Blitz Sucks!

For me anyways.

My deepest apologies with the catchy click bait title. Sometimes you just need to get people to click on your article. Well that is exactly the point of this. Recently Nate Solon put out to his community the 100 blitz game challenge. A way to improve your chess with deliberate intention. Not playing 100 mindless blitz games rather playing solid chess with a few takeaways from each game so you can improve and become a better chess player. A wonderful program I completely and utterly support.

However; I made some stark realizations during this journey. Did I complete the challenge? I will say not at all. Did I play a lot of blitz? Indeed. Not sure if I made it to 100 games or not within the time frame but, I did find I played over 500 blitz games on the year in my Lichess Wrapped 2025.

What does this all mean and what do I mean when I say Blitz Sucks, For Me Anyways? Well it means exactly that. I really do not like the time control at all. I do believe it is great when used properly with analysis of your games. That means not just mindlessly clicking next game and continuing to push wood hoping for some trick. The idea really is to play the best chess you can as if it were a classical game.

For me I came to a few realizations during Nate’s 100 blitz challenge and even before it commenced. Firstly, I really do not like blitz chess at all. I actually despise it. I am usually Ok through the opening and then either win spectacularly or lose in some catastrophic way. Almost comical in many games. Why? Well clock anxiety I believe. I have this urge to just move because the clock is ticking away. This is the same regardless of increment or not. Now I am sure many of you are saying well “Duh this is how it is for all blitz chess games.” For me it is a deeper thing though. It really bothers me I do not have time to think. It’s some external pressure that I expect many are able to overcome but, I simply have not or do not want to I guess. I get frantic. Hard to say what it is or why I am this way; however, it was an interesting and an eye opening epiphany. I do think quality blitz games are an extremely viable way to improve ones chess. Just look at all of the players who found nice gains during Nate’s program and you can see for many it pays dividends. For me it had the opposite affect. I shut down. Got to a point almost where I wanted to quit chess altogether which lead me to my next realization.

In order to improve at chess you DO have to enjoy what you are doing to some degree. Not always of course. There is a saying from back in the day, yes I am from t he 1900s as my kids say - No Pain, No Gain. I think in some realms this is still viable statement; however, we do not need to be David Goggins out here. A lot of data support many different ways of improvement in any field of course. The No Pain, No Gain is not the only method whereas it is a path to travel for sure. I think if it is mixed in and we are doing the things we do not like and stretching our limits it is worth it but, certainly not until the point of injury. If being in the military taught me anything is that for most people when they “think” they are at their maximum effort — it usually indicates they are around 30-40% of their real capabilities. There is always more in the tank as it were. The mind is a governor many people listen to. What does this mean for chess improvement — well honestly not much but, perhaps what I am saying is there is always more we can be doing in chess improvement terms. Now with that being said I actually found I do not like blitz chess. Like at all. Not even one bit. Does this fit the Goggins method where I should push though that shit so I can reach a new barrier? In this instance, no it does not. This mentally and psychologically was messing with my chess I found which means it was time to stop and reassess.

In my reassessment I found this year (2025) I played two times more online games overall than I have played in the last two previous years combined. During my remarkable rise from 1344 to 1849 I played a mere fraction of the games online than I did this year where I lost 150 points. Well that is rather interesting isn’t it? I played more chess and got worse. They say adults need to be playing more chess typically. That sentiment by itself is mainly true however let’s add the fact they have to be the try types of games for the time control you’d like to improve within. So how can this be? Well it was mainly the time control itself. Blitz was hurting my chess. Not due to the time control itself being bad or anything like that but, due to how my mind handles the pressure or lack of handling the pressure in a proper emotionally balanced way which was the issue. I do not possess the proper mental fortitude and constitution for blitz chess being an emotional player. What a crazy finding.

Secondly, the realization of how emotional I am when it comes to the outcome of the game as it related to blitz games. Sure I am just like you all where I am upset when I lose a game. In classical I can easily regulate my emotions when I lose. Yeah I am bummed out but, if I played a good game I am usually pretty happy about just being able to play chess in general. If I am able to dive right into a postmortem and discuss the game I am even happier. Mainly, I am just happy to be at the club playing and discussing chess with other chess players. It brings me joy. There is something about the quickness of blitz chess where I cannot come off the emotional burden it bestows upon my mind where I cannot bounce back to a state of normal when I lose. Even when I was winning I was not happy about it usually. There was an anxiety about the next game so I could not even enjoy the win knowing I had another game to play. Wild stuff right?

Lastly, and perhaps more importantly even than the previous, I found my openings were way out of whack as I discussed in my article Decline, Plateau and Realignment — the article has greater detail of course. I will shoot the cliff notes for those who missed it, so let me regale you briefly. Mainly I found that I am not an aggressive player. Subsequently though I was playing the most aggressive chess and openings I could find. Thanks ChatGPT for this. Some of you are laughing I am sure. Haha. I assumed my deficiencies were with tactics, the only conclusion then was I need to play aggressive chess openings to get training in open and sharp position all while actually not liking that style of chess. I was fighting against myself. Kicking my own ass if you will. What I do enjoy more than anything is being attacked and defending. I get no greater satisfaction than from stopping someone’s attack and then picking up the pieces after. The openings I was playing were not conducive to that style of play. The Dutch and O’Kelly as black. Then the most aggressive 1.e4 rep I could find. All gambity lines. A spattered collection of some of the popular 1.e4 chess opening courses on Chessable of course. It was doing nothing for my chess coupled with a time control that did not suit my play. That altogether has lead to a stagnant decline over the last year and a half. A net lost of 150 points to date from my peak. I have seemed to leveled off at the 1700 level for those interested.

Rapid chess is no different for me as well. I still move like it is a blitz game and cannot seem to slow my roll for a moment to play like a classical game. Amongst those other realizations I found if I want to be improving at Classical Over The Board chess I need to be training in such a way that fosters that environment. I do not care about my rapid or blitz ratings — I say this, but what it really means is I do BUT it is not an effective training method for me. This is a historic finding for my chess honestly.

All of this is a step to find my way back to the path. The path to National Master. We all have these epiphanies and realizations in our chess journey and it is extremely important to identify them when they occur and then act upon them to make the necessary changes. Sometimes that does mean not changing a damn thing as well. I believe this is one of the major reasons why plateaus happen. That and people are not honest with themselves.

What am I doing instead then? A wonderful question you might ask. Well, over the last two months I have been changing my opening repertoire. I decided to play more classical style openings. Control the center with quick development and king safety. Fight for a pawn and then grind them down by trading pieces off. What I landed on was still playing 1.e4 for white, but not playing gambits and playing Ruy Lopez and other classical mainlines against the main four openings, King Pawn, Sicilian, French and Caro. Against the hypermodern stuff control the center with quick development so 1.e4 2.d4 so on and so forth. Solid play. For black I was suggested the Benoni from Nate Solon and though it seems like a wonderful opening helping provoke players to attack me, I did not go with it. I went with the Philidor vs 1.e4 and Old Indian vs everything else. The beauty of this is occasionally at my rating pool anyways is there are a lot of transpositions between the two of them. Where many times I can trick a d4 player into a Philidor and it is quite lovely. I also found I enjoy early queen trades and endgames so I may as well lean into this right?! I thought so too. For training, I opted for working with a coach — NM Robert Ramirez. He has supplied me a basic training plan which I will follow exclusively for now. I look forward to developing that relationship and started working from his training plan more than a fortnight ago. I see some real positive changes in my chess already. Slowing things down has been a real pleasure honestly. Mainly I am just happier as a chess player in general where as before I was really struggling mentally and did not recognize it without taking a step back.

Again sorry for the clickbaity title. I sort of love it though. Don’t hate me guys. Come on! I had to. Haha. Do what you love in chess and improvement comes much easier. Do the No Pain No Gain when necessary to expand your mind when you can without overdoing it of course. We do not want to get burned out at all as that will not help anyone’s chess. Fight against your natural ways and you will meet plateaus and declines or as Kevin Scull of Chess Journey’s says “The Pits of Despair!”

Chess Improvement Is A Marathon — Let’s Keep Improving Together

Nick