How to Improve at Bullet Chess?

Many players get fascinated when they see top players playing bullet chess games and thinking soo fast. There is no rocket science in it. Top players worked hard on chess improvement, and hence they can see moves at lightning speed. In this article, we will see eight ways how to improve at bullet chess. 

Those players who play Bullet chess often lose because of poor time management and also due to a lot of blunders. This can be solved by doing regular chess practice.

The best way to improve in bullet chess is to play regular games and solve tactics. If you do this consistently for the next 30 days, you will see improvement in yourself. 

8 Ways to Improve at Bullet Chess

1 – Play a lot of games

Playing a lot of bullet games will obviously help you to improve your bullet chess. You can play daily for 30-45 min. You can finish almost 20-30 bullet games in that time frame. If you do the same thing for a month, you will end up playing 1000 bullet games which will help you to improve your bullet understanding significantly. 

2 – Prepare gambit openings

Preparing gambit openings is also a great way to win more and more bullet and blitz games. In gambit openings, the player sacrifices one pawn to gain space advantage. If you prepare this kind of opening, you will get a better position easily.

Usually, in classical games, ga, bit openings don’t work well as both players get plenty of time to think. In bullet and blitz, the opponent doesn’t have time to find the perfect move. 

But at the same time, you should know each and every move in the opening in detail. You are giving your pawn free to gain space advantage. If you are not able to play properly, you will end up getting the worse position. 

3 – Prepare opening traps

Preparing opening traps will help you to win games quickly in all formats. I have won more than 100 games on the board by setting up a trap. There are various resources to prepare for the opening trap. The best resource is youtube.

You can just search the opening name followed by the trap word, and you will get many videos on that opening.

Also, it is important to prepare opening traps from the opposite side also. You should know what to play if the opponent sets up a nasty trap on you. So whenever you prepare a new opening, try to understand the traps in that opening. 

4 – Understand basic endgame

You should know basic chess endgames, which usually occur on the board. If you know how to deal with it, you will easily convey the position into a win. Almost 80-90 endgames are essential until you reach 2000.

It is very important to know pawn and rook endgames. You can study 100 endgames you must know book by Jesus La De villa. In his book, he covered everything related to basic endgames. You can also watch basic endgame videos on youtube and understand concepts.

Usually, it is hard to understand the concepts of some endgames. At that point, the video becomes very useful.

5 – Solve a lot of chess puzzles

Solving a position helps you in improving your middle game. This is also the best way to improve your game. If you love to solve positions, there is nothing better than that. Solve atleast 10-12 positions according to your level. The best way to solve position is from chess.com. Chess.com is a perfect tool for chess puzzles. 

There are also a lot of chess books available such as 1001 chess tactics for beginners, etc. 

6 – Enable the auto queen feature

Usually, when you play on chess.com or on lichess, these websites give you the option white promoting queen. But the majority of the time, we need to promote the queen only. You can simply go to settings and turn this feature on, which will save you a fraction of a second. 

If you enable the auto queen feature and suppose you want to promote a pawn to a knight, simply press control and then move your pawn. It will again show up as a popup.

7 – Enable the pre-move feature

Enabling pre-move is also very important in bullet chess. Pre-moves allow you to play moves before completing the actual move. On chess.com, you can make 8-10 pre-moves; on lichess, you can make only one premove. 

8 – Use chess insights by chess.com or lichess

This is also a great tool for improvement. On chess.com, you will need a diamond membership to access the insights feature. On lichess it is free. From insights, you will get a lot of information about your games and weaknesses. It is a very useful tool for all chess players. 

Apart from this, you can use aimchess for your chess insights. Aimchess is a very advanced chess tool that helps you analyze your games with AI and tell your mistakes. We have already reviewed Aimchess, which you can read here.

FAQ’s

Is playing bullet chess good for you?

No. No one will recommend you to play bullet chess for improvement. Bullet chess is for fun and to enjoy chess. There is always excitement in playing bullet chess. If any kid is playing bullet, don’t stop him. Instead of this, slowly start suggesting he focus on chess practice and reducing bullet games. 

When should you start playing bullet chess?

It depends from player to player. But I believe it is not that easy to play a bullet game. You must have a basic understanding of chess. You only have 1 min. I recommend you start playing bullet chess when your rating reaches 1000.

Conclusion

If you try to follow the above tips and tricks, I am sure that you will increase atleast 100-150 bullet rating points on any chess platform within 30 days. The above ways will also help you improve your overall chess. Instead of using cheap tricks, if you focus on improving your overall chess strength, it will be beneficial for you for long-term growth.

The above suggestions might feel boring for you, but trust me, analyzing your games and solving puzzles is as important as playing chess for fun.