Moves...My Lead On The Clock
10 15 minutes
20 59 minutes
30 71 minutes
40 66 minutes
50 70 minutes
60 73 minutes
The game ended in a draw on move 63.
The standard of play could be described as laughable, if it were not simply atrocious.
In my write-up of the game, published here the following day, I labelled two of my moves dubious (?!), five bad (?) and three as blunders (??).
Naturally such assessments are at least partly subjective, but there can be no doubt a major cause of my bad play was playing too quickly.
What of my opponent, you may ask?
Well, I called one of his moves dubious (?!), 10 bad (?) and one a blunder (??).
He can partly be excused by his lower rating, although 1882 is hardly beginners' standard.
But the main cause of his bad play was his poor handling of the clock, although in his case it was playing too slowly.
He spent about 30 minutes on one move in the opening.
Admittedly the result was an apparent novelty that gets a seal of approval from Stockfish17 and Dragon1, but it flies in the face of grandmaster John Nunn's admonition to never spend more than 20 minutes on a move.
The time control was 40 moves in 90 minutes, with 15 minutes to finish and a 30-second increment throughout.
My opponent left himself 27 minutes (plus the increment) at move 20, and nine minutes (plus the increment) at move 30.
In effect we were at times both rushed - he through procrastination, I through laziness.
And yet I am sure both of us were well aware that even engines, with all their multitude of tactical calculations, make mistakes when forced to give quick evaluations.
LESSON: proper use of time is as important to a chess player as opening knowledge, middlegame planning, endgame technique and accurate analysis.
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