Chess Clocks: Time and How it Affects Your Game

You can learn tactics, strategy, and even endless opening theory, but you will still fall short if you don’t know how to manage your time and use chess clocks as a weapon in your chess games. I have lost many, many games up material, or in a winning position because I failed to manage my time well. Chess clocks and managing your time in chess is that extra layer of skill that you need to take your game to the next level.

How Your Time Control Affects Your Play

You can choose to play with many different time controls in your chess games. Which are best? Truly, you can play whichever time control brings you the most joy, but if you want to get better at classical chess, then try playing longer games. Online websites like Lichess or chess.com have rapid or even classical formats that let you take your time to find the best move. However, if you try to play a blitz game and still think the same amount of time you use during your rapid games, you will find yourself in trouble! Time is needed for us to come up with the best moves. This is true even for computers! Finding moves and going off more than just your intuition takes time.

Bullet and Blitz

Bullet and blitz chess are based much more on intuition than pure calculation. This is not a bad thing to practice, though. There are plenty of great uses for blitz games. Getting more practice in certain openings is useful. Bullet chess is for fun, though. Don't try to trick yourself otherwise.

When to Use Your Time in Chess

The difference between how a good player uses their time during a chess game and how a great player does is just about picking the right moments to think. Try to avoid using a large chunk of your time on any one move. Meaning no move should take three to four times more time than your other moves. Space out your time usage. But when should you be using that time?

Critical Moments and How to Identify Them

During a game, every move can feel like a critical moment, so how do we find those really important moments where we should be using our time? During your calculation, if you have already found multiple moves that result in similar positions and you are just trying to pick between similar moves, just pick one. Wasting multiple minutes, or more, on picking between similar moves is not a smart use of time. However, if you know that you are calculating between moves that could swing the game one way or the other, then those moments deserve time. 

Take the position below, for example. If you only take a few moments to think and miss out on a winning opportunity, you need to reevaluate your time usage.

Some more beginner chess players may see this attack on their f1 Rook and immediately, without much thought, play a move like Rxa1. But don’t miss out on the better option! With a little more time spent, and forcing moves examined, Qxd8+, leading to Qxe8#.

In the previous example, the opponent's king might seem safe, but there were multiple checks and captures to consider, which is a good sign that more time might need to be spent. Another good indication that you should spend a bit more time is when your opponent's king is weak. Don’t miss out on forcing checkmates when your opponent's king is weak because you didn’t use your time.

Time Usage by Beginners

One common problem I see from beginners of all ages is a failure to use their time. I have run tournaments with all ranges of ELO playing, and every time, it is the lower sections that finish their games first. Better chess players use their time. Your time is a limited resource, but failing to use that resource is a huge problem that often haunts beginner players and keeps them from succeeding.

Keep Track of Your Time in Chess

If I can give you one piece of advice on time usage in chess, it would be to simply be aware! Notice when you are using your time. Is it during critical moments? Are you spending a lot of time during the opening because you are out of theory quickly? Is it during middle games that you don’t understand? Or are you spending your time trying to find tactics that are not really there? All of these problems can be addressed, but you have to be more aware of your time usage to solve them. If you are playing tournament chess, I would recommend writing down the remaining times after each move. At least during moments of your game. You are allowed to note the clock's time after moves on your score sheet, and it can be a good step in realizing where your time is going during your games.

Online Time Tracking

After playing online games, the time has been tracked the entire time! A good exercise could be to go through multiple of your recent games and look at the moments where you spent the most time. Lichess has a nice way to see time spent in a graph format which can help you to spot those moments where you spent lots of time. Was that time usage smart, were you just picking between equally good moves? Or were you finding the only good move that kept you in the game? Evaluate yourself or let a coach help.

How Much Time Should I Be Using?

Time usage is relative. Be aware of your opponent's time as well as your own. If you notice you are regularly behind your opponents by multiple minutes, then try to give yourself a limit, like not letting yourself fall below two minutes behind your opponent. It’s not as much about how much time you should be using on any given move, but about where that leaves you in comparison to your opponent. If you get to a complicated endgame and are struggling to make moves in time, then that gives a huge advantage to your opponent.

How Time is Tracked

Ultimately, I am happy that we have chess clocks, even if I do tend to run low on time. Being able to play timed chess games with modern chess clocks that work smoothly is one benefit of modern chess. A chess clock has two connected timers or clocks with buttons that allow players to pause one clock while starting their opponent's time. This makes sure that neither player's clock is running simultaneously. Originally these mechanical clocks were what we call “analog chess clocks.”

Analog Chess Clocks

Analog chess clocks have a flag that drops to mark the precise moment a player's time runs out. This is why we still call running out of time “flagging.” They operate with high-quality mechanical buttons, where pressing a button on one side stops that player's clock and then starts the opponent's. You can still find many great analog chess clocks today, and they can be a really fun way to play chess. Nowadays for tournament play, most would recommend a digital chess clock.

Digital Chess Clock

Since their introduction in the 1970’s digital clocks have become more and more popular. Especially with the addition of Bobby Fischer’s timing method, which added time to players' clocks as they played moves. This feature, possible with digital clocks, has become a mainstay in the chess world. Many tournaments today feature time controls with either delay or increment added to the original times for players. There are many types of digital chess clocks, but if you want to play in tournament play, I would recommend going with a clock that most tournament directors will be familiar with, like one of the DGT North American digital chess clocks. 

Using Your Phone as a Chess Clock

If you are playing a casual game with your friends or family, and you don’t have an analog or digital chess clock, never fear! You can still play a timed chess game as long as you have your phone. If you use an iPhone, there is an app made by Chess.com on the app store that lets you use your phone as a chess clock. The same app is available on the Google Store as well.

How Does the App Work

These apps work similarly to the other kinds of chess clocks, but all you do is tap your side of the screen when you end your turn to start your opponent's turn. In my experience, these apps work well as a quick and easy solution if you don’t have access to a real chess clock. However, it’s hard to beat the tactile feel of hitting the analog or digital clock after you make your move.