Purging my blitz brain 2: My Biggest lessons from second year of OTB chess

My villain back story

Hello my name is ben I am your average club player in Colorado. I learned how to play chess at 17 in my high school computer science class. Since then i have slowly fallen more and more in love with chess. I played 10,000s of online speed games on various websites, with little direction but lots of determination to win i was able to hit decent speed chess ratings but i quickly plateaued. In my real life i was similarly without direction. One day i had enough forcing myself to do what normal people do and decided to go all in on my love of chess. Be it teaching, playing, TD'ing, writing, blogging or studying i knew i was going to be happy here. So in search of power and belonging I summoned my courage to finally visit the Denver Chess Club (DCC) and begin my journey into the chess world. Once there i was shocked and horrified to find out that i sucked at chess! I learned that my chess game was a poor amalgamation of extremely bad habits. Skills like, playing for time, playing quickly, making decent but not best move etc., are useful in speed chess but not the slightest bit useful in a classically timed game. I learned that i had a severe case of blitz brain, something medicine couldn't fix. Since then I have been actively working to cure my blitz brain. I started playing OTB chess 2.2 years ago with the goal of becoming stronger. With this post i hope to share with you some of the biggest lessons I've learned from my second year of OTB chess.

Since my last from post from over a year ago I have have hit some new peaks

Uscf Classical: 1616 --> 1864 peak.
Lichess rapid: 2016 --> 2228 peak.

Surely a great deal of this progress has come from my efforts to purge my blitz brain. Interestingly my faster time controls have not seen much improvement. I would argue my blitz and bullet skill have declined. This is hopefully good sign that my efforts to purge my bad habits have been working. Its often very normal to see a decline in rating when learning new things and unlearning bad things. After all its usually those bad habits that helped you get to the point where you are now; Like an extremely dubious but fun opening trap that helped you get some wins under your belt. Relying on these things is dangerous and a symptom of blitz brain.

Symptom #1: Plan-less opening fatigue

This bad habit has appeared in nearly all of my 2024 games. I have never enjoyed studying opens and my motto has always been to struggle through an opening and outplay in the middle and endgame. With this in mind I chose openings like the scotch, Benoni, fantasy caro Khan and Monte Carlo exchange french. These openings are far from the norm and are surely not what our opponents have studied the most in their books. Of course these openings are hardly dubious (except the benoni) but when you don't actually put the work into learning the ideas and themes encompassed in them they may as well be dubious. In shorter time controls this has given me an edge. Often allowing me to get a time advantage or spring a new trap on an unsuspecting opponent. Classically this strategy has proven to be quite bad, especially against master level opponents who's ability to navigate a new chess position is better than my own. This first game comes from a club game against my friend and first true chess coach NM Daniel Herman.

This game as summarized really shows the flaws in my strategy. I played a dubious uncommon opening with little gusto or awareness of what I needed to be doing and paid the price. Daniel effortlessly dismantled my weak and disorganized moves with concrete play. I needed to play for one concrete plan like using my queenside majority to distract white and play for something. I caught on to this plan when it was too late and I had already wasted too much time grouping my pieces centrally where I am worse.

Since then I've gotten a bit better at my Benoni's and although I try not to play the snake Benoni as much I decided to spring it on the best 8 year old girl in the country.

As you can see I devoted just a bit more time to playing on the queenside where I am typically better an was able to find some openings in her play. Some of my conversion could be worked on after winning the exchange. I'll never beat her again!

Symptom #2: Chronic Cheapo chest pain

As many chess players are aware the accuracy of a chess game is heavily dependant on how much time you have to make your move. In a bullet game its not uncommon fork an opponents king and queen with your own queen; only for the opponent to move their king, hanging their queen. In any standard classical tournament especially those with an increment or delay of over 30 seconds this is simply not likely to happen. This means that the moves you make in classical chess need to have more impact than a simple one or two move threat. All to often is it easy to play a move that comes with a simple threat or trap but not much else. You must ask yourself, is their a better move for me? Is this move weakening or outright losing if the opponent finds the right response? Cheapos are like candy and cigarettes, at best a short term pleasure and at its worst a chess destroying symptom of blitz brain.

In addition to the really dumb blunder/cheapo ng3. (I was low time and seeing some lines that could be good for me) I also played two cheapos before this that were the cause of the hot mess achieved after ng3. 17...Qc6 & 18... Qc5. Move 25 was also a cheapo. if white takes my rook the game is equal. Sadly this is not a licheckers. Heres another example.

This cheapo made me feel really dumb. Here i am in a position where i should be winning. the best move has already occurred to me. (Bf3) giving space for the king and allowing for the rook to lift off the first rank. Instead of this i chose the lazy cheapo rd3 with huge threats of attacking the weak black king. problem is? black can just check me on my weak back rank where i start to get tied up. Thankfully my opponent chose a less powerful defense but the point is that i willingly and knowingly went for a move that is easily parried and lost my advantage rightfully. I ended up losing that game.

Symptom #3 Manic tactical hallucinations

When playing speed chess we primarily rely on patterns and ideas that we have already seen and used before. Often times in classical games will i have such a pattern appear in my head and i rush into the idea, neglecting the potential details and defenses of the position. I have found this happens to me more and more the less calm i am. Often times when i am in a winning position do these hallucinations really run rampant. Its hard to tell your brain to stop hallucinating, after all we have evolved to find these patterns even when they are not there. The best cure i have found is to take breaks by walking around and telling myself that i can be emotional after i win. Here's one of my most recent hallucinations.

By move 30 I was winning seeing the nice qd8+ lining up my queen towards his undefended one on f5 forcing him to give up the piece. what happened by move 32? I'm playing a blunder that gives the game back to him. What was my problem? I was seeing ghosts and calculating past myself. I missed that qxd5 comes with check! I was so excited to finally be winning in a otherwise horrible game and my nerves got the better of me. I had the time. If only I spent a little more time looking for qc5!!. Counter attacking the rook and not giving white the time to reclaim the lost material. Was qc5 impossible to find? No, but it is when you are calculating lines that will never happen.

In addition to hallucinating your own ideas its not too uncommon to hallucinate things for your opponnent as well.

My first OTB game against a WGM. I ran into her on a trip and she was kind enough to play a couple games with me. For this final game we chose not to use a clock and spend as much time needed for our moves. I am confronted with a tough move. my queen is hit and it needs to stay defending the knight on e5. Moves like qb8 don't work because the f8 rook also has a valuable job defending f7. qb8 rxc8 rxc8 nxf7+. The natural moves don't work so I decided to give up my queen for the rook! I missed a rather simple defense. move the e5 knight while blocking the attack down the c file. I always have b5 or even the fancy nxb2. if you find yourself seeing things that are not there I recommend taking a walk before attempting to exhaust all your option. sometimes a fresh look will help you find that slightly unnatural only move.

Symptom #4: Blitz brain outside of chess.

Have you ever found yourself in a blitz, bullet or even rapid spiral? Chasing the elo dragon of the shiny new peak number? I think anyone who has played as much online chess as me has serious problem. I often find myself lacking self control and often choosing the short term pleasure over the long term gain. Sacrificing the sleep of tonight for the well rested education and study tomorrow. Often for shallow reasons like winning one more game or hitting that new highest number. To many nights like this will not only hurt your chess but also your health! For example at the North American open this year being hot off an exciting win in the third round I couldn't get to sleep. I was full of adrenaline and not tired. I decided I would put my games in analyze them. Eventually I started looking at my phone getting caught in a spiral of short term videos. Before I knew it was 5 am and I had to play a chess game at 11 and another at 6. I got 2 hours of sleep and groggily showed up for my morning game against a NM on his floor. My goal this tournament was to beat or draw my first NM. I started ok but as the game progressed the weight of the previous nights decision started weighing on me. I found myself thinking about sleep, asking for undeserved draws and eventually caving to the pressure of my well rested opponent.

I ended up taking a 5th round bye out of shame in a attempt to get some sleep and play my 6th and 7th rounds at a higher level. This worked and I won both my games but could have just as easily avoided the 5th and 6th round disasters had I been more conscious or in control of my bad habits. I would not be surprised if people with blitz brain are also more prone to addiction.

The cure:

I don't have a foolproof cure and I am still a victim of my bad habits in and out of chess but here's is what helps me the most.

• Take breaks often
• take you time in the opening and follow some sort of plan
• Introspect often and make sure you're not being emotional
• Ask yourself if your move is more than a 1 or 2 move threat (cheapo)
• double check your calculations and never rush a move unless absolutely forced by time or position
• take good care of yourself
• try and understand the outside factors of your life that could be harming your chess
• study master games, get advice from peers, ask a coach to help,
• play as much classical over the board chess as possible
• play as little bullet and blitz chess as possible

Thanks for reading. Till next year.