Blitz and Bullet are not chess

This is a debate thread.  I'm just debating my opinions.   I never said that anyone is wrong, so there's no need to get testy.   

All opinions are not created equal. Some opinions can be proven to be false with reason and logic. 

The argument that blitz chess and bullet chess are not chess can be disproven from a practical perspective by observing the following:

*  The rules of blitz and bullet chess are substantially the same as chess played at slower time controls. 

*  The best blitz and bullet players are also the best at slower time controls

* The best chess players spend as many as 7 hours a day playing blitz and bullet chess

* Magnus Carlsen, the current world champion at "Classical" chess, has recently argued that the future of chess is in blitz chess

Patzers may argue differently. But when FIDE's laws of chess state that the rules are the same, the best chess players train by playing blitz, and the World Champion says that the future of the game is in blitz time controls, it's time to accept that blitz chess is substantially the same as chess at slower time controls. 

There are plenty of people who aren't happy with blitz time controls, but they don't argue that blitz chess is substantially different from slower time controls. They argue that humans need more time to process the positions in order to play the game better. That's an important distinction.

Opinions can be wrong.

On their own, opinions have no element of right or wrong, and thus, cannot be disproven. The claim that blitz chess and bullet chess are not sports assuming that standard chess would be considered a sport is not an opinion; it is a thesis. But yes, it is one that can be disputed using the evidence you just now put forward. 

I have found that speed chess, regardless of the time control increases my pattern recognition skills. I play mostly correspondence chess with a time control of 30-50 days per 10 moves - and it helps me even there!

Since the term "real chess" seems to be a sticking point and open to opinion, how about we re-word it and all just agree that blitz reduces the creativity of chess and emphasizes speed over accuracy?   Bullet much more so than blitz.   Bullet, using pre-moves, is nothing more than a chess variant and could easily be re-named "Beat The Clock, With a Chess Theme".   

blitz is fun since theres a time limit

Bullet sucks

Americans don't play real football. Their game has more to do with the hands.

In my opinion Bullet is chess but not in the right spirit. Chess is a thinking and strategy game. In bullet, moving as fast as your mouse can go is not strategy or thinking. The recent update took 10 minute games out of the blitz category and into rapid. I was disappointed but 5 minutes is still enough time to rationalize your moves and while you will most likely get into time trouble if the game is over 30 moves, it will not turn into a "battle of the reflexes" that bullet is based around. I play 5-minute blitz and I often lose on time. I have to get used to this as this is mostly my fault but chess should not be so much about speed as careful thinking and brilliant play that will blow the board off it's hinges. What i'm saying is bullet has no value except the adrenaline rush every time your opponent makes a move, which is not chess its just for adrenaline junkies.

On the contrary, chess skill rests primarily on pattern recognition. Bullet challenges your instant recognition. It is the very essence of chess.

It is also a sport.

Depends what bullet... 2|1 and sometimes 1|0 are a real game, and blitz is almost always just a regular game imo

Alternate title: Blitz and bullet are different kinds of chess.
It is still chess. When most non chess people think of chess, (in my experience) they think of classical. Games that can last hours. Shorter time controls make us play very differently for sure. People may be more likely to play dubious lines and gambit to be tricky, and checkmate will not always be the outcome. I agree they are very different but they are the same game in a literal sense.

And yet, Beth seemed to play fast in every game. I seriously doubt that non-players can wrap their heads around my opponent spending 38 minutes on his move, and my “instant” response coming 22 minutes later. The time control was g120.

Now you're just trying to start a fight.   lol   

Really?   The only blitz I ever played was G/10.   I guess I'll be sticking to rapid and daily from now on.   

Naaa, pattern recognition and tactics are only half the battle.   I win a lot of daily games due to my superior strategy and deep calculation ability, in spite of my mediocre/average tactical ability.   In fact, I once won 60 games in a row of street chess, playing without a clock.   You can't rush genius. 

Here's an interesting point that we haven't touched on yet.   Yes, players often play unsound gambits and sacs, which tend to win on time due to their shock value, but would lose in a longer game since they aren't totally sound.   This is the main reason that blitz and bullet aren't real chess.   

It doesn't help that I'm 57 years old either.   I used to be able to handle blitz when I was younger and could calculate faster.   I never preferred it over rapid or classical chess though.

This is a bit of a misunderstanding about the nature of blitz chess for humans.

The two best blitz players in the world right now are Naka and Carlsen. Watch them play. They definitely do calculate their combinations, but more often than not they just know where the pieces belong. Great calculating players such as Caruana do much worse in blitz than in slower time controls. 

This isn't because they don't know when to stop calculating. It's because calculating tactics accurately takes much more time than having an intuition about where the pieces belong. The remedy for such players who suffer from spending too much time calculating is to practice at a faster time control. For example, if you want to do well at 3 0 chess, play a bunch of bullet chess! The faster time control forces you to play on intuition more, and to learn to become more economical in calculating.

Go and tell that to Caruana. There is reason why some people have higher classical ratings but cannot play on par with people like Nakamura in blitz. Calculation and pattern recognition are two different things. Having a better calculation ability doesn't help in blitz because there isn't enough time to calculate.You seem to be confusing pattern recognition with Calculation.