Blitz - harmful or not?

Damn, 3 years of 10/0 games, little improvement and only now I find out why!?!? 

I'm getting paranoia that the bad habits are already formed, ill be rubbish forever!

I have played blitz on other sites and have fun pulling off all kinds of strategies. Not on this site. If it works it has a short shelf life span. The players on this site knowledge is too strong. Any they share tactics here.

Harmful and not harmful

Yes, the question is a bit funny to me because if you work hard on you chess already, then having some fun in blitz can't be that bad.  But I get the impression when people ask this that they're asking for permission to play blitz all the time.  The truth is that chess is like any other skill.  The skills you practice are the ones that improve.  The ones you ignore will slowly fade away.

I would say that a person who started off playing blitz it would not harm their game. But to improve in decision making with the correct move you need to practice with better time controls to evaluate every move. The difference between picking the best move and 2nd best move. The move leads to mate in say 11 moves while the 2nd leads to a gain a material and the game is goes on for 15 more easy before either side can start to see a win soon.

Blitz is fun/relaxing and I play blitz as an escape more than anything else. If your main goal is to become a strong chess player though , I don't believe blitz helps much at all , if any .  

blitz blows away the cobwebs from the machinery inside the skull.

I think blitz is fun and not too harmful to you game, but it can be hard to slow down and calculate well after playing lots of fast games.

I've decided that for the time being I'm not going to be playing blitz as it doesn't really seem to help me improve and because it's so easy to click the new game button over and over again, and I don't have time for that.

I guess I should probably decide not to go on the chess.com forums if I want to use the time I have for chess for improvent!

Blitz helps, most of the people advocating against blitz only say it cause most people who do play blitz go crazy and play too much. In moderation, blitz teaches you decision making skills, intuitive thinking, quick thinking, helps against time trouble, generates a wide range of experiences, easy to try new openings and styles and is easy and convenient. Problem is, most people who go crazy get addicted in blitz or play even faster time controls like 1 minute and just use speed and tactics to win. Treat blitz as if it's a real game and you'll see it improve your play.

sounds like you know a lot of people, man (crazies at that).

Well said! 

Blitz can be an extremely useful tool, when used in moderation. 

It's no coincidence that every elite GM plays some blitz. Every world champion except Botvinnik excelled at blitz. But every one of them also knew that too much blitz can be harmful. Aww-rats' comments are only correct for those who play blitz instead of analysing long games, and not in addition to analysing long games.

Moderation in all things, even blitz.

too much of anything is harmful, "too much" is too much.

your man said, "blitz makes them crazy", then they play too much.

i didn't know blitz could zombie a chiller ?

Well, in the case of Hikaru Nakamura, no. He spent a dozen hours a day playing bullet chess! 

And yet was it not the same Hikaru Nakamura who stated "Bullet is not chess"?   This despite being one of the world's best at it and having written a book on bullet.

Nakamura didn't have to admit it. He played online non-stop on another site. I don't have his online stats available from his early days, but I'd bet he spent more than 50% of his waking time playing blitz and bullet chess online when he wasn't in school. Nakamura agrees that in order to make the leap from a run-of-the-mill ~2500 rated player he had to give up his bullet habit and actually focus on analysing chess. 

I'm not suggesting that Nakamura should be the model for today's players.

Magnus Carlsen may be a better role model. He used to play blitz and bullet chess on that other site all the time too. By 2008, he'd played thousands of blitz and bullet games on his main account there. He still does play blitz and bullet, but he uses a private handle so as not to be disturbed. 

Again, the secret isn't to stop playing blitz chess, the secret is to do it in moderation. There are many useful things to learn from blitz, as was mentioned earlier. But there's also a danger of slipping into lazy thinking.

Combine blitz with serious chess study, don't think of blitz as a substitute for deep thinking.

Blitz: toxic, harmful and radioactive to your chess. I claim the title of the worst blitz player in the southern hemisphere. I plan to go to the northern hemisphere to complete the job.

Well said. Actually, I play nothing shorter than 30/0, and I feel that I need to go back to longer games. When I was playing a local (now defunct) monthly 90/0 tournament, I found 30/0 games detrimental.

Blitz OTB is much better, both more enjoyable, and better for learning. My opponent and I often will go back to several position from the games and work other lines. Also personally I found blitz to be very helpful in learning not to be passive, and to learn effective and efficient attacking

That depends on who is playing. I'm sure Magnus Carlsen would have no trouble beating you with only one minute with "strategic planning."

It's as much chess as OTB long time controls. Just a different format.