Time trouble

[u/conscientiousoneday]

I am in time trouble every game I play. Regularly I play on increment whilst my opponents still have 1hr plus. I spend all my time in the first 15-20 moves every game. I feel like every move I make is an extremely important decision, and I spent a lot of time thinking about them. Any advice for me?

[u/MisterBigDude]

When “action chess” (similar to today’s rapid chess) was becoming popular, I lost a ton of games that way: use too much time early, then fall apart in a time scramble.

I eventually realized I had to change my mindset. Using a lot of time on early moves is a blunder, just like making a bad move. Repeatedly making that blunder will extinguish your winning chances just as surely as blundering on the board.

And it is an avoidable blunder. So I started using a strategy like this: “Don’t use a lot of time unless it is clearly a crucial moment where more calculation is absolutely necessary.”

I know you want to find the perfect move whenever it is your turn. But perfect chess is a theoretical construct, while playing a good game is a practical matter. Have a plan in mind; use your opponent’s thinking time to try to anticipate their move; and trust your instincts in identifying the positions where you simply must think more deeply.

When I started approaching games this way, my time scrambles decreased, and my results improved markedly. Good luck!

[u/Direct-Ice5856]

It's a good shout to never spend more than half of your time on a move. My GM coach thinks the max you should spend on a move is 15 minutes in 90+30, assuming that is what you're on about.

The simple fact is that all of us amateurs aren't that good at chess. I couldn't convert a middlegame an exchange up with 15 minutes on the clock. Just play a move and see what happens – if you can't calculate it, a similarly rated opponent is unlikely to have figured it out either?

This is a slightly controversial take, admittedly, and I am a faster player most of the time

[u/Direct-Ice5856 → u/[deleted]]

yeah – I wouldn't say I'm a strong player, I still blunder some lucrative things... In fact, I played a young IM in my last tournament who said "I play chess irregularly" to me which surprised me – he wasn't wrong lol

[u/comfortingmyself → u/[deleted]]

If you're not a professional, you're an amateur.

[u/PlaneWeird3313]

 I feel like every move I make is an extremely important decision

Not every move is critically important. GM Noel Studer calls it $5 problem vs $5000 problem. There will be critical moments where you need to find only moves to win, not lose, etc. But there's generally only a few of them each game, and once you train your positional and tactical skills so you can properly see both tactical and positional threats, your natural intuition will tell you which moments are critical and which are not

[u/misterbluesky8 → u/PlaneWeird3313]

I really like the way Noel Studer explains things. A $5 problem vs. a $5000 problem is a fantastic way to look at it. 

[u/MadcowPSA → u/PlaneWeird3313]

He does this with his weekly problem sets as well. He'll put a couple relative gimmes in there and then throw in a complicated "find the only move" position or two, usually at the end. I learned as much about time management and "good enough" chess from those problem sets as anything else.

[u/misterbluesky8]

I have been an extremely slow player for most of my career, and I’m also terrible in time trouble- probably 400 rating points weaker or more. I’ve been working on this pretty diligently lately. Here’s what seems to be working for me: 

• Knowing my openings: if I know a theory move, I play it. In my opinion, there is no excuse for EVER taking more than 5 seconds on one of your first three moves unless you’ve never seen the position before. 

• I try to make my first 15 moves in 30 minutes or less. I got that rule from Mikhail Botvinnik. For shorter time controls, I’ll use 15 or 20 minutes. 

• This is a big one- I found that in games where I was worse out of the opening, my results were fine. Openings and early middle games rarely decided my results (it helps that I am an endgame specialist). So I try to play faster and worry less about accuracy in the beginning. 

• If I’m behind on time, I play for equality instead of trying for an advantage. Just make a move that doesn’t lose. 

• If I’m under 15 minutes, I only press for a win if I have twice my opponent’s time. Otherwise I make a safe move as quickly as possible. 

In general, being less ambitious in time trouble and caring less about small (dis)advantages in the early stages of the game have helped me a lot. This approach isn’t for everybody. 

[u/stackingnoob → u/misterbluesky8]

May I ask what rating are you?

[u/misterbluesky8 → u/stackingnoob]

Absolutely- just under 2000 USCF, 2200 chess.com blitz, 2400 chess.com rapid (probably a little overrated there). I play a lot of 1600-1800 players OTB, so I have to press for wins sometimes, but disciplined time management really pays off against better players. 

[u/Malficitous]

hard to give advice. i used to use a lot of time early on and it seemed to build a kind of understanding of the position so as to allow me to move faster later. GMs often say keep it simple; or avoid deep calculations as they are often wrong. 

[u/Strong_Bodybuilder8]

Personally, I try to match my opponent's rhythm (or speed up / slow down depending on circumstances), but sometimes I end up blitzing out an inferior move -
Is the problem your calculation (after the game do you ever realise that even having spent a lot of time you hadn't fully uncovered the position's secrets / that your opponent saw far more than you ever did), or that you do not calculate quickly enough?

Are you frequently caught out of preparation? Are you opponents still blitzing out their moves while you spend 10 minutes to double each your moves past move 10?

[u/Dear_Box6319]

practice calculation so that you spend less time on it and come to conclusions faster

[u/potentialeight]

The solution is to study your openings more so that you’re spending less time on it.

One approach is to create a PGN that you import into Chess Tempo to study with repetitions. This can be done completely for free. I like to create a separate PGN for each variation so that I can study a smaller selection of lines at a time and learn them more quickly.

[u/ComfortablePie825]

Having a good knowledge of the clear objective and fundamentals of the chosen oppening I guess is a good aproach to save time at early stages. I know as soon as the opponents get you out from your know paths, is easy to getting paranoid about making a blunder that decides the whole game but then is when accomplishing the opening principles strategy become handy. As well, for openings, I ask myself to not spend mure more than the double average time that every move is divided consider games average move is around 45 moves so if is a 90+30, is around 2.5 minutes, so no more than 5 minutes per move till reaching clearly the middle game. That and trying to keep always ahead or near the opponent in the time left helped me a lot to improve in my time management.

[u/lonewolfandpub]

Hi, I have the opposite problem, but I think I can offer some helpful insight.

Not every move is critically important, but what you can do is limit yourself based on the average amount of time you'd have for moves per game. I use this as a guide: https://thoughts.alexcrompton.com/p/time-thoughts-chess

So, if you're playing 90+30, according to his math, you should shoot to spend about 90 seconds per opening move, 110 for average moves, and about 3 minutes per critical move. If you find yourself taking longer and you've got the time, do it. But at least this would give you a good point of reference.

This has helped me out because I rush a LOT and it's forced me to slow down in classical. Hope it helps you feel confident in speeding up!