today i'd like to share with you the top seven tips to improve your results in blitz and bullet and we're gonna learn from none other about hikaru nakamura who's one of the world's best blitz players i took these tips from nakamura's own videos and articles where he shared how he plays blitz as well as my own personal impression because a couple years ago when i was less focused on coaching and more active blitz player i had a rating of slightly about three thousand and i encountered nakamura a couple times so i have my own impression of how he plays and i wanted to share those insights with you today and the first piece of advice is to never give up let's take a look at this game where gary kasparov was playing white against another grand master gear gif and in this position garrick is part of has a queen and a bishop against a lonely king as such a simply winning position but as we can see within a few moves they reached a stalemate meaning a draw and the takeaway from this example is that you gotta be shameless and you gotta play till the very end and take your chances another example of that could be this position which is a blitz game between aronian playing white against krishuk playing black certainly in this position white is easily winning it's actually black to move but nevertheless white is easily winning because of an extra piece and a couple extra points so in the game gurshuk was certainly upset about this outcome he played rook to h2 and actually resigned without waiting for the wise response he probably figured out that white has rook to g8 check mate but here's what's remarkable about this game at this point aronian had less than one second on the clock more specifically 0.3 seconds left on the clock therefore it's very likely that he would either miss the move rook to g8 or would not have enough time to actually execute it therefore once again be shameless play till the very end wait for your opponent to actually checkmate you and try to trouble him all along the way the second piece of advice is to not assume when pre-moving for example if we're going to take a look at this position here on the right side of the screen you can see the statistics of blitz games played with this and in a position like that after white played pawn d4 on the first move black responded with a pawn d5 it's quite normal for black to expect the white's main move pawn c4 and so black may pre-move the smooth pawn e6 in advance so while waiting for the white snacks move to happen black can already pre-move this move pawn to e6 but here is the trick your opponent is not forced to play c4 of course and your opponent can surprise you either just because they had something else in mind or even they can deliberately try to take advantage of your pre-move for example here you can see that a number of hustlers played bishop g5 trying to take advantage of your pre-move and indeed almost 50 000 people played this completely losing move pawn e6 because after pawnee six white can just go ahead and win the the queen right for nothing here so pony six would be a terrible blunder here but as surprising as it is it was played by roughly speaking 50 000 people versus the first most played move knight of six was played roughly 200 000 people next 150 000 next her thousand so you can see that it's quite comparable in terms of number of games played by this so once again don't assume and pre-moving only pre-move when you are 100 sure that it is safe the next advice is to avoid the mainstream opening theory here we can see the statistics of games played by nakamura playing white here in the bottom right corner you can see the number of games played over here and the move itself so you can see that for example one of the highest success rate for him as well as the second most played moves actually b3 which is not a mainstream opening at all and he's having a crazy success rate here you see over 80 all the time and by the way if you don't know how to play this i've got a video covering that opening and i'll actually love playing this as well also let's take this move back and let's say even if he goes pawn e4 after let's say black responds with pawn c5 he usually goes knight c3 you know going into the closest ceiling even though normally not f3 is a lot more popular now what's the reason for you to avoid the mainstream opening theory if you play let's say this normal move knight to f3 you get yourself engaged into this theoretical discussion and you always have the risk that your opponent knows and lies here knows some tricks here and also your opponent can easily play a number of moves quickly and unthinkingly just because it's an opening theory therefore it's always good to get your opponent off their opening preparation as well as to eliminate any risk for you to get into their home preparation and get in trouble early in the game another example would be let's just take this move back let's say when black responds with pawn to e5 again you can see that nike prefers playing knight c3 once again instead of going into the mainstream knight to r3 also you can see that he plays the bishop's opening bishop c4 which i do recommend as well and i've got videos about this opening as well if you wish to study this so all now you can see that he's trying to deviate from the mainstream opening theory and it works very well for him and the tip number four is to be a trouble maker now we're analyzing a game between some player and naka playing black it's a pretty normal equal middle game position white played here knight to e4 and you may think for a second of how would you play here if you are black i'm pretty sure that after white ghost 94 many players would just let's say trade the knights because why not seems like it's a good move to to play and after queen takes black would let's say move the other knight to f6 i'm pretty sure a lot of players will play something like this and while there is nothing terribly wrong with this it's a perfectly fine move to play there is one drawback for specifically for blitz you don't create any real problems for white and the white's moves here are very simple to play now let's revert it a little bit and after 94 naka played instead knight to d5 instead of simplifying the position he wants to keep it more complex and on top of that most importantly he wants to create a threat because now it's getting harder for white white has to think a little bit like can now respond immediately and also there is a chance for your opponent to make a wrong choice for example mikhil tal one of the former world champs highlighted that idea a lot he said that if you create problems for your opponent they can go wrong if you don't create problems they'll play fine moves so knight d5 attacks the queen queen went here to b3 black played 0.5 hitting the knight in this case that returned the knight to c5 hitting the queen once again you see that he's trying to play aggressively even though he is ready to even weaken this pawn for example but in blitz it's less critical because in blitz it's harder for your opponent to execute some long-term strategic plan so tactical operations are you know a lot more important when i played queen a3 and now knight f4 keeping the up with the same ideas pressuring this pawn on g2 in this case white played 94 maybe wanting to go on b5 so black decided to stop this i played queen of three it doesn't attack anything so the queen is already defending this one but i just wanted to protect his pawn now rook to d5 once again preparing to double the rook and to put pressure along the d file so he's always seeking opportunities to create problems for white for c4 rook to d7 92 and here black traded and again instead of starting to trade something along the d file black play rook d8 and after white defending the rook once again black refused to just uh get into this massive trail on the d file but he played knight d3 instead again keeping it more complex keeping it harder for white to figure out what to do and white immediately blunders the pawn he plays rook d2 overlooking that black can capture this pawn and white goes rook d1 overlooking another discovered attack 95 which enables this attack along the d-file but also hits the queen and white overlooked that probably because they just wanted probably thought that it's just an exchange but after knight f3 they just resigned you can see how a pretty much equal position like that equal position turned out into a victory for black just because he refused to play simple moves but instead try to complicate matters and to make his opponents live harder the next piece of advice is if you found yourself talking to your mouse it's time to quit oh come on man come on wake up you stupid mouse wake up in this case you can see that nakamura was obviously upset about perhaps some blunder he made and it does happen occasionally you realize that you're blundering more often than usual or you lose in time more frequently and because you just forgot about the clock overall it's natural for us to have a downtrend and if you notice that it's better to take a break or to even continue with playing chess four today and to recharge without waiting for your rating to drop to the very rock bottom and the tip number six is to think in critical positions only because normally while playing a blitz game you gotta play your every move within just a few seconds and you get to keep up with that pace throughout the entire game but occasionally there are situations where you may invest more time only if you think that you can possibly reach a winning position very soon and you just need to calculate the variation through for example let's take a look at this position it is white to move and we can see here that white has a number of very tempting options the queen can either go to h7 or can grab this pawn to f7 and overall it looks like black's king is in big danger and can possibly be checkmated within a few moves in a situation like that it does make sense to spend a little more time to calculate variations and to try to find the force in win because let's say if white girls queen h7 here and by girl skin fade then queen h8 check here capturing the pawn it all looks certainly good and waiting for white still have to look to f8 covering this pawn so that white cannot capture it black is still in the game white is definitely having a win advantage but it's not over and there is always risk that you will lose in time or blunder or something and by can survive here now let's take a couple moves back here instead if white chosen to take this pawn on f7 here coin takes and black goes back the only check we can give here is qh5 back and now if we calculate this line through once again we can see that it reaches a checkmate position and therefore in this case it would make sense for y to stop for a while and to calculate this line through securing your victory but in every other case make sure that you play your every move within just a few seconds by the way i've got another video where i'm sharing with you how you can execute this tactical id in your game playing white against the french defense if you're interested check this out later now we're approaching to the final tip for today this is the game where nakamura played wide against port nick another strong blitz player was wide to move now let's talk about this position in general a little bit and that will see what's the best move for you to play here and even more importantly of course the idea the pattern that you can use in your own games now white is better because he's got two minor pieces against the rook so why is having a material advantage in addition to that white has a couple cool past pawns on the queen side which are ready to be moved forward and all in all why it should be having a waiting position here of course black is going to capture this pawn on b7 because it's attacked twice and why cannot save it but nevertheless white's position is still good so what would be the best move for a while to play here well normally a gas just pushing the passport forward stuff like pawn b5 and if black captures the pawn you can keep pushing the pawn forward and white's position looks pretty much winning here but nakamura played another move instead here if we reverted back here he played queen to d7 which didn't seem like it makes much sense because the pawn is attacked twice and you cannot save it anyway and after queen takes pisan naka just traded queens here so the white's advantage here diminishes a little bit but here is the great piece of advice when you're up material or down on time during a blitz game simplify the position trade the pieces off that eliminates the risk for you to make a blunder also since the position becomes very simple you can play all the following moves quickly within seconds and even if you're really down on time you can still play a decent game of chess and convert your advantage into a win versus in a complex middle game position obviously your risk of losing down on time or blundering something or a lot larger that's why nakamura chosen not the best move objectively but the move that simply simplifies the position and that's how you can win a lot more games and lose a lot less often while playing blitz and here is puzzle of the day the most the strongest move here in this position was actually the move pawn c5 and it's a tricky move because black recaptures now it is your attack to find the wing for right here and write it down in the comments below if you can if you enjoyed this video consider subscribing and hitting the bell to keep them coming as always all the resources i mentioned the other videos will be in the description below the video as well as you can hit the card to watch the opening video or you can hit that card to watch the master class and bring your chance to the next level best of luck