Playing bullet chess is like eating potato chips. Both can be hard to stop, and for some of the same reasons. Both are fun, and there is always room (or time) for one more. But, as with so many things, it’s important to know when to stop.
One reason bullet can be addictive is that bullet games take so little time. What’s another two minutes, in the grand scheme of things? Just as one more potato chip won’t make you fat, one more bullet game can’t hurt, can it? Or two? Or three...?
It’s also hard to know exactly when to call it a day. If you end a bullet session with a loss, you may find yourself thinking of that game until you next play. Conversely, if you just won a game, can you really break what might be the start of a big winning streak? Since there aren’t many draws in bullet, this dilemma alone can keep you playing much longer than you intended.
The underlying source of the problem, though, is that bullet is fun. As we’ve seen, the games often are exciting and unusual, and even if your last game was a disappointing loss, your next game might be a work of art. Bullet has its ups and downs, and so when someone sits down at their computer to play bullet, they rarely intend to play only one or two games. They settle in for an hour or two or three of relaxing diversion. But how often do people play more games than they planned to, or than they should?
At this point, some readers might be wondering whether any of this matters. Can bullet chess be bad for you? In the next, and final, chapter we will consider how bullet can help or hurt your chess, but what about the rest of you? Is there such a thing as too much bullet?
Our answer is unequivocally “yes.” Almost anything, taken to excess, can be bad, and bullet chess is no exception. First let’s look at the signs that you’ve played too long, and then we’ll suggest a few strategies for avoiding excessively long bullet sessions.
Signs it’s time to stop
Here is a far from exhaustive list of signs that you’ve played too much bullet and should take a break:
When one or more of these symptoms appears, it might be time for a break. Sometimes a few minutes might be enough, and after some deep breaths and a snack, you might be ready to go. But maybe not...
In Chapter 3 (“Time”) we discussed the “move count.” You can also have a “game count,” which is the number of bullet games you can play before your brain starts to give out on you. This can also be measured simply in terms of time – if you know that after two hours your play starts to seriously deteriorate, along with your own well-being, then don’t plan on a four-hour session.
It’s not only your play, of course. If you find that a three-hour session leaves your head spinning and makes it impossible to sleep afterwards, so that you’re wrecked the next day, you should stop sooner. Sometimes after overly long bullet sessions players can not only feel tired and irritable, but also angry with themselves because they have wasted several hours when they know they should have been doing something else. It’s one thing to dislike a weak pawn or a badly placed minor piece, but bullet should never lead to self-loathing.
None of this sounds like rocket science, does it? But even bullet players who are aware of all these things play longer than they know they should and then regret it. At a certain point, too much bullet chess can lead to some of the same problems as other addictions.
Strategies for stopping
We’re not suggesting that chessplayers should give up or avoid bullet chess – just the opposite! But no one should play bullet because they have to; they should play bullet because they want to.
Most of all, you should always be able to stop before things go too far and bullet is no longer fun. To this end, here are some useful ideas to solve this potential problem. Which approach works for any particular player in any specific situation will vary:
Most of all, know yourself
The most important thing is to know yourself and your limits, and to understand why you play bullet chess. One of the main themes of this book is that bullet is entertaining because it exposes the foibles of the players and it’s fun. If you play bullet for any reason other than that bullet’s a laugh a minute and you like it, you might want to give the question some thought.
The problems set out above won’t arise and the coping mechanisms we describe won’t be needed if you have the right sense of balance and simply know when it’s time to stop.
This is not to say that you might not want to continue a bullet session when you’re tired or playing poorly, if only because in competitive tournament chess (if that’s your thing) players often have to tough out adversity. And of course bad patches in bullet sessions are completely normal. By all means keep on playing, but make sure it’s a conscious, deliberate decision, rather than the result of an unhealthy compulsion to play.
The idea of using bullet chess for training purposes raises an interesting question which we will deal with in the next, and final, chapter. Can bullet chess actually be useful? We think so, but quite apart from that, it’s a wonderful way to waste time. In the modern world, with its stresses and insistence on doing everything faster, quality time-wasting is greatly underrated. Paradoxically, bullet chess can help restore the balance.