How to Improve in Bullet Chess

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CuzinVinny

They say chess is war between two human minds, clashing enormous amounts of mental energy with every single move on an epic scale of proportions. 

Now, step it up to bullet chess.

Bullet chess is, by definition, chess played within very strict short time controls.The most common time controls for bullet chess are:

  • Both players have exactly 1 minute on the clock, no time increments
  • Both players have exactly 1 minute on the clock, 5 second increments
  • Both players have exactly 2 minutes on the clock, no increments
  • Both players have exactly 2 minutes on the clock, 5-15 second increments

With chess, comes different variations. Blitz is the most popular form of chess on the internet. Bullet is also popular, but because of the immense amount of mental power needed, many people prefer softer, longer games.

However, if you are one of the players that do not cower at the sight of a challenge, than bullet chess is your kind of game. There are many tips and tricks to improve your bullet dramatically, and being a 1750+ bullet player myself (beating a Candidate Master (CM) twice in one day), I will show you the key strategies and tactics to winning over 50% of the time to players stronger then yourself. 

I will post a top 5 list of ways to improve your bullet chess, and if you follow all these specific instructions, I guarantee your bullet chess will become much more phenomenal.

TOP 5 WAYS TO IMPROVE IN BULLET

1). Enable "pre-moves" & enable "auto queen promotion"

This tip might seem obvious, but it is the most important factor to bullet chess, hands down. For those of you that have no idea, yes, there is the option to play a chess move in advance, as long as it is legal and within boundaries.Having the option to pre-move makes all the difference. If you make a premove before your opponent makes a move, then you do not lose ANY time when you play the premove. This is how players gain enormous space and grounds in the opening, moving pieces left and right, only setting up but never attacking until ready. It takes a while to get used to, but I use premoves even in my longer games, because not only does it save me time, it's a psychological attack on my opponent. Even in bullet chess, I can recall many games when a single blunder by my opponent was enough for me to premove the rest of the game. The opponent quickly loses composure and starts moving slower, taking time to think and gain back his/her lost ground. But keeping the crushing premoves coming ensures a dominant victory, either on time or by checkmate. 

The auto-queen promotion is also a useful way of shaving off those precious seconds wasted while quickly and carefully choosing the queen as my pawn promotion option. I have never had a game when I did not want a queen as my pawn promotion. And seeing how I have played nearly a 1000 bullet games, I doubt anyone else would object to the logic of allowing this setting. With it, the pawn immediately becomes a queen when you promote it on the final rank, allowing for lightning fast counter-play. I can't tell you the number of times someone lost a game because they took too long promoting a pawn. Just enable the settings and you'll be much quicker, saving about 14+ seconds on average per game.

2). Play the opening like a book, the middle game like a magician, and the endgame like a machine.

Quoted by Spielmann, but still rings true. In order to establish a stronger bullet chess rating, you MUST open very quickly, and close even quicker. In most of my bullet games, I premove at least the first 3 moves, just because I know it will save me time, and because I know my opponent hates when I do it.

Think about it! If you play white, and you play e4, premoving the next 3 moves ahead, whether they be an aggressive fianchetto or a defensive prophylactic minor piece development, your opponent will not expect having to move without hesitation for the next 3 moves, therefore allowing for a messy opening by your opponent. Same as black, EVEN BEFORE white moves, premove a piece just to surprise white and allow for better time control for yourself. 

The opening has to be played furiously. I have played many games that demanded faster paced openings. Nowadays, most of my games are already in the endgame while me and my opponent still have 40+ seconds left on the clock. We premoved like crazy, but still holding equal ground. It's a matter of premoving enough to be comfortable with, but not so much that a premove costs you a game when you accidently premove your queen to a spot you did not think your opponent would have the chance to take it. In addition to all this premove strategy, I highly recommend NOT premoving at all during the middle game. Middle games are highly deceptive and your opponent might not see what you see, and therfore move pieces around without care. As for the endgame, I have seen even myself win a game while my opponent had 20+ seconds on the clock while I only had 5 seconds left. Premoves saved my so many times, and even in a losing position, if you can defend the king effectively, you might be able to pull off a win (on time of course).

3). Open up your game defensively with passive play

If you premove your first 4 moves to be pawn moves only advancing one square at a time, then you are pretty much going to see a closed variation of your game, thus allowing your opponent to waste time by opening up and allowing a "central control" theme. But the truth is, center control is useless in bullet chess. No one has enough time to think effectively enough on how to use the center to their advantage, and usually your opponent will over extend themselves by doing so. If played defensively enough, you and your opponent will commence self-defeating moves, like moving minor pieces back and forth to pass time. It is during this time that you might want to consider doubling up your rooks and slowly building up a massive attack to break the ice. If you ever find yourself in such a position (about 10% of my bullet games end in gridlocked pawns), then you must be the first to commence the attack. Being first will allow for better leverage against the opponent, and ultimately, his/her king.

Opening up your games defensively is also an excellent way to premove perhaps 10 moves ahead, shaving off precious time you will need later in the middle game. And having more time then your opponent is always a good thing, even as a small psychological weapon against them that keeps reminding them "you have less time then your opponent, your opponent has more time then you". It's all the more effective if you happen to be up in material.

4). Check, Check, Check, Check, Check, Check

Bullet chess is always full of surprises, but if there is one thing I have seen in observing hundreds of bullet games throughout the year, is this: check the opponent's king as often as possible.

This might seem like a waste of a tip, but in reality, it's perhaps the deadliest tool that can be used against the opponent. I have seen that there is always a certain hesitation (even with myself) when the opponent has to move the king. It's a type of psychological attack that stems from aggressive play. It might not seem like much to check the king with a bishop only to be easily blocked by a pawn, but it makes sense to do so. As easily as you pull out a surprise check on the king, you can easily maneuverer the piece that created the check into another spot that will serve a better purpose, all before your opponent has time to react!

In real life games, people play like this all the time, and for good measure. If an opponent makes an illegal move 3 times during a game, they automatically lose. In the online world, however, we are very lucky to have the websites automatically decline an illegal move, thus allowing for perfect games that never miss a single check. Even if the check is just a quick jab at the opponent, it's enough to cause a breakdown in the tactics of the opponent. Human players are always concentrated on the game, never giving thought to being checked by a minor piece because they can easily block it off. But this is bullet chess, andanything to shatter your opponent's concentration is key to winning a game. Checks are usually countered fairly quickly, but having premoved enough, you can easily release yourself from counterplay by the opponent, thus allowing even more time for you to use for the middle game.

Bullet chess almost never ends in a draw because of the time controls, but if you do find yourself in a drawing position with little counterplay from either side, it is essential to check the opponent's king as often as possible. Surprise checks are also neat tricks to use against the opponent, but are much harder to find because of time pressure. Always be aware of your kings position, because chances are, your opponent will use this fatal "checking" tactic in their favor. Don't allow your king to be exposed, and keep it extra protected at all costs. Even I will serve my opponent a string of checks that ultimately slow down his game play, therefore giving me the time advantage. I rarely fall prey to this tactic, but I have seen many whom have, so stay on your toes when it comes to checks. Even if they are harmless checks that can easily be blocked, you will still have to take the time out of your concentration to protect the king, and thats exactly what your opponent wants you to do: hesitate on a harmless move.

Check hard, check fast, check often.

5). If you are low on time, run as fast as you can for a tie, then go for the win

Many times, I have very little times left on the clock, even though I am clearly in the winning position. I forget that even though was way up in material, my opponent had 20+ more seconds on the clock then I do. And usually I do not have enough material to checkmate my opponent. So a few pointers to all who have the trouble of low time in the endgame.

  • If you have a passed pawn with no immediate threat, push it! Pawns are meant to be pushed, and if the board is full of pawns (like many of my end games) you can use a rook to block off the king from passing a file, thus allowing an easy promotion. But be careful, don't premove the entire way, your opponent might attack a bunch of your pawns with a single pawn, munching them away if you premoved too much. Just eliminate the threat first, the march to victory
  • If your opponent is about to obtain a promotion from a pawn, block it at all costs! Nothing serves the opponent better then having the mighty power of a queen in the endgame. 
  • If you have literally less then second on the clock, and your down to either a minor piece or a queen, while the opponent has just a single pawn desperately making its way down to promotion, you might want to consider a trade off. It ensures a tie in the losing position of time pressure. Use this only as a last resort when you know your opponent has more time then you and will attempt to make you lose on time.
  • If you are down to basically pawns while your opponent has much more material attacking your king, protect it! Nothing frustrates the opponent more then a fight for survival in the endgame. Especially in bullet games, even though you have a few pawns for survival, you can outlast the opponent, even force them to trade off a minor piece just to open up your king a bit. Never give up! Never surrender!

These are my personal tips and tricks for bullet players that want to obtain a stronger rating. I hope you enjoyed reading this article, please message me if you have any questions about my "bullet survival guide" and I hope to write more articles on helping others achieve higher chess ratings. 

leepenny2001

One minute chess? Is that really chess?

orangehonda

Hmm, some good advice (when low on time remove all opponent's pieces to assure a draw) but to be honest a lot of bad advice in there too.  These are mostly tricks that I guess would take you from bullet chess newbie to bullet chess non-newbie (you'll beat inexperienced people) but the very strong bullet players do not play mainly with tricks (and are used to meeting and beating these tricks).

The nasty thing about strong bullet players is they're always trying to find good moves ("open your game passively with defensive play" might as well be a foreign language to them).

By the way, there is a great way to take advantage of classical central play.  When I face pre-move on the 3rd rank guy, I just grab the center, develop, and surprise surprise I sacrifice to open him up and squish him :p.  In bullet, attack with initiative will very often beat defense simply because defense is harder to play and so you go up a lot on the clock.

If you're looking for more tricks though, one that can confuse newer players and burn time is to never cash in on a tactic that works right away when you can wait a few moves.  When you don't take that knight (and they've seen you can) it freezes them up, they try to look for a way to defend it again.  When you don't take it a 2nd time, they might blow a fuse lol.

You can build an aggressive attacking position with no intention of attacking.  This is another trick involving defensive moves are always harder to find.  While they're trying to be exact, you're just playing crappy... as soon as you have brought a lot of attackers over, throw your position back into a "fortress" (everything defends each other) which you've been planning to do all along.  Being able to switch quickly to a fortress type (everything is defended) is useful when facing newer players who frantically search for a piece to capture or a check to give and can't find either.

Alternate moves/attacks on both sides of the board.  Newer players focus in on area and this will either confuse them, or they'll completely ignore your attack somewhere else and fall into a tactic.

heinzie

You forgot the golden tip:

Play Quake or a similar shooting video game in order to acquire mad mousing skillz

Atos

Btw, 2 minutes with 5 seconds increments or longer wouldn't be considered bullet.

Atos

And to be honest, to do well in bullet, you need to drink the right amount.

orangehonda

Also, pre-moving is an art of it's own.  You can't just pre-move willy-nilly... the game is still 60 seconds and you can actually make 60 moves without any pre-moves at all... meaning if your opponent is willing to think 1 or 2 seconds while you're pre-moving your way to move 40 in 20 seconds, you're going to lose 100% of the time.  If you do any re-matching then excessive pre-moves will be noticed and punished pretty quickly.

Every time you pre-move, you should be satisfied with any opponent response.  One type of common use pre-move would be to pre-move a re-capture when the only move or two that allow it you're OK with.

orangehonda

And actually an important bullet skill is knowing how to slow down your play to maximise the strength of your moves.  If your opponent is playing a 2/0 game as fast as a 1/0 game, then you actually have a huge advantage if you're willing to slow down to a 2/0 pace or slightly slower.

The same for blitz, if you've been playing a bunch of 2/0 and 3/0 and now want to switch to 5/0, you better be ready to re-tool your pace and be willing to think about your moves.  The most frustrating bullet players I've faced will suddenly stop making moves when the position is a complicated or critical one, and I get a feeling of dread, that just like last game they've sensed when a position is important and will now find a crushing idea or sequence.  Sure I try to do this too, but players better than me do it better than I do obviously :)

Atos

In blitz that's true I think, a strong blitz player will sometimes take a scary long amount of time on one or two moves in a critical situation while they will make the other moves automatically. I am not sure how much that could work in 1 0 bullet.

orangehonda

Pace is an interesting element of bullet and blitz games that is sometimes a bit lost on a server with a lot of lag.  Especially in a series of games against the same player (I like to do re-matches) sometimes by consciously changing the pace of your moves, you can stop the opponent's momentum (let's say you've lost the last 3).  This alters their pace as well because some of our timing comes from our opponent.  While this obviously wouldn't be of any use vs someone much better than you, when playing a long series against a relatively equal opponent this strategy can be effective.

Which is another reason that the best blitz/bullet players play simply to find the strongest moves at their own pace.  Still, as I said before this subtle effect can tip a balance between two players of similar skill playing a long series.

orangehonda

So more along the lines of the OP, how to improve in bullet chess.  First, play a lot of slow games where you absolutely challenge yourself to find the best moves possible... because it's after those types of games that we have the most opportunity to learn new good patterns and identify our bad patterns.  Games played at half effort contain losing moves we can attribute to "I was tired or lazy that day" and thus have limited training value.  Speed chess involves a lot of pattern recognition, so this is important.

Second, after you have these new patterns, you should play a lot of fast games to get used to the speed.  One basic skill any bullet player should have is identifying undefended pieces (yours and your opponent's).  So to a newer blitz player I'd advise something like the defended piece training exercise that comes with engines like fritz (or are they part of that GUI, I'm not sure).  Where it shows you a position and you have to highlight each undefended piece.  Missing a piece or highlighting a defended piece and you won't move on.  You have 60 seconds to get through as many positions as you can.

After a basic skill like that, you should be very tactically alert to play bullet.  Any kind of timed tactics trainer (as on this site) is good practice.  But primarily your strength is going to come from how well you play in general (it's no mistake the world's best bullet players are also top GMs).  So it all starts with your slow play.  Other techniques like pre-moving and pacing are secondary.

Vindictive

I didn't know we could premove here. Yell

Dragec

A lot of efforts is spent to write this thread. Cool

I guess a tricks are extremely important in bullet.

skogli

I think somone should ask Nakamura, hi is the king of speed chess!

GreenLeaf14

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBiw-NnWPo0

Mr_YinYang

Спасибо Cuzin Vinny. Ваш пост был очень полезным. Я сделал свой premove настройки, как Вы предложили.

tpb83

Thank you very much. I wish to be a bullet master, but I know there are 2 obsticles you must overcome with bullet...your opponent....and time! Thank you for your tips and personal experience with advice. It was very useful. There are not many bullet chess books out their. You should write a book.

PafonsoOwns

Accurate mouse movement also helps alot

torrubirubi
Thanks, interesting. I am the worst bullet player in history.
G30rg3C05tanza

Thanks!  That is a great set of rules of thumb.  I’m actually 2050 on lichess for bullet and am curious how to practice to get to 2200+, master level.  How would I continuously improve my bullet, or is it just tactics, opening theory, endgame theory, and common sense, just like regular chess?