§ Thoughts on blitz chess: 950 ELO

I plan on summarizing my current thoughts on chess at different stages of ELO on Lichess. This should be fun to look back on. Currently, I found that the thing that helps me the most when it comes to winning is this simple kernel:

Attack.

With the somewhat useful addendum:

With a plan.

That's it. That's literally all I need to do. I generally try to focus on the weak f pawn, get my Queen out early (people at my ELO rating don't really know how to punish an early roaming queen. I don't know either!), at just attack. If there's an attack on your pieces, don't defend, counter-attack . Of course, there are situations where one must defend. Only defend then. Getting into this frame of reference stopped me from languishing at ~800 ELO. I used to

• get anxious about the game and the prospect of conflict.
• get anxious about the clock.
• get anxious about leaving pieces hanging.

It seems that "getting over" these anxieties took ~20 games, after which I could focus on the mechanics. This is a good reference point, since I have the same problem with competitive programming --- the exact same anxieties, in fact.