Is playing blitz a way to improve

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Avatar of medelpad

Lately i have been getting more into blitz and i personally find it more enjoyable and less stressfull than rapid, can i still improve?

Avatar of rook_fianchetto_37
medelpad wrote:

Lately i have been getting more into blitz and i personally find it more enjoyable and less stressfull than rapid, can i still improve?

yes, you can still improve by playing blitz. playing too much blitz at once however is bad.

Avatar of rook_fianchetto_37

hope you don't mind me saying this but you have posted quite a lot of forums about getting the fastest improvement. I admire your determination and sheer willingness to improve, but don't overwork yourself or overstretch yourself. Remember that the best improvement comes when you enjoy the process, because that is when it stops becoming "hard work" or a "grind"

Avatar of rook_fianchetto_37

But if you are enjoying it, then keep doing what you are doing. You are doing great man!

Avatar of DoYouLikeCurry
Most masters use blitz primarily for learning their openings I believe
Avatar of rook_fianchetto_37
Daddy_Chillimao wrote:

yes

rapid is not real chess

???

Avatar of rook_fianchetto_37
DoYouLikeCurry wrote:
Most masters use blitz primarily for learning their openings I believe

I still do learn things from blitz, but not as much as classical and rapid

Avatar of tygxc

Blitz is for fun.

Rapid and classical are for improvement and fun.

Avatar of medelpad
Anirudh_23 wrote:

hope you don't mind me saying this but you have posted quite a lot of forums about getting the fastest improvement. I admire your determination and sheer willingness to improve, but don't overwork yourself or overstretch yourself. Remember that the best improvement comes when you enjoy the process, because that is when it stops becoming "hard work" or a "grind"

i like reading posts about improvement and when i cant find ones i make my ownwink

Avatar of KeSetoKaiba
medelpad wrote:

Lately i have been getting more into blitz and i personally find it more enjoyable and less stressfull than rapid, can i still improve?

Yes, you can learn a lot from speed chess, but generally speaking, longer time controls are better for learning:

https://www.chess.com/article/view/is-speed-chess-good-for-you

Avatar of premio53

This is why is blitz is nothing but a cruel joke when trying to compare it to serious classical chess. Otherwise known as skittles.

Avatar of Rx3thd

i think its better to think and play happy.png

Avatar of PromisingPawns

Better to think and play, but I am kind of an example who has played much more blitz than longer controls for improvement. However, don't be fooled. As I wasted my time playing speed chess, it took me much longer to get where I am than usual.

Avatar of rook_fianchetto_37
rupam44 wrote:

Better to think and play, but I am kind of an example who has played much more blitz than longer controls for improvement. However, don't be fooled. As I wasted my time playing speed chess, it took me much longer to get where I am than usual.

well it depends. Overall, long time controls are much much better for learning, but when improving quick thinking blitz helps more. Most of the time you do not need this, but it is more for when you are low on time and intuition for finding tactics quickly.

But long time controls cut out blunders. Because of this, it means that you can work on where you are really lacking, and you will lose most games not to random tactics or hanging pieces but from your genuine mistakes, such as exposing your king very slightly or misplaying in an endgame.

Blitz can still improve your chess, but with many blunders (whether from your opp or you), it won't help much. In classical chess, you can identify your real strengths and weaknesses because blunders are out of the game

Avatar of marqumax
Don’t listen to #3
Do your absolute best. You don’t have much time. You need to work very hard on your chess
Avatar of Optimissed
medelpad wrote:

Lately i have been getting more into blitz and i personally find it more enjoyable and less stressfull than rapid, can i still improve?

I'm playing nothing but 5 mins blitz at the moment and am playing 1000's of games of it. It's doing me a lot of good but I was a strong player in the past and was out of practice so I'm doing it to sharpen up. I analyse about two games each session, properly, to see how I can improve. Those who laugh at analysing blitz games will never improve. It's a very good way to learn things.

Avatar of KieferSmith

Blitz only helps with your time management, which clearly some people need. (One of my opponents in a 25 minute game ran out of time on move 9!) But other than that, it doesn't help you at all because you think faster, causing more mistakes. Then you think faster in slower games, causing more mistakes.

Avatar of JoseP188

es una mamada eso

Avatar of darlihysa

There are 3 phases in chess as anywhere else! Amateur phase, intermediate phase and professional phase! Or saying it in other words contemplary chess, meditating chess and thinking chess. At the first phase you must prepare the soul to love a mind game. The blitz way is a very simple way to love the game or to be an amateur or to contemplate about it!!

Avatar of Optimissed
KieferSmith wrote:

Blitz only helps with your time management, which clearly some people need. (One of my opponents in a 25 minute game ran out of time on move 9!) But other than that, it doesn't help you at all because you think faster, causing more mistakes. Then you think faster in slower games, causing more mistakes.

You're missing the fact that when you get common mistakes, which you always will get in blitz, you can analyse and work out how to improve your reaction. Let's say someone plays the Slav and it goes typically 1. d4 ...c6 2. c4 ...d5 3. Nf3 ...Nf6 4. Nc3 ...Bg4, now that's a main line Slav up to but not including black's fourth move, ...Bg4. Black's fourth move should lose. If it isn't a forced win, it must come very close to it and end up as a position where white has an overwhelming development initiative.

So, would you know how to win against 4. ...Bg4 in the Slav? This is just one example out of very many possibilities, where the opponent goes wrong but the answer isn't in any chess book ever written, more than likely, since the move is in the opening and it's such a bad move they don't include it.

Getting on to the other part of your argument, I was a prolific tournament player and I very often played blitz just before the tournament and between rounds one and two. Not later because I didn't want to get tired in the last round. Many pople told me that I was making a mistake because it would be bad for my chess. So how come I used to win so many tournaments? I can tell you. It was because when I has a scoresheet that had to be filled in, that programmed me to take all the time I needed and use the time on the clock well. I believe that any good player would say the same and only inexperience and weak players would be influenced by their blitz games. But I did often blitz out openings. That unsettles your opponent and causes them to be too concerned about falling behind on time.