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
    2•6 months ago

    So basically I might be faster if I take some time to learn more opening theory… That makes sense.

    • @chumbalumber
      5•6 months ago

      Sort of – it’s more middlegame than opening. That is, more understanding the pawn structure and what it’s aiming for. Daniel Naroditsky is a good youtuber to watch to get a flavour of these kinds of ideas.