Chess Tips, Articles and Guides to Help You Win Chess Games

Playing Better Blitz Chess: Quite often we have met club players who perform well in tournaments with classical time control and give a strong appearance of being underrated players. However, when the time trouble comes they tend to collapse quite easily. The same is seen at rapid and blitz events; some players can’t even finish the game and they end up losing by flagging or making horrible blunders. We all have seen that and it is sad, indeed. Playing good blitz and rapid is important; every strong player is competitive in these modalities and it is a fun way to develop skills.

Mistakes can happen at all levels, from beginners to strong Grandmasters. Even recently we have witnessed a few unexplainable moments from top Grandmasters in the prestigious Sinquefield Cup that’s taking place in Saint Louis. Knowing that mistakes can happen even at the highest level might come as a relief for the rest of us, but it is nevertheless something we’d like to avoid as much as possible. Blunders are usually unexplainable; it feels as if our brain suddenly stops cooperating. However, there are a few things you could try to do in order to minimize such moments. Here are a few tips.

How to calculate in chess? First, let me ask you... How many chess positions can possibly arise on the board? Well, let’s count. White can choose between 20 first moves. Black can reply in 20 different ways too. This already creates 400 possible positions. White’s next turn can increase this number approximately up to 8 000. Black can make, for example, 100 000 from it. Next, it is millions already. Let’s stop here.