Is Blitz bad for learning?

I've done some research on this subject and have learned that many recommend to play no less than a fifteen or thirty minute time control when wanting to learn how to play chess better. I tend to agree with this in my own games. I'm rated around 1315 when I play three day games. I have a lot of time to analyze the positions and make the best moves. I feel that I am developing my skills well with three day games. and have been winning most of my games.

When playing blitz, (or 5 minutes if that is considered blitz), I play horribly and hang pieces and make bad moves, let alone develop a plan.

I don't want to hurt my chess development as I want to play in OTB tournaments but I see many people playing five minutes or less. 

So:

1. Would playing fast games, with the idea of playing a lot, help or rather hurt my overall development at a player?

2. Do you have any recommendations that you have learned?

Thanks in advance. I'm interested to see what you all have to say.

Destroyer_Mark_1420...care to elaborate...or will that I get "no" as your response?

I don't like daily chess for improvement. Nor do I like blitz for improvement.

15 minute games, or better, 30-90 minute games, are much better for learning.

I used to only play blitz. Didn't learn much. Now I'm playing only rapid. If I went to play blitz now, I would beat my opponents until I was like 1100 blitz. I want to reach like 1500-1800 rapid before I play blitz seriously again. 

Thanks for the response 2Q1C. So what would your recommendation be?

It doesn't hurt, but it won't help, if you just play game after game. It might be useful for practicing new openings though. 

Longer TC are more helpful as you have to spend some time thinking about certain structures. Also, you are more emotionaly connected to a game when you invest 5 hours instead of 10 minutes.

For example, I still know what happened in every game that I played in my last OTB tournament a couple of months ago. But I can't recall the blitz games I have played today... 

Blitz games are almost universally regarded as bad for improving. Myself, I spent my first 3 years playing nothing but online blitz, and I agree this sets up a lot of bad habits and doesn't even let you practice certain skills vital to long play like analysis.

Having said that, I think especially for a new player they can be a useful part of training. Certainly not a majority of your time, but lets say limiting yourself to 5 games per session. Mostly I think they help you discover the sorts of openings your peers are playing. Sure some games are junk openings you'll never see again, but some are serious and help you gain experience in your repertoire. Sometimes there are gambits or other tricky variations you won't know exist until someone plays it against you online.

The time aspect also forces you to think more schematically. Instead of I go there he goes there type of calculation... lets say when you're ahead two rooks. That's a lot. The winning idea is to trade down and then push your pawns down the board and queen. When you play players stronger than you, you'll get exposure to general maneuvers or usual patterns in action.

---

So I say it's fine to do a few games per session (and no more than 1 session per day). Go over every game you play. Check the opening against a database to see who left book first and what the usual moves are. Run it quickly through an engine to find any missed tactics. Don't spend too long looking at it, it was only blitz, but I think this is the minimum and shouldn't take much longer than the game itself.

My two cents.

Thanks for your input Jenium! My goal is to be a better OTB tournament player. So you would recommend not playing blitz at all. I'm ok with that, but it sure it fun! My thought was to play some three day time controls, so that I have some games to be working on, and then play one, or more, games at a thirty minute time control each day when possible. I also plan on going over my lost games by printing out the moves and then playing through them on a board and making notes of where I think I had issues or possibly lost the game.

Thanks Chin! I will stick with your recommendations. I appreciate the input!

According to some of the so called experts here, blitz is good because it teaches good time management skills. You don't need blitz for that. Time management skills will come with slow OTB experience. Only time management with blitz is gaining some empty points for winning on time. According to some others, blitz is useful because you can test out openings in a short amount of time. I didn't know testing an opening in blitz was the same as slow chess? And according to some here, whether blitz is chess or not is entirely 'provincial' lol.

You will become a better OTB player by playing OTB games and analyzing them.

If you enjoy it, I would continue playing Blitz. After all you are not a professional player... Just don't expect to learn that much. I don't know about others, but I never felt that Blitz had a negative impact on my thought process.  

I'm similarly good a daily games - my USCF Correspondence rating from the pre-computer 1970's is 2116.  And I'm similar;y bad a fast games.  But I think that blitz helps you develop habits of recognizing patterns and training yourself to evaluate hung positions quickly. If you can avoid getting in the habit of not doing thorough evaluations when you have the time, then it would be ok.

Yeah, I quit playing speed chess.  

Blitz develops nothing! Slow chess has time limits and more than enough time to learn good habits.