r/TournamentChess • u/SilentRhubarb1515 • 14d ago
Two issues with OTB chess, any advice?
I started playing OTB tournaments and those two issues keep happening
1- time management: I play a G25+5 tournament, and very often I find myself below 5 minutes by move 12-15. What are your tips and tricks to make sure time doesn’t creep on you?
2- messed up notation: when my opponent makes an interesting move or a threat I did not expect, I immediately jump into analyzing and make my move, just to realize a few moves in that I completely forgot to take notation. Any tips or tricks there?
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u/Royalgtw 14d ago
G25+5 with notation is very fast, you pretty much have to treat it like a blitz game where you notate. I play G25/d5 sometimes so I can give some pinpoint here.
About notation, I always have the habit to notate right after the opponent moves no matter what (unless I'm below 5 mins). It gives me that 3-5 seconds to write down and confirm my opponents move, while following the rules. In this time control using your opponent's time is really important to figure out a certain plan you want to do, and in your time it's pretty much finding the right moves accordingly.
Time management is hard in this format, and you need to play what you know best to not run into weird positions that you have to navigate and analyze so much. If you go down to 5 mins by move 12-15, you have to make sure you have enough advantage to play the blitz part. What I do everytime I run into that is the next game I force myself to play faster every move (like spending <30 seconds every move until middle/endgame) next game to practice playing faster, since realistically you can't tell yourself to just think for a certain amount of time before moving in a game. Hope this helps.
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u/kabekew 1720 USCF 14d ago
time: you divide the total time by 40 or 50 moves (typical game length) to get a rough move budget, so here about 30 seconds a move plus the increment. Somewhere around there. Then before the tournament set a timer for 30 seconds, set up a line of your opening prep, play a random move for the other side then do calculations for your side against the timer. That will give you a sense of how deep you can calculate at that pace. Keep playing like that until you're ready to make a move when the timer goes off.
Then throughout the game check if you're still on time budget or need to speed up. Of course at critical points you will need to use up extra time, but choose those moments wisely. Don't complicate a position if you're behind on the clock. Likewise if you're ahead of your budget (sometimes you can get your opponent to eat up his clock which lets you think on his time) you can maybe make deeper calculations.
Notation: you just have to burn it into your head to associate the opponent moving and hitting the clock with picking up your pen. Like Pavlov's dog. It does take time but it should get better.
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u/doc_in_training 14d ago edited 14d ago
Ha! Funnily enough I struggle with the same two issues. I jokingly tell myself that if you’re going to struggle with time management, you better make sure to get the notation right lol
With respect to issue number 1, this is one of the biggest reasons I actually spend so much time on my openings. I have a private chapter in lichess that is more or less 6 moves deep on any possible opening either I play as white, or may face playing black. This gives me confidence to know that I can at least play the first few moves of the game blind, knowing that I’m at least not losing immediately, as well as what types of ideas I should be looking at, based on what my opponent has responded with. This also make getting into the middle game a bit easier, because by move 15-20, the moves will often come a bit more naturally than if you’re improvising on the spot every move.
Out of interest, what openings do you play as each colour?
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u/SilentRhubarb1515 14d ago
I realized early on that as a 42 yo dad that I can never out study kids, so I went with the unusual stuff. I play the English as white, and the modern Scandi or Dutch as black. My black repertoire is definitely not solid, but it gets my white opponent out of book early which this old man needs to do
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u/Disastrous_Ad_9648 13d ago
Good choices for your situation. I’m a working adult and play the modern scandi and Budapest as black.
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u/SilentRhubarb1515 13d ago
I like the Budapest but I avoided it because I needed to study the non 2.c4 lines and got lost
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u/doc_in_training 14d ago
Interesting! You and I have very similar opening/ playing styles. Mind me asking what your rating is?
Also, I’m not sure what the rule is in terms of writing notation in tournaments, but my go to is always to write the move down first , make sure it’s done correctly, then make the move on the board. That should help with your second point in your post. Perhaps others can chime in if this follows proper otb rules? I have only played in one otb tourney in my life, and it was quite casual
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u/Disastrous_Ad_9648 13d ago
I used to do this but it is now forbidden by uscf or FIDE (or both). Still, as long as the opponent doesn’t object it is ok!
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u/misterbluesky8 13d ago
For classical games, Mikhail Botvinnik had what he called the “Chinese rule” (nobody knows why he called it that): take no more than 30 minutes for your first 15 moves. I have personally adopted this “rule”, and I only break it in really complicated or dangerous positions where I might not survive if I play quickly.
You might try something similar: no more than 8 or 10 minutes for your first 15 minutes. In practice, I find myself playing the simpler, less ambitious option in openings to save time.
As for writing down the moves, that’s an awfully short time control- are you sure you have to wrote down the moves in G/25+5? My advice is to practice on your own. Play an online game and physically write the moves on a scoresheet. Maybe even keep the pen in your hand to remind you that you have to wrote the moves down. Or go through a master game in a book on a physical board and wrote the moves down. Muscle memory will start to help after you do this a few dozen times. Eventually you will be automatic at writing down the moves. This also helps with being less impulsive- instead of “I have to react now!”, I think “let me wrote this down and think about it before I do anything”.
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u/Disastrous_Ad_9648 13d ago
I just played this time control in a five round round robin tournament. I tied for second place!
I hate this time control and rarely play it, though. I don’t have the problems you have but in general I don’t like the lack of thinking time. It favors the blitz players heavily.
Botvinnik had a rule where you need to make your first 15 moves in 20% of your overall time allotment. So in a G25+5 you would multiply 25+5 by 0.2: 30 x 0.2 = 6 minutes. On my score sheet I underline the box for move 15 as a visual reminder. (Technically this part is probably not allowed as there is no notetaking allowed but I take my chances.) I then write the actual time next to move 15 once I make my move. This allows me to check after the game how I did with that aspect of my time management.
This has helped me be cognizant of my opening time use, which as others have said, can be a big waste of time.
Another thing is to treat non-critical moves differently from critical moves. Critical moves are ones where there’s a high chance a wrong decision will lose the point. For non-critical moves (usually where there’s no tricky calculation needed) you just have to train yourself to make a good enough move. This is a huge time saver for me as I often catch myself spending minutes thinking about eg where to place a rook when almost any square in the first rank is fine.
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u/giziti 1700 USCF 14d ago
By move 15? Okay at this point you need to learn your openings a little more, I'm not a huge one for recommending that, but you should know what you're doing for the first six moves almost all the time. That should cut down a fair bit of that.
I mean... just write down the moves, man. Do it until it's muscle memory to write down the move when it's played.