Author: Albert Silver
Date: 20:39:57 01/02/00
Go up one level in this thread
On January 02, 2000 at 10:31:24, Bert Seifriz wrote:
>Roland Schmaltz, a top-rated bullet player, who is well known as Hawkeye on ICC
>and who won the bullet world championship twice (and many other blitz games on
>the internet), says his fast internet games are making him weaker in real life
>chess, according to a German newspaper.
>Maybe he should not complain: he is IM with Elo 2500, 3rd of the German Blitz
>championship this year (but champion last year), 7th of German Championship, and
>he has already accomplished 2 steps of becoming a GM.
>Nevertheless he said: I cannot play chess anymore! And this after he had won
>against computers on time in the past. The question: Is it only the mouse which
>makes the difference or are there other factors?
>
>By the way, his homepage in English: www.hawkeye.de
They are VERY different modalities. Schmaltz is an ultra-solid player
capable of playing solid chess at even the fastest time-controls. There is a
very big difference in how one learns to think in OTB chess, and bullet. Bullet
can be a lot of fun, but I fail to see how conditioning oneself to decide on and
play a move in a couple of seconds is going to one to the summit. GMs don't
exactly sit there twiddling their thumbs on their move. There is a certain
amount of thinking going on, and I don't think that bullet playing is going to
help perfect it.
I know there are people who swear by the training values of bullet games
with arguments on pattern practice and time-trouble training. I have never
agreed with this. What kind of pattern practice am I learning? I wouldn't want
to be actually _practicing_ moves played in bullet games and then reproduce them
in a slow OTB game. I think a medium point such as 15/game is ok. There you have
a chance to really start thinking about plans and tactics, and pattern training
shouldn't be counter-productive.
Time-trouble training? That's treating the symptom, not the problem. Learn
and practice proper time management.
I am not judging Schmaltz by any manner and strongly hope he attains the
title. I am only saying that bullet and OTB chess are essentially apples and
oranges.
Albert Silver
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