Blitz and Bullet are not chess

Yeah they are not chess.

Oh we agree even sleeping or taking a break is beneficial!

That's kinda like teaching a kid to swim by throwing him into the deep end of the pool.   I don't agree with that training method.   

I like blitz, and play it a lot. It does not improve my game. I’m far from a beginner, having played chess for more than half a century. 

It is real chess, but for a beginner it reinforces impulsiveness before they have any conception of how to look at a position. It also rewards reckless attacks. Smoke and mirrors can be effective against weak players in time trouble, but will get you no where in slower games.

I can agree with this comment.   I'd add that G/10 or G/15 are real chess (I consider those time controls to be blitz though, not rapid).   Anything less than G/10 is going to favor speed over accuracy though, so G/5 is up for debate (as far as it being "real chess") and G/3 or faster is nothing more than a chess variant, IMHO.

Once again, what you just now claimed differs depending on the playing strength of the players at hand. At the world-class level, 3|0 holds an equal weight of speed and accuracy. Also, what makes you think that speed is not an element of skill?

"...what makes you think that speed is not an element of skill?"

Curious to know, what is the measurement of speed in this context? Is it number of moves per minute? How many mouse clicks per second?

Back to the OP --"Unless you have a really high rating and fast mind, blitz and bullet are not chess at all." Hmmm -- yes it is chess of a kind. No doubt of it. Fast of mind is necessary, but what about fast of hand? That's my issue.

I see this is an ancient but lively thread and I've been wanting to speak to the topic.

I just ain't got the mouse skills, or the 'gamer reflexes' to play these fast games. I can see the move to make but by the time my hand moves the mouse around the clock sings her song.

So I gotta wonder about these fast games -- especially Bullet. How much of the game is Chess and how much fast twitch reflexes and hand eye coordination? My guess is about 50/50.

Having said that, got a lot of respect for those what can do it.

Good point.  Ok, FOR ME, 3/0 is all about speed, because accuracy is completely out the window.  lol   I'm guessing that Super-GM's have their opening repertoires memorized 20-30 moves deep though, so most of their bullet games are played from memory.  Us patzers either can't memorize that deep or don't have time to memorize our openings that deep.   So, is speed an element of skill, memory or a combination of both?   

Good point.  Yes, mouse speed, internet/wi-fi speed, computer processor speed, hand-eye coordination and pre-moves all play a big part in winning on time in online bullet/speed chess.   These aspects of online bullet chess do not apply to OTB classical chess, therefore ONLINE bullet chess is a chess variant.   It's not real chess.  

Maybe for Super-GM's with photographic/eidetic memories, that's true.   Candidate moves don't just pop into my head though.   I go straight from memory of the book moves to calculation.   I can recognize some mating patterns and endgame patterns, but when I leave book, it takes me MUCH longer to move (being a perfectionist), which is why I will always lose G/5 (or faster) games on time.  I'm only a 2000 daily player, an 1850 classic player and a 1600 rapid player and I never play games faster than G/10, so it might be different for the big boys.

I don't like late trends of short time controls. To me chess always have been the mind game.

I like great masterpieces of past when masters played without time and without a lot of theory memorization. It was golden era of chess.

Yes, there is definitely an element of personal preference in this entire thread, for sure.   And yes, I am a little bitter and wish that I was better at blitz, because I enjoy an occasional blindingly fast G/10 once in a while.   lol   I could never see myself playing anything faster than G/7 though, even if my speed and skill were equal.   I get no thrill by winning on time, but losing the position on the board.   It feels hollow to me, like I lost the game.   I'd much rather win the position but lose on time, than vice versa.   I guess I just value quality over quantity.   

 I believe blitz and bullet helps are mind to react quickly when we hv to. make split second decisions

WHAT,no!!!

They know openings well, but more important are the many thousands of patterns they recognize in a heartbeat. I’m much weaker, but I instantly recognize at least a thousand patterns and know how to play when I see them. One that I see, but will misplay when there is no time for calculation is the classic bishop sacrifice on h7/h2. Masters know this one better than I do, and hence instantly perceive whether the defensive resources are adequate (making the sacrifice unsound). I simply play it and take my chances, half the time to my detriment.

Kotov, Think Like a Grandmaster lists the necessary defensive resources and I have this book. I could study this section to improve my instant recognition of when it works and when it does not.

Pattern recognition is fundamentally a different animal than eidetic memory. Patterns are the significant aspects of the position on the board in front of you. Someone with eidetic (“photographic”) memory sees and remembers everything, the insignificant as well as the significant.

The late Alfred Binet, often credited with having invented the intelligence test, in his first published study, studied the minds of chess masters. He was interested in photographic memory, which he hypothesized might be a factor is chess skill. His research showed him that it was not. What chess masters perceived was not the board as a whole, but relationships between the several pieces—what Yuri Averbakh would call “contacts” in his seminal Chess Tactics for Advanced Players. Binet’s work built the foundation on which later work concerning chess memory would be built.

Chase and Simon are noteworthy in their development of pattern recognition in the early 1960s and thereafter. Anders Ericcson’s work on expertise and the training of expertise through deliberate practice built on Chase and Simon’s foundation. IIRC, one of the two had been his professor (I think Chase).

Eidetic memory is more likely detrimental to chess skill than helpful.

(I understand that some chess masters have claimed the opposite, but none of them have a clear grasp of the research—rather they perpetrate long-refuted myths through their ignorance.)

Susan Polgar does help explain the research in a Google video that was made 15 years ago or so. It is called My Beautiful Brain. The episode that features Polgar also featured a young violinist, a prodigy who performed at Madison Sauare Garden at the age of nine or ten.

Found this on Binet, Chase and Simon, and Adrian de Groot: http://chessskill.blogspot.com/2008/10/familiar-positions.html#comment-form

Might be if interest with respect to my remark a few minutes ago.

An example of pattern recognition from a book on checkmates that I am writing for beginners. This position arose in a blitz game two years ago. I made the correct moves, and likely did not use more than two seconds. I could track down the game and find the move times. I do know it was a 3 0 game and that one second is my typical move time in such games.

During the game itself, I would have been aware of many contacts on the board, but now when I see this position, my eyes instantly focus on the lower-right corner where a familiar checkmate is imminent. 

Black to move