Can Blitz chess help you improve

Hello,

I'm a bit of a newbie when it comes to chess, but I recently achieved my highest standard rating ever, (1343. I know, amateurish ;) ) and I wanted to continue on the path to being a great (amateur) chess player. Can blitz chess help me in this? I would think it could... especially 5 minute chess, since one has to think in a reasonably compressed amount of time (unlike 1 minute chess, where it's all about instincts). So, I would like to know if blitz chess can help me with my overall skill level?

Thanks,

Chessman

It won't help as much as standard would for your overall game.

How do people play blitz chess?  It's so fast that basically people have to rely on their long term memory which holds many opening, positional, and tactical patterns.  These patterns generate instant candidate moves while the conscious mind does brief calculations to see if it's safe for the specific position (and looks for exceptions to the rules).

Blitz can be good for time pressure training, opening training, and can help you drill tactics, but it can't give you these long term patterns.  The lessons and patterns that make it into long term memory are the core of your chess strength.  Blitz chess contains too man errors and poor decisions that pay off (e.g. win on time in a losing position) to build this core effectively.

So even if your goal is to be a strong blitz player, you'll build skill more efficiently in long, preferably tournament length, games.  Blitz is lots of fun, and if you want to be a good blitz player you'll need to play it now and then to maintain your ability to pick a move quickly, but it's no coincidence the best blitz players in the world are also among the top 10 players in the world.