My First Online Bullet Chess Games

Photo by Mike from Pexels

I first started playing chess online at Chesscube because that seemed like a popular site back when I joined in 2010 but the earliest recorded game I had in the archives was in 2012. The reason being I wasn’t that serious with chess before 2012 and I only thought about playing it casually if I had the time.

But come 2012, I wanted to take chess a bit more seriously so I decided to refresh my mind and explore new avenues in the chess world. I mean, I played in grade school but it was only in high school when I met some friends who were actually good in chess, I found the drive to work on improving. Though that didn’t happen until much later.

In 2012, I played chess online, not just on Chesscube but I also looked at other platforms and I only saw Chess.com. I became a member on Chess.com in 2012 but it seems that my archives only had games starting 2013.

If I recall correctly, the reason why I started playing on Chess.com was to see what my rating would be on a different site so most of my games on Chess.com began with blitz and bullet. By that time, I already had enough experience playing chess to hold my own against other players in faster time controls.

Going back to Chesscube, these games that I’m going to show won’t even be worth making an analysis of. They are purely just for fun and there’s no point in trying to evaluate the positions. However, it can give us a bit of insight on how our level of understanding in chess would enable us to do well in any time control.

This is why it is often suggested to play longer time controls before delving into the exciting world of blitz and bullet chess. That way, you already have enough foundation on chess principles to actually have fun while playing the game. It’s not fun messing up or making blunders. It would be too disheartening when you always find yourself in time pressure and losing because you couldn’t find the right moves.

That often happened to me when I played blitz and bullet without having the proper positional or even tactical awareness in chess. You don’t need an extensive knowledge of chess opening theory, middle game strategy, or endgame technique in order to play chess sensibly and rationally.

For those getting introduced to chess for the first time, the best way to learn is to play. These experiences would help mold your understanding and give you precious insight in tackling various positions that you encounter. So, the more I played and watched other players, I picked up many useful concepts that I started to apply in my games. And I saw the improvement from when I started. Let’s look at these games.

caspian16 – jeremiah10

I got the idea of playing 10-seconds with 1-second increments by watching other players and I wanted to give it a try because I might swindle some people just by flagging their time.

In this game, that didn’t happen although I was able to efficiently use my time by making moves just for the sake of gaining time. My opponent did the same so we didn’t lose much time. However, the cost of that was the position.

In the latter part of the game, we were just flinging our pieces around. I didn’t even touch my rook or king, only my bishop moved. Luckily, I captured several of his pawns as well as his rook. But the final position was stalemate. My opponent was aware of the position and so used that to his advantage. Without realizing it, I had handed the draw to my opponent.

jeremiah10 – chaitanya6791

This next game was more composed than the first and it was actually quite decent. But as time elapses, it doesn’t matter whether you have the upper hand in position or material, sometimes it all comes down to how much time you have left on your clock.

In my last move, I made a mistake and supposedly would have lost a piece. But my opponent didn’t notice that their time was running up and they forfeited on time. There weren’t as much blunders here as with the first game, though there might be inaccuracies here and there. At the end of the day, it came down to the time.

ngagba – jeremiah10

I got destroyed in this match but if I hadn’t panicked and saw the right move in move 13, I would have had a comfortable edge over my opponent. But hindsight is 20/20. Things went downhill from there and I just threw in everything at my opponent including the kitchen sink and just let him capture all my pieces. I resigned on move 32.

jeremiah10 – ngagba

I asked my opponent for a rematch and they obliged. I did well in terms of position and even gained a material advantage. However, I lost track of the time and forfeited.

Playing chess is only fun if you’re strong

I’m actually quoting an anime when I say this and I only changed it to refer to chess. But I think the idea is the same for every competitive game or sport. You won’t have fun in something when you keep losing. It will just make you frustrated or indifferent. That’s why I resolved to get better and improve at my chess skills so that I would know the feeling of winning especially in a hard-fought game.