I have played the Smith Morra a lot. I like that there are a series of moves you play almost regardless of what your opp plays: makes remembering the opening easy.
Iām down to 2246 blitz on lichess after hitting 2378 in June (all time high was 2440 in early January 2020). [I partially blame the obsession with go, but I was justā¦ seeing the board better back then. February 2020 is when I beat the GM on ICC I believe].
I love the lichess insights stuff. Some of this surprised me:
My success rate as white:
As black:
Apparently I really stink vs. the Modern (Robatsch). And my anti-Petroff Cochrane gambit works a lot.
Interesting stats. I like both chess.com and lichess. Wish I could combine some of each of their features.
Magnus and Nepo picked their colors for Game 1 like it was a Gender Reveal lol.
Nepo will be white.
I am just so bad when it comes to faster chess.
My ratings:
Puzzles: 2,108
Puzzle Rush 3 min: 17
Puzzle Rush 5 min: 22
Puzzle Rush Survival: 34
Daily: 1,287
Rapid: 1,018
Blitz: 662
Bullet: N/A
Should I just continue to play Daily Chess to improve my overall chess, or start playing Blitz more? Iāve noticed when I start playing Blitz, my chess play just gets bad and I start getting into bad habits again. My Puzzles rating shows Iām somewhat decent at seeing tactics, but Iām just very slow when playing faster chess.
I also play on my laptop without a mouse. Will getting a mouse help?
Edit: On the bright side, Iāve definitely improved when it comes to slow chess since the last tourney. Through 9 completed games, I have 6 wins and 3 draws with a legit chance at winning both C and D.
Puzzles rating is always super inflated compared to other ratings - mines 2620 while my rapid is 1911 and my blitz is 1847. Puzzle rush Iām at 27 for 3 minutes 30 for 5 minutes and 45 for survival.
Daily chess can be okay, but I find that playing through the variations by moving the pieces wasnāt helping with my ability to actually calculate over the board.
Playing blitz at that rating isnāt going to help you improve a ton imo. I would actually focus on rapid games with increment. 15|10. You have enough time to think in critical spots and the increment helps avoid some endgame time flag scrambles, even with a touchpad.
I do think doing a puzzle rush or two a day actually helps though. Gets the benefits of blitz (spotting tactics and themes quickly) while avoiding the bad habits of throwing pieces around without thinking in the opening.
Improving your slow chess (classical and longer rapid) will improve your fast chess. The converse isnāt really true, especially for people that focus on cheap tricks in blitz that donāt work if the opponent has time. Mouse speed is also bigger, though i play exclusively on my phone for online chess.
Iām a rare person, as 99% of my chess in my life has been on the blitz side (mostly 3-minute). I have improved 1-1 in slow chess as I climbed in speed chess.
I do make some critical errors in slow chess, though, when I settle for an āokā candidate move and donāt go looking for the BEST move. As will be evident in one of my correspondence games where I missed a mate.
I also have primarily played blitz over the past 25 years.
I play blitz from my phone with my finger, which allows me to be almost as fast as I need to be. There are some that are faster and have more functionality (multiple pre-moves in a row) with computer and mouse. For blitz, and especially bullet, I think computer with touchpad is too slow and will negatively impact your rating.
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Agreed entirely. Iām never as good on my touchpad (and commit a lot more āmouse slipsā) than with mouse or phone.
When I was younger (15-19 years old) I was quite good at 1-minute bullet chess on ICC, before pre-move was as strong as it is now on lichess [every move had a minimum of 0.1 seconds taken, no matter how quickly you premoved]. Iām not as fast as I used to be, so 3-minute is really the fastest I play. I do win on time a lot, and often end up with too much time I could have used thinking.
My best win in 1-minute was vs. Chess-Network. I played him 3 times in bullet tournaments, with one win in a Ruy Lopez (me as white) where he played an early f5.
Up to 2532 on chess.com puzzles. I donāt think Iāve ever topped 2400 on lichess.org puzzles. I need to work on those more.
I have the first few puzzle books from Yusupovās Chess School (starting with āBuild Up Your Chess 1: The Fundamentalsā) that I need to work through.
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Maybe I just need to play more blitz games for my rating to go up. Part of it was the nervousness of playing chess too fast, but today I won 3 straight blitz games. Iāve played less than 20 blitz games total so maybe the rating doesnt mean much right now.
I maintain you have no business in group D! (meant as a compliment).
Tournament started at kind of a rough time for me, and I didnāt take time to warm up at all. So my first few games were laughably bad. Weāll see if I can improve over the duration of the tournament.
I felt the same way a little bit, but mostly took the hit in another tournament Iām playing in.
I havenāt played a game since July. Then another tournament Iām in started a new round a couple days before our tournament. I immediately started butchering all my games there. While I donāt think Iām playing my best chess in this tournament, I think Iām getting back up to speed.
I still canāt see more than 2 or 3 moves ahead and it shows. Games lost have all been by blunder, though one was an accidental misclick that I didnāt even realize until the next day. 
I dunno. When I played a side game with Seasplash, and he let me have the exact opening I wanted to test, I was able to beat him. So as long as he lets me do what I want, I can beat him.
(Its also worth noting it was an opening he told me to try so it wasnāt even something I meant to try)
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Could be right. My chess opinions probably shouldnāt mean much at this point.
My 2nd game vs @1695814 was another draw. Early on at one point I saw a potential cool tactic āOh, if only my bishop was at this square, Iād have an awesome tactic! Wait, wasnāt my bishop just on that square?? Dāoh!ā After missing a chance to win a piece early, I quickly started falling behind by a considerable margin. Thankfully I was able to play the moves I needed to to not lose outright and 1695814 gave up his advantage eventually and we drew.
My game vs @MayanActuary was a little more subdued than our usual games, with Mayan making an early mistake (It shows how rusty I am because at first I thought it was a mistake by me). He gave it a good go to put pressure on my king but I managed to hold it off (even though we both made a few mistakes here and there).
My game vs devilrox was weird. It only lasted 20 moves, but it was sharp and we went back and forth multiple times having leads of 4.75+ throughout the short game. By move 19 I had a 6.63 computer calculated lead but I couldnāt find the win and we agreed to a draw with a perpetual check (I had no idea who was ahead at that point when playing)
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Said opening was the Smith Morra, which I accepted.