Blitz anyone? (Or has lightning struck my brain?)

[palapiku]

Sorin Gherman 6d was an insei in Japan and he recalls,

"Among the first things that my sensei, Kobayashi Chizu 5p, told me when I became insei in Japan was: "Play a lot of fast games with the other insei - never mind the results, just play!". (As insei, "fast games" meant 10 seconds per move, no extra thinking time.)"

[daal]

Here's my proposal: Find two players of approximately equal strength (ideally beginners, maybe 15k or so?), ask one to play only blitz games, the other to play only slow games. Come back in 3 months and see who has improved more.

Who said anything about "only?"

[emeraldemon]

Here's my proposal: Find two players of approximately equal strength (ideally beginners, maybe 15k or so?), ask one to play only blitz games, the other to play only slow games. Come back in 3 months and see who has improved more.

Who said anything about "only?"

Well, the only is to make the experimental results more distinct. One could, for example, throw in a third student who alternates fast and slow games, and perhaps she would improve faster than either extreme. Of course, to call the results conclusive, we'd need a sample size greater than 1, at least 5 in each category I'd say (and more is better). So now we just need to find 15 DDKs willing to let me experiment on them!

[daal]

I don't like blitz and do think playing a lot of blitz games seriously hurts your game or at least hinders your improvement.

ATM it seems you're right. I'm finding it increasingly difficult to concentrate in sticky situations during slower games, and instead of reading out the position, I bang down a stone at what looks like a good point. We know how that turns out. Time for a break from blitz.

[snorri]

I also have major issues with stamina. Only my first game of the day is strong. My second game has a noticeable drop in strength (2 stones). Also - It is very rare that I play 20 online games in a month. some months as few as 10 or half a dozen!

This is an important point, even if it's a little off the topic of blitz. If you have to play multiple serious games in a day, like in many amateur tournament settings, I'm not sure it's necessarily best to use up all of your time. People frequently talk as if there is no cost to doing that, but if you wear yourself out in your first one or two games, you may wind up wishing you played them a little more quickly.

So to be able to use up all but the last couple of seconds in byoyomi in a game that already has a long time limit may be an admirable skill, but it takes a lot of endurance, too. If you want to do that, you have to prepare physically for it, like an athlete would. Myungwan Kim played in the open, but wasn't playing in the North American Ing Masters as well, right? I remember when Jie Li stopped playing in the open in order to concentrate on the Ing. Some players still play in both, but it's tiring.

So a player who only plays blitz may think: "oh, I can just read more in a long, serious game." Perhaps. But that player may be in for a surprise when the bottle of Jolt (or Monster Energy, etc. -- pick your poison) that works so well in a blitz game starts wearing off 90 minutes in to a longer one.

[gowan]

You are right about stamina being important. It's one of the qualities pros value and you may have to train for it. Playing blitz does not train you to be able to concentrate intensely for long periods of time by its very nature. To train for long games you have to play long games. Say start with moderately long games like 15 min + 5 30 sec. byoyomi periods and move on up into the 30 min + 5x30sec. byoyomi or even 60 min + 5x 60sec byoyomi range. Eventually you'll be ready for 6 round tournaments played over two days.