The View from 1000: "The Best Move You Can in the Most Reasonable Amount of Time"

The View from 1000

... is Cloudy

I haven't had many opportunities to play a much higher-rated opponent, so I was excited to have that opportunity last Tuesday. And Marnzell is a great guy to boot! 

During the game, I developed two distinct but inter-related problems: time trouble and frantic thinking. (I'm sure there were more problems than those, but those are what I'll focus on.) I'll deal with the latter in a follow-up post so I can say something about "The Post-Beginner's Mind." But I'll deal with the former in this post just to see how my time trouble contributed to my frantic thinking. I should say that by 'time trouble', I mean 'time trouble for me'. I have little experience playing faster games, so I quickly become uncomfortable as soon as I realize that I'm taking an unusual amount of time on the clock. Please post any comments or suggestions. I know I'll learn all of them.


To reduce the chances that I take a mental "move off" during the game, as I have more than occasionally done, I now repeat a Dan Heisman mantra at the start of every game. So I can hear him whispering in my ear: "The goal is usually to play the best move you can in the most reasonable amount of time."



(22 min remaining on the clock.) My original idea was to move Ne5, which would allow Qf3 to aim at d5, and entice a trade of Ns, which would allow Re5 to put a fourth attacker on d5. But since he moved his N, this is a pretty good square to occupy for the time being. 

I was happier with my position here.  I've finally started to get more pieces into the game, including two minor pieces that are now on his turf and a Q, R, and light B that could join them quickly. [Stockfish agrees that I'm slightly better here, presumably for similar reasons.] But I wasn't happy that I took another eight minutes (!) to try to figure out what was going on with his last two moves and, ultimately, to decide on Ne5. I'm starting to get paranoid that I've only got 22 minutes remaining on the clock--for me, that is not a lot of time, and Marnzell still had 45 minutes remaining on his clock--and we're only on the sixteenth move. Assuming a 40-move game and a 15 second increment, that means I have only 28 more minutes to make 24 more moves. (So an average of roughly one minute for each remaining move.) To make matters worse--and for reasons that most of you likely already see!--the game is about to get tactical and, therefore, more complicated, requiring more time, not less. And it will require clear vision and clear thinking, neither of which I was to exhibit, as you'll see in the next post.

Lessons and Thoughts

• The goal each move is usually to make the best move possible in the most reasonable amount of time. This game was not a shining example of making moves in a "the most reasonable amount of time."
• Assuming a 40-move, 75/15 game, each player will have 85 minutes, so proper pacing for such a game is an average of roughly 2 minutes per move. (Obviously, more time is required for critical moments in the game, less for non-critical, forced, or already-conceived moves.) 
• Botvinnik suggests using no more than 20% of available time for the first 15 moves. Of course this is easier if one already has an opening repertoire. But in any case, again assuming a 40-move, 75/15 game, B's rule implies 17 minutes for the first 15 moves. Even if I up B's suggestion to 25%, that implies 22 minutes for the first 15 moves. In this game, Marnzell had used roughly 35 minutes. I had already used 49 minutes for the first 15 moves--and 57 minutes for 16 moves!
• Less time is required for moves that are non-critical, forced, or already-conceived. Consider my moves 11-13, for which I took 11 minutes. Even if I had taken six minutes to decide on 11. exd5, there is no reason to take five more minutes "just to be sure" about the follow up moves Ba2-Nc3, since both Black's and my moves went according to how I had already conceived them. And consider 15. Bg5. I took 4 minutes to make this move, even though I had already used about 10 minutes on the previous move trying to figure out what to do with that B. That means I took 14 minutes (!) in these positions trying to decide whether to move Bg5 or Bf4. But goodness, this decision is just not that critical.
• If the choice is between getting my pieces into the game and moving a pawn (let alone a piece) for a second time just to "attain an ideal center," the decision should almost always be to get the pieces into the game.
• It would be helpful to play at least some faster games if only to get more comfortable and, therefore, less stressed about having to make moves more quickly.