Re-learning chess after blitz

For a while I have only played at quick time controls which I don't like ( a couple of hundred games ). Why do I play it if I don't like it you may ask. I just wanted to sort out my sudden death and lightning rating so that they don't ruin the picture when I look at my different ratings.

Just now when I returned to standard time control do I realize how much playing blitz did hurt my game. How crappy openings I have taken up which look fine in blitz but get you killed in standard. In blitz if you want to be successful you have to take on openings which require no thinking. Any sophisticated system is harmful since it makes you think. And you are not punished for it since your opponent also does not want to think just make moves quickly. You and your opponent collectively sink to a low level and neither of you realize it as far as you can win games this way.

My endgame deteriorated also. In blitz it is often enough to hit a few checks, push a few pawns, no problem if you lose them - you win on time no matter what. In standard I managed to lose a game a full passed pawn up - ridicoulos!

The only element which is not ruined completely by blitz is easily realizable tactics but I'm not sure that even in this area I have made any progress.

very interested in people's answers to this. Although I don't play blitz, I play as if I'm playing blitz; i.e. mindless, impulsive, making the first move that comes to me, not using my time efficiently. Very interested in hearing from people who have gone too fast, got into habits of going too fast, and now meed to slow down. How successful have you been at slowing down, how successful have you been at re-learning new reflexes? Not to hijack your thread, but I think we're facing the same problem. but people should answer the OP, not me. 

Well, the process of getting rid of bad habits begins with recognizing they are bad.  Identify what's wrong, then go about trying to fix it.  You move too quickly?  Sit on your hands.  Only look at one line?  In every position you see, list three candidate moves for white, three for black.  Get killed in the ending?  Study endings.  Feel stale and uncreative?  Stop playing for a couple of weeks.  There are fixes to your problems, but if you don't work at fixing it, all you will ever do about them is complain.  At every level, it's part work, part study, part play--you can't go all in on just one part.

How on Earth could I have lost this game? Shame on me! A simple endgame me being a healthy passed pawn up. I have completely forgotten how to play a pawn endgame.

Blitz is a different game and requires a somewhat different skillset.  That's not to say that it's mutually exclusive of long game skills because a synergy can be created which elevates both games.

Before any firm conclusions can be drawn as whether one is helped or hindered by a specific format, one needs to be aware that it can take several thousand blitz games over a moderate span of time before a judgement can be made.  Playing a new opening over 20-30 blitz games can help 'firm' up the mental position and give feedback as to where improvements or missing moves need to be remembered or re-studied before venturing in a "real" game.

As a study tool, indeed, blitz certainly has a place and shouldn't negatively impact your chess at longer time controls.  The actual results of blitz games are really secondary -- you want to demonstrate to yourself that you can arrive at a playable position which gibes with the material you're studying.  After a session you can quickly go back to your study materials and look for a-ha points and thus firm up your knowledge.

Tal, needed 75 games of blitz a week to keep his tactical edge or the story goes. 

"Tal also had successes in blitz chess; in 1970, he took second place to Fischer, who scored 19/22, in a blitz tournament at Herceg Novi, Yugoslavia, ahead of Korchnoi, Petrosian and Smyslov. In 1988, at the age of 51, he won the second official World Blitz Championship (the first was won by Kasparov the previous year in Brussels) at Saint John, ahead of such players as Kasparov, the reigning world champion, and ex-champion Anatoly Karpov. In the final, he defeated Rafael Vaganian by 3½–½.

On 28 May 1992, at the Moscow blitz tournament (which he left hospital to play), he defeated Kasparov. He died one month later." --Mikhail Tal

watcha, lol, you walk around your pawn? (34. ..Kc8?)(34. ..c6!)  What are you supposed to do with passed pawns?  You are hereby sentenced to 20 endgame exercises!

The below game is to illustrate what crap opening 'system' I have taken up during blitz. My opponent punished me for it duly. I was beaten twice in this game: first in the opening and second in the endgame. In the middlegame I managed to create some complications through questionable tactics which made my opponent use up his time and this somehow caused a mental blocking with him and he timed out in a completely won endgame. I would have fully deserved to lose this game also:

I actually find this helpful. And I enjoyed watching the game. Blitz skills in evidence there. And LIMark, as usual, wise posting. 

It seems possible to heal from blitz and re-learn how to win a winning pawn endgame. The below game is also a reassurance that the Catalan system in practical terms has a psychological effect.

Nice game.  Textbook example.

21. ..h6(g6) or 21. ..Rfa8 Perhaps?  One thing I find interesting is that in blitz, players are much more likely to hit on co-linear moves or moving a piece back to a square it just came from. 

What do you mean by a co-linear move?

The mind plays tricks and I've mis-remembered both how it's spelled and what it is.  Collinear move is a term coined by John Nunn in his book 'Secrets of Practical Chess' and what it means is that a piece that can capture another piece instead of doing that either moves further toward or further away from the piece.  The LaFayette Chess Club has posted an example to illustrate the idea: Nunn's Terminology.

I have looked into my statistics and found that in sudden death it took me 739 (!) games to establish a rating of 1500, in lightning the same took 206 games and in standard only 29 (!) games. In fast time controls I had to struggle for every 10 point increase in my rating while in standard after some acclimatization I did not find it particularly difficult to comfortably break through 1500.

I don't know if this is a common phenomenon amongst players ( I suspect not ). May be I'm having some mental issue with fast time controls. I have noticed that even in the standard (15m+10s) games I have won it was a typical pattern to have only 2 minutes left on my clock when my opponent resigned with 10 minutes left on his clock.

I can force myself to adapt to the circumstances of blitz but this comes at the cost of the overall deterioriation of the quality of my game. I can force myself to make moves quickly and ultimately I'm able to win games on time but I don't find any pleasure in those games.