[Feature request] 15 seconds + 0 games. ¼+0 games.

1. I explained it in my first answer, as I see it. For me fast chess is a training of fast dialectical thinking. For me whole chess is a training of thinking, not only a game. Over time I noticed that it helps to take better decisions in life, analyse situations, find better answers. Fast chess also improves my ability to take fast (if a situation requires) decisions in real life.
2. You called it "pseudo clever non-answer" and "meaningless". The same as if you called it "stupid". I don't call people morons if I disagree with something. The same way, I don't call answers "meaningless", if I disagree with it. I give my arguments against those parts I disagree with. The fact that you don't argue but just decide to call it "stupid" means you are arrogant and rude.
3. Your opinion is worthless, because it's not substantiated. If you do such statements you have to be able to prove them.
No, you are not simply asking, you are being rude and insolent, and I explained you why. If you do not understand some part of my question, I can try to explain more. But you should respect others first.

Would someone else here please comment on my "discussion" with Chesstroll_Berserk and indicate which of us is being "rude", "insulting and insolent" and which of us "might need to visit a psychiatrist"?

This is my first contribution on this forum and I am staggered that Lichess allows such people to post here. Or is this just a tardy April Fool that I've fallen victim to?

@Brynteifi: To the answer of how to do it physically, there is one answer: premoves.

Without premoves one can't really play such time controls at all competitively (unlike 1 minute, where "hovering" without premoving is adequate except in extreme time scrambles).

Mentally, it's just a very different discipline than any form of chess where you have time to actually see your opponent's move and respond to it (again, without increment, 1 minute is about the limit for this in an average length game).

Traditional chess knowledge/understanding is still quite important, but other factors start to become much more important than they are in slower time controls.

Being able to assess which premoves are more or less likely to hurt your position and assess what premoves your opponent is likely to make becomes hugely important, as does speed/accuracy with a mouse and an internet connection with very stable latency.

Some people love the intelligent guessing involved and the adrenaline rush of getting such immediate win/loss/draw feedback; others hate the guessing and the importance of factors other than chess knowledge/understanding.

I'm in the latter camp, but there's no accounting for taste :)

It makes for humorous/bizarre watching, as even in the highest-level games, it's routine for pieces to be outright hanging (guessing incorrectly on premoves, or intentionally hanging something hoping to get your opponent to burn time taking it).

Cheers!

EDIT: As a further response to the back-and-forth you two are having, I would say it's a bit misleading to likening 15 second (or faster) chess to coming up with witty replies in a fast conversation.

I think that analogy holds for other fast (but slower than 15 second) time controls, like 1 minute or 0+1.

In those time controls, for at least a majority of the game, you can actually reply to your opponent's move, not to what you guess your opponent's move will be (as you must a large percentage of the time with premoving in these <=30 second time controls)

That would be like queueing up a response in your head that you will say no matter what your conversation partner says; that will almost never turn out to be witty :)

Still, to be clear, I'm not saying 30, 15, or fewer second chess is stupid or ridiculous. It's just different, and requires a different skill set.

As I said in the original message, it's not my cup of tea, but for some people it's a breath of fresh air.

To each his or her own :)

A real answer at last! Thank you.

How are pre-moves made? How is there time to make them?

You see, Brynteifi, you do not even try to continue our conversation after I answered your questions. Instead, you just try to show me in a bad light. I met such people in life. They like to create an appearance of reasonable people after they said something rude once. So, people who didn't hear the beginning of the conversation start blaming a person who answers to the insult of the rude one. You didn't insult, you just were disrespectful. I tried to answer, and you just called my answer stupid. Then you asked me questions. I answered them, and you stopped responding to me. But just tried to blame me again. This is your rotten personality and insolent behavior. I'm ready to highlight it for anyone. Because you obviously trying to manipulate moral norms. :)
Because you cannot have an argument, you can only say some subjective judgments or stereotypical answers, which proved to be effective in superficial verbal battles.
I, basically, made my input, which is not so comprehensive, as the response of a_pleasant_illusion, but you just called it meaningless and pseudo answer. And you behaved in an arrogant way, just as if I would owe you something. If you didn't find my answer helpful you could write it without words "meaningless" and "pseudo". I tried to explain from the position of human thinking, giving an analogy with verbal communication. Then you tried to blame me as if I am the rude one. No, you won't do this here.

@Brynteifi:

Premoves are something you can enable/disable in your preferences.

Basically, while it's your opponent's turn, you make a move on the chessboard.

This commits you to making that move (as long as it's still legal), no matter what your opponent does.

The advantage is that once your opponent moves, lichess makes the move for you automatically, and takes zero time off your clock (other sites do it differently, and premoves take 0.1 seconds or some other arbitrary small amount of time).

Without that, you really can't be competitive in these time controls.

The disadvantage, of course, is that your opponent might play something unexpected, something that makes your premove a blunder.

@a_pleasant_illusion, yes, it looks like this on surface, but if we look deeper in the structure of conversation, we will see, that often you have to have a prepared response already, because if you hear your opponent's argument, but have no prepared answer, you might look confused, searching for words, and your reply won't be so effective. But if you predicted your Vis-a-vis's answer, you can reply immediately, which will be more strong and direct. So, we cannot reject helpfulness of super fast chess for fast dialectical thinking. I guess both 15 seconds chess and 1 minute chess and even blitz chess are helpful for this. All, maybe, in different ways.
Also, you apparently didn't play fast chess a lot. You mostly appeal to theoretical conclusions. I played both fast and slow chess a lot myself. I try to answer from my heuristic experience.

@Chesstroll_Berserk:

Agreed. I'm certainly not proposing that in conversation (or in slightly slower chess) participants don't do any thinking or planning on their opponent/partner's time.

As you point out, clearly they do.

The difference is that in conversation or slower time control chess, while you definitely do construct some map of potential responses on your opponent/partner's time, you then select the appropriate response from that map based on the actual response you observe.

In UltraBullet, you don't get to do this. Instead, you not only plan out a response prior to seeing what your opponent does, you actually commit to a single response, no matter what (on many moves; there are of course some non-premoves).

Either way, not a huge point of disagreement.

We can definitely agree that it requires some very quick thinking, whatever the other details :)

EDIT:

Also, on what are you basing the conclusion that I don't play fast chess a lot?

The fact that this account on this site only has a relatively small number of bullet games is pretty shaky :)

Across ICC, chess.com, and lichess I've played well over 30,000 bullet games over the past few years. Obviously even that's a small number compared to some people, but I've played fast chess a decent amount, by any reasonable standard :)

@a_pleasant_illusion, yes I agree, that when you can observe your opponents answer before making a move, it looks more like a conversation. However, I think that there are more components in debates: 1. Argument itself. 2. Eloquent positioning and selection of words. 3. Nonverbal behavior. 4. Emotional part. In chess there are less parts, however, of course, there could be more variants. But my point is that those three parts of conversation may make it difficult to answer immediately after you observed your opponent's response, because you need to "write" a poem in a real time. So, often (and I experience it in life), I already prepare the whole "verse" counting on my "predicted" reply of my Vis-a-Vis. It can be risky. If my opponent says something unexpected, my "premoved" eloquent answer can fail. But if I have enough experience it can work. So, it has reference to very fast chess. We seem to not disagree much, however. :)
Ok, I see. You played bullet a lot too. I think that conversation is spectral. Different time controls can reflect different types of situations in the world of words. Also, it might be helpful in different areas. Maybe, with writing or analyzing. Or psychological analyzing (when you have to make conclusions very fast, looking on face expressions, gestures, etc.)

@a_pleasant_illusion
I'm used to using pre-moves as an answer to a possible capture but say, for example, your opponent doesn't make that capture, your clock starts ticking. The pre-move idea only seems to work (ie. doesn't cost you any time) if you guess correctly what your opponent is going to play - and how often will you get that right? And if you get it wrong you start using up your 15 seconds (or whatever).

And since the same consideration applies to my opponent I can't see how any sort of sensible game can be played.