When I watch my mates play they take no longer then 2 or 3 minutes but I've heard crazy things about people taking 10 to 15 minutes. How many different options can be made to justify thinking about it for 15 minutes? lol
When I get more experienced I might understand.

Yes sometimes its hard to know...

Here I will spend anything up to 40 minutes depending on the importance of the move.

What could take so long?

1. A hard k+p ending
2. A long tactic which you might have to check for flaws
3. A big positional desicion

Here 15 minutes is slightly more than average time spend by each player on each more!!!

Yes sometimes its hard to know...

Here I will spend anything up to 40 minutes depending on the importance of the move.

What could take so long?

1. A hard k+p ending
2. A long tactic which you might have to check for flaws
3. A big positional desicion

Here 15 minutes is slightly more than average time spend by each player on each more!!!

Yes sometimes its hard to know...

Here I will spend anything up to 40 minutes depending on the importance of the move.

What could take so long?

1. A hard k+p ending
2. A long tactic which you might have to check for flaws
3. A big positional desicion

Here 15 minutes is slightly more than average time spend by each player on each more!!!

Wow, that is more time than anyone should spend on a single move or you will surely run out of time and get into time trouble in most of your games.

Well its hard to say really, I have found myself in tricky positions before where time does slip away from me, take my game against Joshua Dalton for example. I had one or two moves there where i needed to forget about the clock for a while....

Usually, when you come to a move where you need to make a big positional decision or calculate a piece-swap of some sort, time must be taken to think. After all, Chess is a game of wit, not speed. I have found that when i come to a difficult position, i manage to bring all my options down to 2 moves(this is what happens to me MOST of the time). Picking between those two moves is not as easy as it sounds!


Statistics say that during an endgame, the average chess player is 70% likely to make a wrong move, and 30% likely to make the right move. A 'right' move can be identified as one that doesn't worsen the position OR a move that improves the position.

So Laurence's example of K+P endgame would be a spot on situation where 20-30 minutes and maybe even 40+ minutes may be needed to identify the 'right' move.

Also, Well done to AO for those two magnificent victorys over an IM!

Thanks DHC!

In the first game the International Master fell into a common trap that has been snaring strong players in the days of Alekhine and Keres. In the other game, it looked like I had won a piece but, surprisingly, white had a move that saved the day. Good thing the IM didn't see it and resigned after my Qe5.

See if you can find it - white to play and move.

So in effect, I was luckier than brilliant in scoring those two games.

I think Qg3 is right? No, im sure that you were brilliant in these games AO! beating an IM is a big deal, regardless of how it was done

Remember though, the longer you take on your move the longer you give your opponent to identify different scenarios and how to react to them. Sometimes I like to keep my moves quick, that way my opponent has less to think how to react to it and more likely for him/her to make a wrong move.