5 minute chess: tips for beginners

Five minute chess is a different game from the chess in books. You have five minutes on your clock for the whole game, and when it runs out you lose, however good your position. Strong players lose won games on time every day. Weaker players save lost games by keeping their heads while the clock runs.

In every Dream Games tournament each player has 5 minutes for the whole game, with no time added per move. If you plan to play in one, these are the habits worth building first.

Know where your time goes

A game lasts around forty moves, sometimes many more. Five minutes over forty moves is seven or eight seconds a move. You will not spend it evenly, and you should not try to, but it helps to know the budget before you start.

A rough plan that works for most beginners:

• Play your opening quickly. Ten or fifteen seconds for the first ten moves together is plenty if you know what you are doing.
• Spend your real thinking time in the middlegame, where the game is usually decided.
• Keep at least a minute for the ending. Endgames with few pieces still need accurate moves, and you will need time to make them.

Glance at your clock every few moves. The players who lose on time are almost always the ones who stopped looking at it.

Play an opening you know

The opening is where five minute chess rewards preparation most. If you play the same first few moves every game, you can make them almost instantly, and the time you save is time you can spend later when it matters.

You do not need a large repertoire. One opening as White, and one reply each to the two most common first moves, 1.e4 and 1.d4, will cover most of your games. Pick ones that lead to positions you understand, rather than the sharpest lines you can find. Familiar beats clever when the clock is running.

Check every move before you make it

Most five minute games are not won by deep plans. They are lost to pieces left hanging and checks nobody saw coming. Before every move, ask two quick questions:

• What did my opponent's last move threaten?
• After my move, is anything of mine undefended or able to be taken for free?

It takes a second or two, and it saves more games than any opening.

Keep the position simple when you are ahead

If you are a piece up, you do not need to find the best move. You need to find safe moves and trade pieces when you can. Every exchange makes the position simpler, your advantage larger in proportion and your opponent's chances of a swindle smaller.

The reverse is true when you are behind. Keep pieces on the board, look for complications and make your opponent think. A difficult position costs time to play, and in five minute chess time is something your opponent can run out of.

Use your opponent's clock

When it is your opponent's turn, you are not resting. Look at the position, work out what you will do in reply to their most likely moves, and when they move you can answer quickly if they played what you expected.

Make your moves cleanly when you have decided. Hovering over a piece, picking it up and putting it down again all cost seconds you will want back later.

Know the endings that come up most

You do not need to study endgames for months to play five minute chess well, but a few are worth knowing so well that you can play them without thinking:

• Checkmate with king and queen against king, and with king and rook against king.
• Pushing a passed pawn with your king in front of it.
• The basic idea of opposition in king and pawn endings.

Practise these until they are automatic. They come up far more often than you would expect, and in five minute chess there is never time to work them out from scratch.

Know the rules of the board you play on

Every site handles a few details its own way, and on Dream Games these are the ones that matter at speed:

• There is no time added per move. When your clock reaches zero, the game is lost.
• Stalemate, threefold repetition, insufficient material and the fifty move rule end the game as a draw automatically. When you are losing on the board, steering towards one of them is a legitimate way to save a game.
• A pawn that reaches the last rank always becomes a queen.
• In a tournament knockout, draws cannot be offered, and a drawn game sends the higher seed through.

Do not tilt

Losing a won game on time is frustrating, and the natural reaction is to play the next game faster and angrier. That is usually how one loss becomes three. If you have lost two or three in a row, take a break. It costs nothing, and it is the single habit that separates players who improve from players who repeat the same game all evening.

This matters even more if there is anything at stake. Never play another game to win back money you have lost. Decide what you are comfortable playing for before you start, and stop when you reach it.

Practise at the speed you will play

The best way to get better at five minute chess is to play a lot of it and then look back at the games you lost. Most losses will come down to one of the habits above: a piece left hanging, a clock ignored, an ending you did not know.

On Dream Games, practice is free. You can play chess against a bot on easy, medium or hard, or send a friend a link, with nothing staked and nothing recorded. Practice games use the clock of a normal match, 10 minutes each, so set yourself a target: finish them with at least half your time still showing. When you can do that comfortably, five minutes will feel familiar, and you are ready to think about a tournament.