Slug Fest as in Strike, not as in Slugs

Only 252 bullet games in seven of the last eight days. With one day off, that amounts to 31.3 games per day. I played till past seven a.m++ the last two nights. Mind you, I get off work at 11 p.m. but having been going to bed at 8 or 8:30 a.m.

Recently, as my gluten free diet kicks in (more on this next post, and this is just a taste, no pun intended), I admit to never being tired, and after four or five hour live chess sessions, I am not tired after three hours prepartion before that. :) In the last four nights, I have had only 19.7 hours sleep. Only two naps Sunday night, and one last night, no more than 20 minutes each three days ago then only 7 minutes last night.












This last bullet game--to me--shows why LOTS of slowish (but still timed) tactics at CTS (chess tactical server) can still boost a chess players strength and sight of the board. You are basically going from habitual 9 to 22 second drills, to a game averaging four to five per move for EACH of the moves. :)

Technically, 11. ...Nd4 is not a crusher, but in bullet, you throw problem after problem at your opponent, and, if they start to drift, the clock starts to flag. Remember, this is increment bullet. In 'normal' 'real chess', such a move as this is NOT devastating.


But he missed it. Thereby, suddenly out of nowhere I find a crushing attack, that EVEN I who originated it hadn't seen--but quickly realized that I in fact had. At first all I saw was an easy pawn win, or a tiny little trap. All he needed to do was move 12. Qf2.

We tend to start out in increment bullet with a resouvour of time, since after ten moves, you might make them in a second each, and then have a time bank of forty seconds. But then you or they start to really think after the usual flurry. You do actually plan, but you do it fast! So when you throw them a zinger, they might after a moment of--say--twenty seconds sit back and take it all in, and when you uncork a move, they then freeze and as if they said: 'holly-molly, now what do I do?' and now as the clock comes down to eight or ten seconds, they (or I!) have to move.

Good bullet players can feel the clock. I don't look at the clock much. In fact, I am truly amazed at how often when I do move and then get to actually have time to look at the clock, amazed at how often there is only 8 or 12 seconds left, etc.

You say to yourself: 'I know that I have to move now'. As temposchlucker more or less said in his marvelous recent post, much of chess has these micro strategies or positional plays, and each can add 0.1 or 0.2 to a position. So you learn to make a decision on demand. In bullet you learn to move on demand, every single time. And since you cannot calculate it all, you must necessarily feel it, and so much feeling is bound to resolve into recognizable level of play by definition, since randomness is fairly evenly distributed.

Now, very technically, 19. ...Nf5 doesn't quite work. I usually only fritz or examine my bad losses that were painful lost 'wins in the bag' to see where I went wrong, or, in this instance, to relish 'pretty wins'.

While fritz shows f5 as very strong, and follows from another second or third best move (in retrospect), 17. ...Bc6, bearingly down unrelentingly against the painfully placed white Q at f3. Also, my Rf8 nascently pressures this file.

And here is my point. The N move to f5 is disturbing. I admit, I saw at a glance Rxc6 (perhaps immediately after I made my move had reconsiderations), and suspected my move might be bad, and as the clock ticked, was worried. But he didn't take the B at c6.

Isn't that called 'hope chess?' Yes. But in bullet, we are both in this same rush, and when you throw complications out, there just isn't always time to find the best recourse. And, of course, I was convincingly winning either way, but just faster. We never try to make a worser move, but in bullet, sometimes a second rate move is the one to set things off balance or 'create imbalances'.

In real chess, we'd all get to see this, but bullet is a game of instinct, and with 0/4, many a game go to + 3 min, and offer decent endgames, which I have had into the high 4 minute range--avoiding the ruination of 5/0 penultimate and final armaggedon terror.


















38. ...Bh2+ is devastating:

[Event "FICS rated lightning game"] [Date "2007.10.18"]
[White "gambiitti"] [Black "dk"] [WhiteElo "1499"] [BlackElo "-"]
[TimeControl "0+4"][Mode "ICS"] [Result "0-1"]

1. e4 e6 2. Nc3 d5 3. f3 dxe4 4. fxe4 Be7 5. g3 c5 6. Bg2 Nc6 7. d3 Nf6 8. Be3 O-O 9. h3 Rb8 10. g4 Qc7 11. Qf3 Nd4 12. Bxd4 cxd4 13. Nce2 Qxc2 14. Rc1 Qxb2 15. Kf2 Bd7 16. g5 Ne8 17. h4 Bc6 18. Nh3 Nd6 19. Nf4 Nf5 20. Qh3 Ne3 21. Bf3 Bd6 22. h5 Bxf4 23. g6 h6 24. gxf7+ Rxf7 25. Qxe6 Re8 26. Qg6 Rf6 27. Qg1 Ref8 28. Rb1 Qxa2 29. Ra1 Qe6 30. Nxd4 Qd6 31. Nxc6 Qxc6 32. Rc1 Qb6 33. Ke2 Rc6 34. Rxc6 bxc6 35. Rh4 Qb2+ 36. Ke1 Qc1+ 37. Kf2 Qd2+ 38. Be2 Bh2+ 39. Rf4 Bxg1+ 40. Kxg1 Rxf4
{White resigns} 0-1