One thing I have learned in my own study is that I have a really hard time staying focused when analyzing for any length of time unless my curiosity is piqued.
If I’m trying to answer some question about a position such as “Is there a reason that pawn can’t be grabbed?” then I can dig in and look for a long time. I might come up for air and realize an hour has passed.
But if I’m trying to clinically look at a position to find the best move instead of trying to answer a question about it I quickly get tired and bored and just throw out random moves.
Super relevant and insightful... painfully so to me. I pride myself on being a rational decision maker. And frequently am the one in time trouble in 3+2 games. Am I _ignoring_ emotions that would help me make faster moves that are good enough?! Do I care too much, or not enough?
I would suggest auditing your time usage. This is very easy to do online, the timestamps are right there. It's rare that someone plays slightly, steadily too slowly across the board. Far more often you get stuck on a few moves. Over a minute on a single move in a 3+2 game, that sort of thing. Look at those moves and try to figure out what's going on. Usually there's a connection.
Unfortunately many competitive players regardless of the activity come to feel that their fear of losing is greater than their joy of winning and give up the competitive activity.
One thing I have learned in my own study is that I have a really hard time staying focused when analyzing for any length of time unless my curiosity is piqued.
If I’m trying to answer some question about a position such as “Is there a reason that pawn can’t be grabbed?” then I can dig in and look for a long time. I might come up for air and realize an hour has passed.
But if I’m trying to clinically look at a position to find the best move instead of trying to answer a question about it I quickly get tired and bored and just throw out random moves.
Super relevant and insightful... painfully so to me. I pride myself on being a rational decision maker. And frequently am the one in time trouble in 3+2 games. Am I _ignoring_ emotions that would help me make faster moves that are good enough?! Do I care too much, or not enough?
Actually, Dan Bock and I made this a while ago. Totally forgot about it.
https://danbock.net/longthinks/
I would suggest auditing your time usage. This is very easy to do online, the timestamps are right there. It's rare that someone plays slightly, steadily too slowly across the board. Far more often you get stuck on a few moves. Over a minute on a single move in a 3+2 game, that sort of thing. Look at those moves and try to figure out what's going on. Usually there's a connection.
Unfortunately many competitive players regardless of the activity come to feel that their fear of losing is greater than their joy of winning and give up the competitive activity.