Originally posted by diskamyl
wow... that's shocking to me. then what the hell makes these guys soooo much better than amateurs tactically otb?? nakamura is 1850 with [b]a lousy success rate??? and he is especially renowned for his tactical abilities! Wasn't it supposed to be all about pattern recognition? What is going on here? really.[/b]
well my homebrewn 'theory' is that contrary to popular belief, tactics is not the most important thing in blitz. I believe understanding the type of positions you get into is more important. - most moves in blitz are
not tactical, any more than in slow games. instead, most moves are in situations where you need to do a
reasonably good, non-losing move, and do it
fast. which means
you need to understand the position, which is all about experience. the non-losing part is where tactics come in. it's the blunder check.
if you analyse
any blitz game, you can see in
seconds why the losing move was bad (or very dangerous). even in GM blitz. there are no subtle brilliancies in that speed (unless it's pre-analysed), and
nobody can see all tactics in a blitz game. there simply isn't time.
I've watched the 100+ blitz games of GM henrik danielsen (http://www.videochess.net/) over and over again. and the thing that never seizes to amaze me, is how
simple his moves & reasoning are. there are no long lines, no complicated combinations. you can understand every move very quickly. and yet, he keeps routinely winning against these 2200-2600 ICC guys.