A few thoughts on time management
We are in the final process of editing From GM to Top Ten, covering Judit Polgar’s progress in the 1990s, with the same emphasis on chess development as Volume 1. And one of the things we have paid special attention to is Judit’s habit of including time management in her annotations. In short, whenever the position is strategic, she seems to slow down, while when it gets sharp and tactical, she often plays her move in a minute or less. This has inspired us to come up with a few ideas about time management – or clock handling if you like. They are sort of random, but hopefully not entirely useless. As always, they are not absolutes, but ideas and strategies that might resonate with the recurring problems you face in your games.
• Chess is about making difficult decisions in insufficient time. Those looking for certainty early on will burn through their time. The only certainty they will be allotted is time trouble and poor results.
• Very rarely should you play your move immediately. A quick blunder check and/or candidate move sweep helps often enough to be worth it.
• On the other hand, hesitation is a sin. When you have made up your mind concerning what you want to play, you should execute your move. You will need the time later on.
• Sometimes big decisions appear early in the game. You should not be afraid to invest a lot of time early on. There is little joy in playing a lost position with a lot of time on the clock.
• The first move after leaving opening theory is often a big trap. We need to slow down. The same goes for move 41.
• Some kinds of decision need to be worked out, others you have to guess. In general I prefer to spend my time on the decisions that can be worked out and not guess there. At least this is in theory. If I also did this consistently in practice, I would have been a much stronger player.
• I learned to write down my time right from my first tournament. It was only when I decided a year or so back that I was not trying to improve anymore, that I stopped. Especially for those with time trouble tendencies, this can be very useful. It is hard to improve on something you have not measured.
• Do not rely on the opponent’s scoresheet. In the Copenhagen Open, Arthur Kogan looked across the board and saw that Viktor Korchnoi had written down a move 41 and relaxed. When the arbiter came and asked Arthur to fill in the missing moves, Korchnoi said: “Ah well, you know, I am an old man. Maybe we should check the moves? Maybe it is not 40?” Only then did Arthur notice that Korchnoi had written down his 40th move again. (This is of course also useful for those looking for dirty tricks.)
• Often when the opponent is in time trouble and we have a lot of time, we can get nervous and play too fast. A friend of mine had a winning position against a player with only seconds left on the clock, while he had lots of time. Missing mate in one however turned the tables…
• On the other hand, if the opponent has spent all his time, maybe we should do the same so that we can both be in time trouble. If things are not going your way, maybe inserting a bit of anarchy is a useful thing. I once played a game that went on to move 52(!) before a flag fell. Another time I played the following mad game:
Aagaard – Danielsen, Copenhagen 1997
1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.exd5 cxd5 4.c4 Nf6 5.Nc3 e6 6.Nf3 Be7 7.cxd5 Nxd5 8.Bc4 O-O 9.O-O b6 10.Re1 Bb7 11.Ne5 Nxc3 12.bxc3 Nd7 13.Nxf7 Rxf7 14.Bxe6 Nf8 15.Bxf7+ Kxf7 16.c4 Rc8 17.Qd3 Bf6 18.Ba3 Ng6 19.Qf5 Kg8 20.g3 Nf8 21.Rad1 Qd7 22.Qd3 Ng6 23.Qe2 h6 24.d5 Ba6 25.Rc1 Ne5 26.Bb2 Rxc4 27.Rcd1 Ra4 28.Qh5 g6 29.Qxh6 Bg5
[fen size=”small”]6k1/p2q4/bp4pQ/3Pn1b1/r7/6P1/PB3P1P/3RR1K1 w – – 0 30[/fen]
Around here, things looked bad, but Henrik only had a minute left. I allowed my clock to run down to five minutes left and organised a counter-attack. As Henrik must have expected me to resign, he seemed to have lost his concentration. It goes without saying that neither player performed expertly in what follows, but from being a queen down, I was quite pleased to get away with it…
30.Rxe5 Bxh6 31.Re6 Rxa2 32.Bc3 Be2 33.Rd4 Bf3 34.Rxg6+ Kh7 35.Rf6 Bxd5 36.Rh4 Be4 37.Rhxh6+ Kg8 38.Rh8+ Kxh8 39.Rd6+ Kg8 40.Rxd7 Rc2 41.Bd2 a5 42. f4 a4 43.Kf2 a3 44.Ke3 Bf5 45.Ra7 Ra2 46.Bb4 Rxh2 47.Bxa3 1/2-1/2
There is definitely more that could be said about clock handling, time trouble and so on, but let’s call this a post for now.
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