Blitz Chess-Benificial or Harmful?
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In my opinion, you do improve with blitz chess. The more the better. You need to experience as many positions as possible. You will also develop quick-eye, which helps in real games under time pressure. I don't know of a master who is not good at blitz or does not play it. Use it to practice your openings, or use it to exchange and practice your endgames. You need as much pattern recognition as possible and you are playing under pressure. And it is more fun (for most) and you play more chess. An additional improvement is if you (or someone else or something) can record the game, then when you have time, go over the opening or entire game and see what you missed or try new ideas.
Any recommendation on time settings??? 3 0? 5 0? 10 0?
I have a suggestion if you play blitz and lightning online get a good sliding mouse or a sensitive trackball that will let you react faster to your opponents moves.
Blitz chess is very good, mainly for one thing: helping you recognize basic positions and threats very quickly. This will take away from a lot of the mental strain, I think, when playing longer games. From experience, I strongly recommend that you also frequently play long games. This is because if you don't, and only play blitz, you may get too used to moving quickly and have a hard time taking your time to fully analyze moves.
Sprite wrote: Any recommendation on time settings??? 3 0? 5 0? 10 0?
I'd say 5 0
I just read a fascinating article on lightning chess...sounds really interesting!
I still can't get my mind to subconciously think that fast, and am not a fan of the cheap, really quick king moves.
anything below 3|0 is not chess in my opinion.
I would say that if you are a beginner, then blitz chess is not the best for you, but if you have a solid base and you want to practice openings and see different positions, then blitz chess can offer you some interesting experience. Sometimes I also play some blitz chess as "warm up" before playing "serious" chess 
i like to play blitz chess while eating orange marmalade on toast. i find this improves my overall pawn structure and protects my knights from early capture. i highly recommend this to all beginners.
As Bill Wall states blitz chess is great for learning pattern recognitions much faster than one game a day. However, anything under 3 0 is pointless, and depending on your existing skill level, 5 0 should be a minimum for over-all improvement. I also think it is important that if you play blitz to get better than you should do some study of the games shortly there-after if you are going to gain any information from them. I prefer one or two games (I work for a living so evening personal time is limited) of which I then turn to my database to go over the openings, and to see if I followed the proper principles suited for the positions that developed.
I also suggest that you couple this with traditional game play, or at least slower time controls from G 30 to G 60. This will allow you to develop middle-game planning more efficiently than in blitz, and give you time to improve end-game principles.
I agree with you, Erik. Blitz can be fun at 10minutes each.
If you can play on a site such as Yahoo that automatically records your moves then you would have an easy time getting the notation so you could study.
Check out this #chess game: marcoms vs rohinip1297 - https://www.chess.com/live/game/2460341554
[Event "ffiissuuyyffomihar vs. rohinip1297"] [Site " Chess.com"] [Date "Nov 30, 2017"] [White "ffiissuuyyffomihar"] [Black "rohinip1297"] [Result "0-1"] [WhiteElo "1019"] [BlackElo "1124"] [TimeControl "1 in 0 day"] [SetUp "1"] [Termination "rohinip1297 won on time"] 1. e4 d5 2. exd5 Qxd5 3. Nc3 Qd8 4. Nge2 Nc6 5. d3 Nf6 6. h3 e5 7. Bg5 Bb4 8. Bxf6 Qxf6 9. a3 Bxc3+ 10. Nxc3 Kf8 11. Qe2 Ke7 12. O-O-O Re8 13. f3 Kf8 14. Qd2 Kg8 15. Kb1 Rf8 16. g4 g5 17. Bg2 Be6 18. Rhf1 Nd4 19. Ne4 Qg6 20. Qxg5 Qxg5 21. Nxg5 f6 22. Nxe6 Rfe8 23. Nxd4 exd4 24. b3 Re2 25. Rfe1 Rxg2 26. Re4 Rg3 27. Rde1 Rxh3 28. Re8+ Rxe8 29. Rxe8+ Kf7 30. Rc8 Rxf3 31. Rxc7+ Ke6 32. Rxb7 Rf4 33. Rxa7 Rxg4 34. Ra6+ Kd5 35. Ra5+ Ke6 36. Ra4 Rg1+ 37. Kb2 Rg4 38. Rc4 Kd5 39. Ra4 Kc5 40. Ra5+ Kb6 41. Rd5 Kc6 42. Re5 Kd6 0-1 Sent from my Android
I've been playing quite a bit of blitz chess on FICS, and I was wondering what you guys thought about whether it helps me or hurts my development as a chessplayer. I feel like I tend to do much better in longer games. Does one improve while playing blitz at all? Or is my best bet playing fewer, but much longer games?
I like blitz chess, especially when playing in real life, as the buzz is a lot different than standard chess. However, I enjoy chess regardless and would rather improve by not playing blitz (if that's the way to do it) then to play blitz and slowly/never improve as a player.