Time pressure

[PrimogenitoX]

No and then.

[Nezh]

Write down clock times of both yourself and your oppt. at every move, some pattern will emerge that you can use for improvement. Nunn advises to virtually never spend more than 20 minutes on any move. If you need more time than that, the variations are probably too complicated to analyze properly OTB.

[Owyn]

Originally Posted by smilingbill

When your opponent is in time trouble: Take your time. Don't panic and start blitzing just because your opponent is.

This.

That reminds me one of my games when I was 14, playing against a 2550 GM. He misplayed the opening like an amateur (despite thinking for a long time on almost every move) and after 20 moves I had a winning position - almost all my pieces attacking his castle, defended only by his knight. Also, my opponent had like 2 minutes for making 20 moves in a hopeless position. I had about 40 minutes and (because I was 14 and stupid) instead of spending 10 minutes on finding the simplest way to win (I got him totally crushed so there were multiple ways to finish him off) I started blitzing and obviously I started making blunders and eventually lost the game.

[Noir_Desir]

I've seen a GM tank over a forced recapture for 10 min +, but i assume that was because the next sequence was also forced and he wanted to play the move after that sequence instantly to put more pressure on his slightly time-troubled opponent. I wouldn't try stuff like that myself though.

Most often time trouble is not associated to trying to calculate long forced lines but to investing too much times over marginal decisions like "which rook" or general indecisiveness. Some players also are more likely to fall into time trouble playing stronger opponents because they fear monsters under their beds or don't want to embarrass themselves by blundering or choosing the wrong plans. This goes hand in hand with playing over-cautiously.

My advice would be to play those games aggressively, choosing positive plans and not worry too much about the risks involved. You will be surprised by what you can actually get away with against sub-IM competition. One thing you usually don't get away with is playing passively, drifting on the clock and on the board and then defending an inferior position while behind on the clock.

[ganstaman]

Originally Posted by PrimogenitoX

No and then.

It's not checkmate, so why can't you finish the line for me?

[Owyn]

Originally Posted by John_Douglas

What really comes through in this thread is the importance in Chess of the decision making process.

It's a question that is not dealt with much in Chess literature, but in my view it is the main determiner of Chess success. At what point do you break off your calculations? How many candidate moves do you consider? In which positions should you trust your intuition and in which positions do you need to really study the position? In which positions does your intuition suggest good moves, and in which positions is your intuition often wrong?

These are the key questions to consider for anyone who wants to improve in Chess. Time management is only one part of the equation in the greater question of how a player approaches a chess position to decide on a move.

You might want to read Attack and Defence by Dvoretsky & Yusupov. The above questions are answered in the first chapter.

[Cadaz]

Nice thread only just got to reading it. I run into time trouble quite often so meh.