How do blitz chess players play so quickly?

Could anyone tell me what is the general thought process going through a bliz chess player's mind when they play so quickly? How do they make their moves so quickly?

I usually take my time when making moves and was wondering to learn from this to make moves faster. If I play so quickly I may have a high probability of failing against a good player because of many random moves.

Practice

When you have a lot of experience it's much easier to play quickly because you can more easily spot tactics and know the right plan when you've seen/played tons of chess games and solved many chess puzzles. If you want to get better at blitz you need to get better at long time controls.

Playing blitz is playing almost entirely on intuition. That's something that will develop after more games. The more positions you see/learn/understand, the stronger your intuition will become and finding good or decent moves in very little time will be second nature to you.

SK8140 this kind of "meta learning" is right in my alley. Send me a message for some detailed chats if you want! 

Looks like the replies you got here are a bit low-effort. It's Friday, and I'll be home after class maybe about 4PM US East. 

I'd like to block out an hour with ya! : )

Another thing to add is that blitz can be like regular chess. As your opponent is thinking you are planning your next moves and your overall plan for the game. This wastes less of your time and if you do it right you maintain the initiative in time and in the game. This really makes things hard for your opponent as long as you don't make a large error. Avoid endings where you have to push pawns in lower time limit games I'd say b2 minutes and below without a time increment. 

Have you ever seen a carpenter or a painter create something stunning?  Yes, they can do it fast, but more importantly, they can do it well in the first place.  Once you can paint a beautiful portrait or carve a fantastic table, you can then start doing it faster.  If you try to rush it before you are ready, you are just going to end up with misshapen pieces of wood and splatters on canvas.

It's the same with chess.  Before you can play good blitz, you need to play good chess.  Once you have that, speeding up (and keeping your play up) becomes easier.  If you try to jump straight in, though, you'll have few if any results.

Thanks for your help! I understand it better now (i.e. two recurring themes seem to be experience and good play)

Right, we get the picture, you have to be very good but what I would like an answer to is: How do they manage to physically move the pieces so quickly? I mean at the end of some games we're talking split second moving. I can move a piece quickly but not the ridiculously quick speeds you see on here and there is nothing wrong with my computer system or my mouse pad. 

The people alive now who would have been gunslingers in the old West are now mouseslingers, because the last gunslinger has gone away and the world has moved on.  Too bad the fastest mouse isn't always the brightest mouse.

Which is exactly what happens to blitz players when they play quickly. 

In other words, you can be a blitz player too! Just make moves, and stop worrying about whether they're good or not.

As a blitz player, I agree with this. However, I'd also like to add that playing bullet or blitz is really just a reflection of how well the player can play at longer time controls. Blitz players tend to move quicker because they quicker realize the nature of the position (pawn structures, opponent's threats, basic plans for both sides etc.). I will echo that a lot of this thinking is done in the opponent's turn, but these players tend to simply move faster; this is easier when you recognize certain themes, motifs, and positions (pattern recognition really).

Just be careful not to get addicted to the speed and "only intuitive" moves. These faster time controls condition the mind to calculate less, and simply move - this hurts classical chess. Blitz does not seem to harm everyone's slower chess - but you need to be wary of its potential effects on your overall play; great speed players know how to move in all time controls - not just the addicted fast play of many amateurs.

this fast moving at the end of the game is physically imposible
it is like almost four moves in a sec!!! or maybe more
I wonder if they are using some robots to implement their ideas 😂
seriously how?

You can make up to 10 moves a second

Just like in a regular game, you make some overall strategic evaluation (important pieces, pawn breaks, squares, etc), you have a few candidate moves, and you calculate a few forcing lines to make sure it doesn't lose.

It's just in blitz the process is more superficial. Particularly because you are typically not choosing between two ideas, you're choosing the first move or idea that meets some baseline criteria... the stronger the player the more criteria they can fit into a short time.

gotta think ahead... if you struggle with that, i'd suggest trying to get as far as possible on survival rush as a remedy.

once you get into the 50-60 range the puzzles start becoming extremely nuanced & are excellent training for improving:

ability to spot tricky moves.

accuracy in your calculations.

proper accounting of material.

clear visualization of positions.

correct assessment of variations.

all of which translate well to fast-play skill.

i'm 1950 bullet & 72 survival rush (just saying). 🙂

basically, move first, think later

same with bullet chess, 1 minute is quite fun

nothing really goes through my mind while playing however besides whether or not my piece will be taken if i move there

head completely empty

what i said still applies, atleast to me

how does some one take six major oieces in 5 min when they are rated 800

I have long suspected that for the maybe 50% of rated 300-400 players who seem to play 1s or <1s moves with 80-90% accuracy, have never played a rapid or classical, have never done a puzzle, the process is more like:

Blue box, move piece from blue box to red box...
Blue box, move piece from blue box to red box...
Blue box, move piece from blue box to red box...

The rest of them, hung pieces all over, you don't have to do anything but grab hung pieces.

The skill distribution at that level is strongly bimodal - there's no way for a beginner who is ACTUALLY playing at that level to progress.

Which is fine, because blitz isn't chess, at least at that level.