What Exactly Do You Have to Do To Win at Blitz?

I just played a game where my opponent basically did nothing the whole game and I just lost. So many of my games end up this way where my opponent does nothing and the only way to win is to think for 10 minutes - which I obviously can't do. I don't understand how anyone does anything in this game without either being fast or a genius at tactics. I really don't get it and it's so annoying.

Yes, yes I know I should play longer time controls but for a number of reasons I either can't or won't play other time controls so that is not an option I'm willing to take right now.

Here's my game.

This is just blitz, in it many games end because of blunders and not a sound strategy. I lost today to a dumb caveman-style attack, for example (1. e4, 2. f4, 3. g4 and 4. h4 or something like that).  

@penandpaper0089

@MayCaesar

Quite often it happens that way - you feel that you deserve the win when your opponent defies chess theory but somehow the win does not appear. To very experienced players like grandmasters, a small error can easily be exploited. But for the majority of us, myself included, probably ok-looking positions are ok for the game. I know how it feels when you feel that you have put in effort for your moves and you feel that your opponent did not make optimal moves, and yet somehow he holds the fort together (I myself fall into these categories of people, where my random moves somehow can fit in harmony). While it appears that White's development may be slightly slower than Black, somehow his pieces are defending each other sufficiently such that there is no obvoius way to force an immediate win.

Here I show you a time when I experienced a huge shock because I got checkmated suddenly from nowhere. I was playing White. I also have the link for it https://www.chess.com/forum/view/game-analysis/learning-from-magnus-carlsen in case you are interested in what happened during that moment I got a shock.

In this position White was about to play his 31st move. I felt that I was entitled the win due to my possession of an extra piece and multiple attacking threats on the enemy king, whereas my own king appeared completely safe. I as White played 31. Qxf7, not suspecting a checkmate in two by my opponent and therefore suffered a big shock after receiving 31...Rxh3+. White's position appeared solid and Black's king is about to get harassed, and yet somehow out of nowhere the checkmate came.

Whilst the opponent appears to do nothing in your opinion, most probably he knows what he is doing, and he might even feel that you are the player who appears to do nothing. You never know what the other player is thinking.

@MayCaesar

Much as 1. e4, 2. f4, 3. g4 and 4. h4 look weird (once in a blue moon I try similar things to lower rated players of ~1200 rating and lower, for example 1. h4 2. a4 or 1. h4 2. Rh3) because his king side gets voluntarily wrecked open on his own, we must still remain on guard, because if the opponent is a strong player, he probably knows what he is doing, and if the pawns are not handled carefully, or we cannot exploit the weaknesses quickly enough, it can quickly turn into four super pawns storming on Black's king side.

Whilst we learn general opening principles and study certain openings, we must be aware of how to refute weird openings. We learn certain openings and can distinguish good openings from bad ones, but we must realise that bad openings do exist. Once in a while exposure to 'bad' openings from an opponent is good for us, because we will then find a way to handle these openings. I have secured easy wins before by using weird openings because my opponent focused mainly on good openings but wilted in play upon receiving my weird random moves (he had no idea how to handle them). I myself have also fallen many times to uncommon openings like 1. g4 since I receive less practice and exposure from such openings (I mostly received 1. d4 and 1.e4 from my opponents).

Move fast and hang less material than them. That's all I try to do.

This is not exactly what we call a long seasnake, the game was just under 30 moves. If you were black, it can hardly be said white did nothing. He got his pieces out and doubled rooks on the file! If you're not a great blitz player, counter his piece play so you can keep him out of your position. Also make a few exchanges if you can. It will make the game longer and clarify the position. The objective is after all not to play a high quality game. If your pieces are active and if you have more time than the opponent, you will eventually win by a simple blunder. That's all there is to it. Unless the opponent does it to you. 

It looks to me like your opponent played lots of moves, many of which were fine. You lost simply because you forgot that time is a factor. You are not just playing an opponent, you are also playing the clock and they can both beat you. More practice will certainly improve your performance when playing at speed.

I have to call you out on your basic premise.  When you say your opponent did "nothing" you mean that he played passively and did not create any tactical threats.  This is the type of game that requires the least time to move, as you can make moves based on sound positional principles without diving deep into tactics.  For example, you are pretty clearly nicely ahead after white's 19th, and I might play something like r(a)d8 without any in depth analysis.  Your decision to play h5 was a bad one, as with an open file present, a pawn storm is generally not going to result in much attack and may create problematic weaknesses.  Instead, in the position on the board, you want to see if you can exploit white's piece congestion, perhaps timely creating a passed pawn with your kingside majority.  You should post games like this, ask for suggestions, and learn from them.  Then the next game with a similar position, you can make better decisions faster.  

Play against Computer1-EASY.

Macer you still pickin on comp easy? Be a man and step up to medium already lol.

I dont know what to tell you.  You pretty much answered you own question.  You dont want to play slower time controls, so you dont want to work on your game.  

You say your opponent did nothing but still won?  

You dont understand how anyone can play this game? Hate to burst your bubble, but your post is the definition of Einsteins quote:

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Man's got a point

I know who you are :-)

I bet ya don't :-)

I dont remember your other profile name, but when you mentioned you lost it and opened a bunch of new accounts, got muted, and the whole 2Q thingy, i remember you :-)

Close enough I suppose.

You had a good position at move 18. You kicked the dark bishop back to h4. It created a weakness in white's position that, tactically, is already winning for black.

Now treat this as a tactical puzzle. What's a good move here?

Hint: what square is white's dark-squared bishop no longer protecting? How can you attempt to use it?

So the problem with this game was that you played the opening well, but missed a winning tactic in the middle-game. You also made some slow, cautious moves in the middle game, instead of activating your rooks and pushing further into white's position.

Hope any of that helps.

If winning is important but you play like me chess might not be the game to play.

If you have trouble keeping up with the time controls try this: in positions where there are multiple ok moves, just make one. I can usually get 10-20 moves in which aren't great but only cost me <3 seconds each, winning me 1 or 2 minutes compared to my opponent (leaving you a time advantage you can use to win or to find better moves in tight spots).

A solution could be trying correspondence games.