Blitz - harmful or not?

Hey when he gets older he is going to have his reveng and

by then you will be an old and will crush your old bones.

bingo!

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You purport to run into these types, almost every day.

Think about it.

Blitz rules! but not too much.. 

Yes, but in russian language ? This is new, isn't it ?

I don't know if I was insulted or not but someone said to me in what appeared to be German, "Gespritzen mit der spritzer." What does that mean? Translation please.

Blitz is harmful to my index finger. Im curently using my thumb adn when it starts hurtng ill be using my feet to press the clock.

This is what Fabiano Caruana said about blitz. What's so impressive is that he plays an hour of blitz a day. He obviously doesn't think it hurts his game!

Before [the Zurich Blitz tournament, which he won] I played a bit on ICC. I was mainly just playing 5-minute games on an anonymous account. Maybe I play about an hour every day. I don't know if it helped; I was actually doing it for fun, not to prepare for anything. 

It does not hurt his game and he does not say it helps his game.

However what helps or hurts a master may not be relevant to the average player. 

But would you really call 10 minutes with a 7 second increment "blitz"?

I don't think 15/10 games can be harmful.

I believe the most popular blitz time though is 3/0.  This fast I don't think is useful, and IMO if it's the majority of your playing time then I think it can be harmful.

Well from my limited knowledge, 10|7 is rapid and certainly not blitz. Since it would not be blitz anymore if each player has longer average(with reference to "blitz")time per move.

Your point stands but it has nothing to do with blitz is all I am suggesting.

I played 5 min, 2min blitz altenate with 10 mins and 15 mins games to see for myself if it is harmful for me. I guess it is. Adjustment was terrible and i even lost won games a while ago i was blitzing then the next was slow paced then blitz again. Whew...for me its harmful. Geesh my head hurts.

I recently started playing "online" (effectively, "correspondence") chess here, and have been astonished to find that there are often rather subtle moves in difficult positions that can turn the advantage. These are things my "chess instinct" cannot find in a matter of seconds. Blitz could only accomplish these discoveries through either post-game analysis, or multiple trials in the same position.

Based on my experience, both with local tournament play and recreational chess with friends, I find G/90 to be about ideal for serious play. G/30 or quicker tends more towards "hope chess." (In other words, "Let's see what happens if i play ....") G/60 is better, but leads to too many time trouble scrambles. G/90 gives one time to analyse positions during the game.

I think blitz can be helpful for cleaning up and expanding your opening repertoire, and for increasing pattern recognition. However the "blitz" thought process is somewhat shallow, and if you play too much you may find yourself thinking like its G/5 0 rather than G/45 45.

I believe that it's significantly easier to calculate and visualize with a larger 'database' of patterns, so according to my little theory blitz can help you calculate in longer games by widening your analysis tree (your # of candidate moves) so long as you're sure to recognize and remember that blitz and long chess are different games and require different approaches.

Actually, based on my recent online games, I think blitz may narrow the number of candidate moves. Blitz requires quick decisions, and quick decisions are often inaccurate decisions, unless superior pattern recognition already exists. Multiple innacuracies do not trump slower, methodical, accurate thinking. Therefore, I believe that slower games and post-game analysis is of far greater value until one has achieved significant skill.

In general you're probably right, everything you said is very logical. I guess I'm partial to some blitz because I actually had a problem with finding lines quickly (all I ever played for my first 2 years of chess was slow chess), and blitz has helped speed up my thought process in slow games to widen the number of lines I see in any one position.

But I know that my blitz games are significantly worse than my slow games, for the reasons you mentioned. However, I view blitz as a tool, and slow chess as actual chess . 

Although we may end up agreeing to disagree, we can find common ground in that bullet is utterly useless, and will surely destroy one's thought process.

Too much blitz and rapid chess is like a steady diet of junk food yes it's harmful in the long run but that's all people want to play online fast chess is pushed down everyone's throats in OTB chess too which is not a positive thing but reality :(

60-98 minute slow games are non existant nowadays because chess online is dominated by cheaters too many clowns who time squat or play funny games that ruin the whole thing which I think is a shame slow games help develp skills and good thinking habits.