If you want to improve, play a lot of fast games
I added some details to the “play a lot of fast games” advice - see this page. Just briefly, it’s not about playing with time limits that make you cry all the time, but it is about pushing yourself to play with lower time limits than what you are comfortable with.
February 10th, 2007 at 4:08 am
Hello ! The problem is that when I play fast games, I usually play by reflex moves, without reading at all… (for example, in your “Direction of play and bad habits” first lesson I would play B by reflex in a fast game, but maybe A in a slow game.)
Don’t you think that playing fast games is good only after having reached a good level, may be 1d (I’m only 7k on KGS)
February 10th, 2007 at 11:05 am
Hi Mordeath,
Try what I suggested in the article: starting from what you consider the lowest time limits for a “slow game” that you are comfortable with, gradually lower your time limits.
As an example, don’t go from 1 hour to 10 minute, but first to 50 minutes, play for a while and get comfortable with that again, and so on.
Try to push down your comfortable time limits.
Everybody has to be able to play faster (without losing game quality), dan and kyu players alike. In doing that we train our brain to think faster, and deeper.
In particular, both “Direction of play” lessons are from slow games I played in the insei league, and in both cases I chose the bad move - therefore they became lessons for me - but it had nothing to do with time limits.