Transitioning to Longer Chess Games and A New Training Routine

I Quit Blitz and Focused on 15:10 Rapid

Since I decided to almost completely stop playing Blitz and instead focus on longer games like 15:10 Rapid, it took me a few days to adjust to that format. I started by playing a few 10:5 games until I began to notice that I was running out of time in those games. Then I finally switched to the 15:10 format. I think I’ll mostly stick with that while I have enough time in my games and am not at too much risk of losing on time. After that, I’m considering moving to a longer time format. Ideally, I’d like to play classical games like 30:20 or even longer classical games, such as 45:45.

Balancing Chess and Family Life

The reason I stick with 15:10 games is that, with three kids at home—ages 3 months, 2.5 years, and 4 years—I can hardly guarantee that I'll have a quiet hour to concentrate. I also decided to make changes so that I'm not necessarily playing every day but only when I feel refreshed in the morning. This means I might not play daily, especially as I work shift work—7 days on, 7 days off. I’ve been on paternity leave for the past few months, so I’ve had more time than usual, but that’s coming to an end soon as I’ll  be back to work this month.

I also decided to play almost exclusively on Lichess, simply because I feel that players put more effort in there, and I get better quality games than on Chess.com. That’s just my feeling, as it seems that when I try to play longer games on Chess.com, opponents often blitz out their moves thoughtlessly, as if it’s a 3-minute Blitz or even Bullet game. Frankly, I find those games boring, whether I win or lose.

In that spirit, I’m planning to post my rating on Lichess as it stands now and update it from time to time. I’m not necessarily looking for major improvements right away; rather, I’m curious to see where I’ll be a year from now if I stick to my plan.

-My current Rapid stats.

Refining My Training Routine

Even with a busy home and the need to work to put food on the table for my family, I can still keep up with my training routine most of the time, which has become quite different from what it used to be. I used to spend a lot of time on openings, rigorously practicing my opening repertoire and occasionally working on tactics if I felt like it—not exactly an approach that guarantees improvement.

I use Chessbook.com to maintain my openings, and to simplify things, I always play d4, then c4 when appropriate. With Black, I respond to e4 with c5 and usually play Nf6 against d4. I still need to finalize my repertoire against d4, though.

I update my repertoire regularly by analyzing my games to see if there’s anything I need to add. Most of my lines only extend 5–7 moves deep. At my level, spending more time on openings doesn’t seem necessary, as opponents’ games often go off in various directions and rarely follow theory beyond 5–7 moves. I now review my openings first thing in the morning and sometimes at night if I have time.

From Blitz to Slow Tactics: Puzzle Training and Analysis

I’ve also changed how I approach tactical puzzles. I used to do a lot of easier puzzles to build pattern recognition. And when I tackled more challenging ones, I had a poor method—I would usually glance at the problem for a few seconds, then almost guess the first move, and if it was correct, I’d use the same approach for the next move. It was kind of like a lotto approach, just guessing moves rather than really working through them.

I changed this after watching some interviews with star coach GM Ramesh. He emphasizes that when solving puzzles, you should never make a move until you’ve actually solved the puzzle—no guessing. Just take a set amount of time for each puzzle. The effort to think and work through it, even if the result isn’t always right, brings real improvement. It’s not about guessing; it’s about genuine problem-solving effort.

Even though I’m playing fewer games, I put much more effort into them compared to Blitz games. Quality over quantity, as they say. I also analyze all my games afterward, which can take even longer than the games themselves.

First, I analyze them on my own, without an engine, trying to see what could have been done better by both me and my opponent. I estimate the evaluation after each move, noting where the evaluation shifts and experimenting with different variations to understand why things went as they did. Then, I look at it with the engine on.

In the third step, I use a site called DecodeChess, which I’ll describe in its own words:

"Chess Analysis, Powered by AI. The first AI chess tutor, DecodeChess explains the why behind chess moves in rich, intuitive language.”

This site has been helpful to me and is the closest thing to having a real coach who explains the reasoning in layman’s terms. I plan to discuss this site more in a future post on Substack, along with other tools I use for chess training. I’ll also go into more detail about how I train all aspects of my chess—not just openings, but also the middlegame and endgame. But I’ll leave that for another time.

Teaching Chess to My Daughters

As for my daughters, I’m still trying to teach my younger one how the pieces move and explaining that the knight is the only one that can jump. With my older daughter, I’m teaching her what it means to give check. I bought her the book 5334 Problems, Combinations, and Games by Polgar. She finds it fun and loves flipping through it. We’ve gone through the first six puzzles a few times, but her patience for my explanations is limited.

Instead, I came up with a fun game where I have a king, and she has a bishop. I chose the bishop because she loves it and understands well how it moves. We take turns—she gives me check, and I evade. We play this endlessly, and she’s just about getting the idea that she can’t get so close that I can capture the bishop in defense. I also do this with my younger daughter, but she’s far from understanding what’s going on.

We also tried two bishops of opposite colors. She wasn’t too keen at first and stopped wanting to play that day. But when I tried again a few days later, giving her two bishops, it worked. It’s as if she needs to try, give up, process it, and then she can grasp it.

We also tried another game where I gave her a queen, and I had a king with a pawn in front, sort of like a hide-and-seek game, but she struggled to make legal moves with the queen. It’s no problem when we play regular chess on a board, but in this game, her queen took quite a few unnecessary U-turns. I expect we’ll improve next time. It all comes with time and a lot of patience.

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Until next time, take care, and thanks for reading