Why are speedruns even allowed?

I'm not sure why it needs to be stated, since this is extremely obvious to me, but here goes:

The speedruns of both GM Daniel Naroditsky and IM Eric Rosen are exceptionally useful and very helpful and instructive to everyone between beginner to advanced chessplayers. A big part of that is of course the commentary and the post game analysis by the chessmasters.

I dont understand the logic that a chessplayer suffers just because he unknowingly faces a master. If there was any foulplay in place, like this was a tournament and people would be cheated out of their reward, I would understand. But this is simply an instructive game that helps not only the opponent but also helps everyone else to improve.

CooloutAC's spirit lives on in this thread😁

Only in the senselessness of some comments.

I wish they had a setting for us to play against speed runs or not. Or if they put a SR badge like a titled player has in front of the user name so you knew ahead of time.

On the contrary,

Because it's a player way above your level. It's no fun for lower rated players to play people that are much better and crush them easily. Simple as that. People want to have fun, not get crushed by grandmasters.

The opponents do waste their time playing someone much stronger than the indicated rating. On the whole I'm okay with them but I wouldn't quite go so far as to say "nobody is harmed".

The most harmful thing beginners can do is play other beginners. These games cultivate illusions of competence where none exists.

Best for one's chess is to play others who are about the same or slightly stronger than oneself. Playing far higher rated opponents is mostly a waste of time.

Best for one's ego, perhaps.

To play well, one must be exposed to those who play well. If study time exceeds playing time, then playing other beginners is less harmful, especially if these games are then analyzed with a strong player.
This site is full of members who simply want a battle with someone at their own level. They will be beginners their entire lives.

Yeah right, I'm gonna get sucked into these senseless discussions again, just because you pulled a 3 years old post😂 I played 8000 pointless blitz games here and I don't think I ever played an official speedrun account. If it happens to you, count yourself lucky and get over it, life goes on and much worse things are very likely to happen to all of us than being "crushed" by a GM😂

Let's be clear. 
When a beginner plays a master, the beginner's errors are usually punished.
When a beginner plays another beginner, errors are frequently rewarded and reinforced.
Those who find speedruns harmful believe that reinforcing error is beneficial and that punishing error is harmful.

I applaud you Ziryab for still having the strength and nerves to nicely and sensibly discuss and educate👍

To be honest I've made a complete about-face on my take on this topic. I don't think speedruns are good.

Yes, it's a good opportunity to play someone stronger, yes, you can improve from this, but I don't believe a single game is enough to compensate for someone just appearing out of nowhere and smiting your existence for a good 20 minutes. The important thing is that not everyone is playing to improve; some simply are satisfied and just play to have some fun or kill time, and if we're being real, no one likes a game where they begin to suspect their opponents for cheating.

And then the difference in strength is immense. I wouldn't be surprised if in most of the games, people simply don't know how they lost. You can argue that they should analyze their game with the engine to improve and learn, but why can't they just do this against people their own strength? If someone desires to improve and is willing to analyze their games, they're going to improve regardless of whether or not a grandmaster destroys them in one game.

The bottom line is that these random players in pools didn't really ask to play someone not from their pool, so it's not really good behavior to do that. Why can't these big streamers just ask their chat for players within a certain rating range to play them in an unrated game? I'm sure there are plenty of viewers that are willing to volunteer to play a titled player. I'd certainly be one of them. But in this case they actually consent to play someone outside their rating range, whereas random saps in pools didn't.

Err ... if a speedrunner would play unrated games, they would stay at their current rating.

Instead the loss in rating is given back to the loser because its an official speedrun account.

I'm in complete disbelieve that this discussion has been going on for 3 years. The the benefits of official speedrun accounts far outweight the negatives, which is some sour losers ego being put down a notch every once in a couple 1000 games.

A lot of more pressing problems are out there, like sandbagging and smurfing, which plague tournement and arena and actually has an impact on user experience because are frequent enough to make a difference.

yes, it goes on for years because every time it dies off for like six months, someone comes and tries to bring it back like you just did now😂

I’ve found Eric Rosen’s speedrun instructive and personally beneficial.