I’ve been casually enjoying chess off and on for the past year, and while I can tell that I’m improving, I think I need to get faster at calculating. I play mostly Daily games (1300-something currently) and am a puzzle fiend, but I find myself getting into time-trouble constantly when I play games with actual time controls.

I want to get comfortable with blitz, but I feel like I’m not learning as much because I’m just scrambling to get (often terrible) moves out in time. I tried puzzle battle for the first time recently too, and even though my regular puzzle rating is 2500, I’m frequently losing on time once the puzzles get to 1000+ (my avg time per puzzle is usually 0:06-0:08 at the end).

I suspect the answer is just going to be to play more with time controls, but I’m curious if anyone here has found any practice tips that have helped them personally.

  • The Picard ManeuverOP
    1•5 months ago

    This sounds like good advice. I guess I need to learn my openings well enough to play them quicker and quicker. Reminds me of learning to play something complicated on a musical instrument: you don’t start at full speed, your learn it at a slow tempo first and then speed it up.