How are people not spending any time on thinking?

Hi, 

I've started playing chess actively in the last couple of months and I play both here and on Lichess (but more here). I always play Rapid 15/10.

One bizarre pattern that I'm noticing when playing on both sites is that my opponents barely spend any time thinking and that causes me to lose some games because I go down on 2 minutes, 1 minute, or even below and I have to play fast while they have like 8 or 9+ minutes easily without ever blundering. For clarification, I don't spend 3 or 4 minutes on a single move but I do tend to analyze, do the calculations, and then play. 

This happens really often and it's starting to become annoying. I mean if they're better how come they're playing in the beginner rank with me? If they're not better how come they can play that fast? 

All help/advice is appreciated!

P. S. I'm 500+ on Chess.com and 1150 on Lichess. 

Kind regards,
Djordje 

Some people plan their moves while you are taking yours so they do not need to spend their own time thinking about a plan.

As you gain experience and confidence, your play will naturally become faster and more intuitive.

That's right.

My problem is that I plan what to do in response to a few things, and then my opponent does something completely different 💀

Try playing even longer time controls like 60 minutes

This is why I stopped playing 15/10 and moved to 30-minute games instead. There is still the exact same problem, but at least it’s less intimidating to see a little time going off there clock, instead of it staying the same or going up.

Every single person who does this and answers when asked about it also parrots the line above about thinking during your time, as if they’ve figured out a secret no gm knows lol. Unfortunately, it’s just reality that the majority of online players are underrated entirely because they enjoy playing too quickly, so if you are serious about improving and reaching your best possible rating, you will forever have to deal with this. I’ve asked this question a number of different places, and turns out it never stops no matter how good you get.

I wrote a response to your post 1 hour after you made your post.

However, I got busy that day and forgot to submit it.

Fast forward 3 days and I have finally realized my error.

Sorry for delayed response.

———————

My Response is “You already answered your own Question”.

The opponents you are facing are better vs. you.

However, they are not better in the way you think.

You see if your opponents truly was better vs. you they would be much higher rated vs. you.

The fact they are same rating means they are not overall better vs. you.

——————————

What you are experiencing is what I like to call the beginner quick sand.

Your opponents are moving faster because they are more familiar with the line you’re playing. They have more experience and so they use less time to think.

You are probably newer to seeing the positions so that is why your spending time to think.

At first glance, you would think that because a person has more experience in a line that should make them better.

Sadly that isn’t always the case.

A chess player can play the same position 10,000 times and do same bad moves all those times and never improve.

They get stuck

Just like quick sand.

This sort of thing happens at almost every level of chess.

It even gets worse when you reach high levels.

High Level players are notorious for being stubborn.

Most beginners get stuck because they lack knowledge and stuff.

High level players get stuck because they willfully refuse to do what they should do to get better.