Thank you for sharing this fascinating article. I envy your experience, somewhat- the idea of having so many thousands of games under your belt in so many openings and positions awes me. You say that if you had not played blitz and so much online chess in general, you would have reached a master-playing level. Does the experience of enormous amounts of games not provide a constant learning experience? Do you think that it limits your ability to reach higher levels?
Thoughts on Blitz
Sort:
Nov 10, 2021
0
#3
It does provide experience and that has helped. But over and over again, I have blundered in OTB chess by making hasty moves, by shallow thinking, by losing patience for the hard work of calculating accurately.
Incidentally, the common assessment of the 1927 World Championship match is that Capablanca was lazy in his calculation. It was not due to online blitz, but his natural ability caused him to prefer to play by intuition when accurate calculation was needed.
I'm in good company with my flaws.
Nov 10, 2021
0
#4
Very interesting, James. Your post supports my intuitive belief that blitz helps lead to bad play. I know I play many openings too fast, even at correspondence or slow OTB games, because I am used to racing through the openings due to blitz and other fast time controls. Blitz has its place for fun and experimentation, pattern recognition, and getting one used to time crunches, but otherwise I think it is detrimental to OTB because too many bad habits develop from the quick decision making required to play rapidly.
Nov 10, 2021
0
#6
Yes, a lot of blitz, played over the years, can help a player become "good", but not necessarily "accurate" or "correct" in their play.
Such accuracy comes more from study, in my opinion. And proper "study" is something that avid blitz players, statistically, don't really do.
(Who has time to properly study, when one is spending hours each day, playing blitz?)
So it's kind of a double-edged sword. You get experience. And you do improve. But the improvement isn't necessarily optimal.
I think blitz works quite well as a fun outlet, when combined with proper study. But too many players use blitz as a replacement for studying (simply because playing is more fun than studying), which impedes their progress more than they realize ...
Good topic.
thanks for the thoughts and a good thread.
I think very individual how much it helps or hurts, most of my otb mistakes I think are like yours, a blunder after hasty play. I have actually played moves and realize it’s a mistake several minutes later before my opponent has responded, and when I had plenty of time on the clock
This is just mismanagement. I am playing a lot of daily to fix this, taking time and even returning to a game later to enforce not being hasty.
For me at least blitz just encourages b bad habits.
But I could see a “time trouble specialist” using blitz to help make decisions and lose the fear of pulling the trigger on a move. I have a feeling these people are rare, though.
I think very individual how much it helps or hurts, most of my otb mistakes I think are like yours, a blunder after hasty play. I have actually played moves and realize it’s a mistake several minutes later before my opponent has responded, and when I had plenty of time on the clock
This is just mismanagement. I am playing a lot of daily to fix this, taking time and even returning to a game later to enforce not being hasty.
For me at least blitz just encourages b bad habits.
But I could see a “time trouble specialist” using blitz to help make decisions and lose the fear of pulling the trigger on a move. I have a feeling these people are rare, though.
OP----to whom are you making reference?? I see no posts from the usernames you mention (posts #7, #9)...also, from perusing your wordy forum post, it appears you prefer quantity over quality...
Correction-----no apparent post from the username you make reference to in post #9...and besides, you're a hypocrite anyway...
May 17, 2022
0
#11
Where else can you find elo 300 players that play 6-7 move combinations 1-2s/move that take you 15 minutes just to analyze after? Chess.com blitz players are awesome! There are like tens of thousands of chess prodigies here!
Shame they're all too good to play longer time controls tho or analyze any of their games tho.
@ziryab I totally agree with you, blitz chess is just shallow chess, a lot of the beauty of chess is missing there. So it's less chess than classical. I know that not everybody cares about deep strategy, finding the best plans, endings or even long tactic combinations so they play blitz where that almost don't matter and it's ok because maybe they have other things to do and can't focus that much on chess. Masterpieces require time, and with only a few minutes you can only draw a scribble, it always will be quality before quantity.
@CooloutAC You don't know what you are talking about son, try to be good at classical and you'll see what it takes.
Not everybody has the skill, not everyone has the patience, classical requires more creativity and intellect because not every trash plan will work.
CooloutAC wrote:
ELVITOTO wrote:
@CooloutAC You don't know what you are talking about son, try to be good at classical and you'll see what it takes.
Not everybody has the skill, not everyone has the patience, classical requires more creativity and intellect because not every trash plan will work.
your own ratings are basically what is normal in the community. Your highest rating is rapid, cause its the easiest, then comes blitz, then comes your lowest rating in bullet. Normal especially for people our age. What i'm talking about is just common sports sense and understanding of human nature. Its basic and can be applied to all sports. You want to believe chess is different, but its not.
I'm better at rapid because it's what I like the most, and I don't take blitz very seriously. Not everybody will be better at rapid than the other time controls because that means that nobody looses, in fact I know a lot who are trash at rapid but genius at bullet.
If rapid is recommended it's not because it's easier, it's because you'll learn the most from it.
Blitz is the easiest, but you won't understand, so go as you please.
@CooloutAC
Using your logic:
you are worst in rapid than blitz, so that means blitz is easier.
May 17, 2022
0
#16
https://mobile.twitter.com/chessable/status/1516340876934590465
For me, blitz is the real chess. 100% of my chess study and energy is entirely fouces towards improving my online blitz (and bullet) ratings.
Classical chess bores me to tears, and builds bad habits that will damage my blitz and bullet game, so I don't know why I should ever play a classical game ever again.
May 17, 2022
0
#17
May 17, 2022
0
#18
MVL said just last week that he thought playing blitz was destroying his ability to concentrate. There may be something to that...
May 17, 2022
0
#19
Optimissed wrote:
Hi, I used to dislike anything with an increment. Recently I switched from 5/0 to 5/5 as my staple and have seen a slow but steady improvement in my results. The much higher blitz rating I used to have was the product of 10 mins which they switched to rapid. That was incorrect and a mistake by chess.com but it was probably to appease people who disliked being outrated by people whose games are a little slower. I blame bullet. I think it has a lot to answer for in bringing down the standard of chess. I find the standard of people who play 5/5 far higher than those who prefer 5/0 but I still do better because I can usually play at 5 seconds a move quite accurately. Anyway, 10/0 has far more in common with 5/0 than with 25/0 and 30/0, which were the two norms of rapidplay I was used to and at which I won a lot of tournaments, with good prize money.
Ten to 15 years ago I played a lot of blitz for money. On a good day you could make your petrol money to that club (20 miles away) and a few drinks besides. A good evening out for free.
I do agree with you. FIDE considers 10/0 as blitz but chess.com differs.
I have learned 15/10 and 5/5 are the best games for me in terms of accuracy and improving.
Hey "Ziryab"------nobody cares about your whiny thread about blitz, or about your old-age gripes concerning any loss of rating due to blitz...not to mention you're an illogical smug know-it-all who remains an affront to those who do! And you are a hypocrite to boot-----you complain about the lifelong effect of speedy chess upon your ratings, yet in another thread you boast about Bullet chess...make up your mind, fossil!! Speaking of which, they should've left you in the substrate where they found you!
I love blitz.
I see blitz as a drug, an addiction I must struggle against.
Had I not played tens of thousands of games of blitz while I was rising from USCF C Class to just below expert, I might have become a master.
Because I have played so much blitz, there are very few things you can throw at me in the opening that I have not faced before.
Having faced something in blitz does not mean I know how to respond appropriately. To the contrary, I may have a well-conditioned response that is harmful to me.
Here's an article that offers some nuance, pro and con.
26 July 2020
Slow Down
These crude minimums belie the point that I do not know the total number of online blitz games I've played. I have played online blitz regularly since 1998, often dozens of games in a day. I play a few games most days. My personal database currently holds 103,382 games. It excludes most bullet games, although I make an exception for 2 +1. It also has many games at longer time controls, including many hundreds of correspondence games. I have not been able to save every game, and have also lost tens of thousands through database errors.
When I started saving my games in a database, I was using Chessmaster 7000. About 2001, I began learning the free versions of ChessBase and Chess Assistant, both limited to database not exceeding 15,000 games. I recall that CB was more restricted than CA. In 2003, I bought CB 8 and attempted to gather all of my online games into one database.
What has been the impact of this massive amount of online blitz on the quality of my play?
The database contains a near endless supply of instructive positions that arise from sloppy play. Exactly the sort of play that my students see in their games.
It has certainly given me ample practice with pattern recognition, and may have developed my intuitive feel for many types of positions. It has given me immense experience in playing my favored openings, such that it is very difficult for an opponent to surprise me with something that I have not seen before.
Performing elementary checkmates with minimal time on the clock is gratifying, and helps me reinforce the skill in my teaching. But, it is also humbling that I have stalemated my opponent with queen and king against king more than once.
The most important detrimental impact has been that unsound risky play has been rewarded in such a way that it has become second nature. Making the effort to switch to 3 + 2, or even the 5 + 2 that I am currently playing in USCF online blitz rated tournaments has been rough. It is much more difficult to win lost positions on the clock when there is an increment. In my OTB games, I have bouts of impatience where blitz thinking interferes with careful calculation.