Is blitz really bad if u want to improve

Yes, blitz does help you improve in time trouble situations but not as much otherwise as rapid and standard

Not really, knowledge helps you improve in time trouble. Ofc you will gain a minimal increase from playing blitz but it's a really bad way to improve.

I disagree with all four of those "positives":

• In blitz, nobody ever plays the openings you want to practice, and even when they do it's some bad line or you'll forget your openings.
• Blitz helps your endgame technique? Really? You're learning how to play endgames when you're really just trying your hardest to flag your opponent? Sure.
• Maybe you're right here, but in blitz one is constantly under the gun, constantly needing to do something that can be very hard to impossible at times: finding a good move. I don't think blitz improves your tactics as much as it puts them to the ultimate test.
• "Efficient thought process"? There's a difference between quick and efficient. One really has to simplify one's thought process and lower one's goals (from playing the best move one can find to playing a decent move) when one is playing blitz as opposed to a longer game.

On the other hand, one of IM Jack Collins's ways of training a young Bobby Fischer was to make him play blitz quite often as a means to get him to play faster. You can interpret that however you wish.

...which affirms my contention that it depends on your playing strength.  Fischer was a slightly better player than most of us (), a firm background in openings, middlegame, endgame.  Apparently his coach used blitz for the sole purpose to help Fischer with time management, not with his playing strength.  Once I am good enough to beat nearly anyone but lose occasionally on time, I'll start playing blitz.  The measure of World Champion is in slow, OTB chess in which both sides attempt to find the best move with careful analysis.

I just finished a game of blitz chess, and realized i was holding my breath the whole time!

now I'm ready for snorkeling...

It depends on what aspect of your game you want to improve. You can't learn something if you don't train it or don't study it. In blitz you don't practice in-depth analysis, neither strategical nor tactical, because you don't have time to consider all positional features or all move variations. It's more about pattern recognition and speed of reflexes, also about trying to exploit other factors in the game like time advantage, psychological advantage, etc. So if you want to improve the latter, you may train with blitz, but otherwise it's better to look for other ways for improvement.

i always thought that blitz was a quick way of testing a particular strategy and maybe passing time

Because "chess is 99% tactics" I think that playing a lot of games is important and blitz allows that.  (I will say that it is frustrating when you are playing people whose entire strategy is "winning on the clock".)  I think you need to do other things:  watch videos, study openings/endgames/tactics, play slower time controls, etc. to have real growth. I love blitz, but there is a point of diminshing returns.

Yes.

Are you an optimist or a pessimist?

Because it is either a really BAD way to improve at chess, or a really GOOD way to regress or stagnate.

Having said that, it's all I ever play anymore, and I am gradually improving over the course of thousands of games.

For me at least, blitz did not help me improve significantly. Games were decided by blunders that I would not make in OTB games. I recently discovered 30/0 games really helped me, but not that many people play 30/0, and some people have encountered trolls that let their clocks slowly run down. I have not experienced this yet, it might be more common with under 1400 elo players (my filter is for 1400+).

I noticed that when I play blitz I usually make nosense moves only to not move on time, so I don't improve. And blitz don't help me add patterns in my mind, because I memorize patterns only if the move is logical, but this is for me.

I'm finding that blitz chess depends a lot on the stability of your internet connection. Like, if you get

disconnected, then when it comes back on, first it resets, and then it

substracts time from you, and even you may have to re-play your last move.

It penalizes you for having a poor connection!!

I lost a game i didn't even play! I saw my score had decreased by four points,

and I had resigned from a game I never even saw on my screen. That's not

fair!!! It said "o" moves.  That's super depressing, but i don't know who to

complain to. Help!!

You may want to make your own forum and post that in there.

Oh, and four points are not that much.

I don't know why you dug up this forum!

Thanks everyone, it's not the four points, it was just that i couldn't figure out

what happened. I think the program thought I'd resigned!