Improve Your Blitz - A Patzer's Guide
Blitz - It's one of the most popular types of chess if not the most popular! GM Hikaru Nakamura is the strongest Blitz player on chess.com with a peak rating of 3332! You'll find online tournaments like the Speed Chess Championship or the Speed Chess Grand Prix stacked with some of the world's best chess players. It has a fast tempo which makes it extremely exciting to watch and play, you can flag your opponent or win by checkmate or a tactic. Blitz ranges from 3-10 Minutes and can be a fun and addictive way to pass time. Sometimes we find ourselves tilting or not able to improve, so I've got a few tips to help your improve your Blitz during quarantine!
1. Puzzle Rush
Puzzle Rush is one of the best ways to exercise for blitz, In blitz, a game can often depend on a single blunder either by yourself or your opponent. Doing puzzle rush can prevent yourself from blundering and it can help you spot your opponent's blunders and take advantage of them. Doing puzzle rush can also get your vision warmed up so you don't miss something simple like a hanging piece. Being able to spot puzzles quickly will help you in blitz! I know this because I participated in @LogoCzar's Puzzle Rush Experiment and after doing puzzle rush for 45 days, I solved 10,000+ Puzzles, Around 500 Runs, I gained a whopping 300 Blitz Rating Points! I also saw a huge improvement in classical tournaments and my tactical sense is now a lot better than before.
Here my opponent just played the disastrous move 50. Rg5?? Try and solve this tactic in 2 seconds! These moments are very important in blitz, if you can't spot these tactics quickly you may lose the game. This is why puzzle rush is extremely important for training blitz.
2. Only Spend Lots of Time on Critical Position
Only spend lots of time on critical positions, Don't spend too much time on minor positions. If you're in a position and there are tactics in the air, make sure to spend some time so you don't miss out on an opportunity to win. If you spend time on minor positions you'll find yourself with less time to spend when you actually reach a critical position.
3. Look at Your Opponent's Plan & Talk to Yourself
My Coach always tells me to do this! Look at Your Opponent's Plan and not just your own. Your opponents plan is just as important as your own plan, look for your opponent's threats and tactical Ideas. This is what we call prophylaxis chess, thinking for yourself and your opponent! Someone who is really good at this is the Former World Champion Anatoly Karpov! My Second tip is to talk to yourself, talk like you're commentating the game, someone who does this really well is IM John Bartholomew! I learned a lot from his Youtube Channel which you should definitely checkout! This tip is worth around 100 Rating Points so make sure to use this!
4. Use the Clock as a Weapon!
When I say "Use the Clock as a Weapon" I don't mean when you're playing blitz OTB don't throw the clock at your opponent! Time is important! If your opponent loses on time you win the game! If you know your opponent is not good in time pressure, make lots of threats and complicate the position! If you have more time than your opponent then don't trade pieces. If you're playing online with no increment, use premoves. I've flagged my opponent with 0.1 seconds. If you're a dirty player like Lefong, you can take a risk and try a dirty trap similar to something below!
5. Tricky Traps!
Knowing traps is extremely important if you want to win quick games, when playing a trap your opponent has never seen before, it forces them to think and spend their time. A lot of traps can get your opponent so focused on the position, they may even flag without knowing! This tip won't help you much in rapid since your opponent has plenty of time but in blitz, traps are extremely effective. If you don't know much traps you can checkout my other blog Top 5 Dirtiest Opening Traps! One trap that could be very effective is the Strafford gambit! Take a look at it below.
6. Review Your Games
After finishing a blitz game quickly analyze it or look through it so you can learn from your mistakes. If you play against an opening you've never played against, after the game you can put it in the database and see how to face it. Sometimes I'm lazy and I don't want to review it, at least review 50% of your games. If you have the mentality to review every single game then do it! It's highly important and it doesn't hurt to do it.
Here's a game where the blitz world champion Magnus Carlsen destroyed Anatoly Karpov in blitz!
Conclusion
Blitz in the end is extremely fun to play and it's always good to have these sorts of skills in long games where both players have low time. Don't be too focused on your rating and make sure to keep practicing. Hopefully, you learned something or you gained some blitz rating after this! Thank You to @2Ke21-0 and @Sep-Gol for helping me out in this blog and Thank you for Reading, Adios.
