Standard vs Blitz rating

Basically it means "you" just need a little bit more time to think to be your strongest. Or that you have bad time management skills.

Also, ratings do not compare like that. The absolute number that is your rating is only usefull to compare your strength to the players in the same playing pool.

Comparing your standard rating to your blitz rating is like comparing apples to bananas. The numbers refer to different contexts. Just like you cannot compare FIDE ratings with internet ratings.

Good evening.

I could not avoid to read your forum-post and, that title made me think. "Blitz, bullet or standard": The eternal dilema. But, what do you consider as "chess"? Is it a hobby? A life philosophy? Maybe these questions are irrelevant, but, nowdays, what's chess but time?

At present, if you want to earn a title or, have a single title norm, you've to have some minimum perfomance on standard time control tournaments: not rapid or blitz, just standard. And this is irrelevant too, but, I want to give emphasis to one thing I would like to stand out: slow chess, is the pure chess and, who know how to enjoy it, that person basicly has discovered the essence of chess, and, "that essence" is very relevant to "blitz chess". Certainly, a +2,000 rated on "bullet", has a surreptitious knowledge of slow chess: memory...

Hi GM Thipsay.

Hello, Jonc.

Bullet chess isn't entirely memory. Bullet chess also involves lots of basic "intuition" and also fast reaction time.

tricky captcha here:

didn't see that rook at first!

The reason many players have higher standard ratings could be because they play far less standard (classical) chess against a much smaller pool and thus their ratings are inflated, as Jonc pointed out. Of course, even a computer comes up with better moves when it has longer to analyze a position in depth. If you have a longer clock, you have more depth in your analysis and you perform at a higher level than you do in blitz. Perhaps also blitz players who also play classical have a slight advantage over those who only play slow chess, because you may be faster at identifying good tactics on instinct, but with longer time analyzing that line, you can better prepare for alternatives when the tactic isn't a forcing one and therefore not end up in a bad position from a failed attack, therefore you are spending your time deeply analyzing the best lines while your opponent may be spending some time looking at multiple lines that you already ruled out.

It's been my opinion that balancing between speed chess and slow chess is a good way to learn two different skills required for good chess in general. In blitz you learn to identify bad moves quickly and eliminate them from your calculations so you can focus your limited time analyzing only the best lines. In classical chess you learn the value of accumulated positional advantages leading to forcing tactics and with longer time to analyze lines, find the optimal tactics that require precision play to defend. Those same tactical lines can then be blazed out in blitz positions forcing your opponent into time pressure if he isn't prepared for them. So I imagine if you are having such an easier time with slow chess, maybe you'll see an increase in your blitz rating soon by playing both.

Lichess has a significantly larger blitz playing population than those playing rapid & classical, especially at the higher levels. Ratings being what they are, and most importantly - relative, not absolute - isn't too surprising at all. There's no disparity here. If they were meant to be about the same, we wouldn't have separate ratings for different time controls and variants.

@Tisnjh: Memory and intuition go hand in hand. Is impossible talk about that we know as chess if you talk about "intuition" and, not to mention the calculation. Bullet-chess is based in unconscious models, which, by level of expertise, will be more efficient or not.

Standard chess is the best. It has the dirtiest moves.

The kind of stuff that makes opponents squirm :D