part of chess. It's a good idea to train that skill, at least to a certain point. I know players who accomplish it by noting the move on their score sheet (without actually touching the paper). This trick puts some distance between you and the move you came up with. Unfortunately, I think it's useless in time trouble because it's a time consuming activity..

In slow games, I write down my move, then blunder check it, then make the move. That forces me to remember to blunder check on every move. I guess that's what I'm missing in faster time controls.

I'm thinking maybe it's just a habit thing. If I force myself to blunder check every move in slow games, and try to force myself to do the same thing when looking at chess puzzles or other study positions, then maybe I'll get in the habit of blunder checking every time. That way, I'll be so used to it that I'll do it instinctively every time, even in blitz.

--Fromper