Opinions on blitz and bullet?

In my mind, blitz and bullet is something you play after you've achieved a decent rapid or classical rating. I feel speed chess encompasses a lot of strategy, theory, and tactics. Whoever knows more will have the advantage and thus I feel it's completely disadvantageous to beginner players. You'll play a million games very quickly and learn nothing from them. You'll solidify countless terrible habits that will severely stunt your growth as a chess player. The only time I'll play blitz or bullet is over the board, because it's just for fun at that point. But here I'm trying to learn the game as deeply as my mind can comprehend. And anyone I've talked to with experience has expressed the same sentiment, that speed chess should come after one has surpassed the beginner level and has made it to the high intermediate to advanced levels, unless of course you're just having fun and not really trying to improve or obtain a higher level of proficiency in the game. 

And obviously, I mean no offense to the speed chess junkies, because there are a lot of them. 🤣 But I'd like to know your opinions and if you do not share mine and see speed chess as helpful in some way to the development of a beginner player, I'd be interested to hear your thoughts. 

Anyway, bored at work and I was pondering this thought on the line. 

Hope the chess is treating yall well. 🙏 Good vibes always. 

Blitz is fire

@kowarenai OH man.. at your level, absolutely. But have you ever seen 500s who play only blitz? Not very pretty LOL

i just commented randomly but yeah i like blitz, bullet eh its alright but definitely my head hurts watching low rated players but its all in fun, i think really its just a fun time control overall

 @Kowarenai

True. At the lower levels it can only be about fun. At the higher levels I feel like it really tests your immediate strategical, tactical, and theoretical knowledge of the game. If your opponent is out of book before you I feel you should be the one with the advantage. But alas, I am a lowly 1300. What would I know of these things? 🤣🤣🤣 For now, I'm sticking to longer time controls so my games are more thought out. After I've achieved a decent level I'll begin participating in blitz and bullet. But for now, I'm simply trying to learn. 

Play Longer Time Controls...
For many at the beginner-novice level, speed chess tends to be primarily an exercise in moving pieces around faster than your opponent while avoiding checkmate, in hopes that his/her clock runs out sooner than yours.  And/or hoping to notice and exploit your opponent’s blunders while hoping they don't notice yours.  The reason for this is that in speed chess there is little time to think about what you should be doing.

It makes sense that taking more time to think about what you should be doing would promote improvement in your chess skills and results.  An effective way to improve your chess is therefore to play mostly longer time controls, including "daily" chess, so you have time to think about what you should be doing.

This is not to suggest that you should necessarily play exclusively slow or daily time controls, but they should be a significant percentage of your games, at least as much, if not more so than speed games which, while they may be fun, do almost nothing to promote an understanding of how to play the game well.

Here's what IM Jeremy Silman, well-known chess book author, has to say on the topic...
https://www.chess.com/article/view/longer-time-controls-are-more-instructive

And Dan Heisman, well-known chess teacher and chess book author…
https://web.archive.org/web/20140627052239/http:/www.chesscafe.com/text/heisman16.pdf
https://www.chess.com/blog/RussBell/dan-heisman-resources

and the experience of a FIDE Master...
https://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/how-blitz-and-bullet-rotted-my-brain-don-t-let-it-rot-yours

Learn what you should be doing...

Improving Your Chess - Resources for Beginners and Beyond...
https://www.chess.com/blog/RussBell/improving-your-chess-resources-for-beginners-and-beyond

https://www.chess.com/blog/RussBell

Hmm I agree with the general sentiment that longer tc is what you should focus on for improvement. I am curious if it is a general consensus that fast tc doesn't actually help beginners.

Ignoring my currently inaccurate rapid rating (for which I reported myself; I understand my error and am waiting to hear back), I played primarily blitz and bullet from September last year to like December. In particular, I had thousands of bullets. <500 rapids during that time and like a quarter of them were casual rapids vs <1000 players.

I generally don't play rated much on here, but based on my rated rapid performance on alt, I would say I improved from approximately 1200 rapid to approximately 1500 rapid during those couple of months. My bullet rating also improved from 1200 to 1500 in that time. I was not really focusing on improving and I'm sure that is not the way to seriously improve, but I would assume that my blitz and bullet did help?

Biltz is worst.

Blitz is great fun but will teach you bad habits. 

Never tried bullet. Don't see the point.

Real chess involves thought and analysis that don't feature in fast time controls.

I find blitz boring, its way too long. Bullet is fun and is the best gamemode, as you can play more games within a certain time period than other gamemodes. Rapid is ok.

But I don't think the question is regarding entertainment, but whether it makes sense to play fast tc at certain levels. Regarding "fun" I think opinions vary; I know a lot of people who find bullet stressful and frustrating.

For entertainment, Bullet/Blitz.

For improvement, Rapid (15 | 10 or longer). Classical (for amateurs), albeit useful, is not as efficient relative to what you would learn in a longer time-control Rapid. Therefore, amateur players should find a longer Rapid sufficient, as they will not comprehend the nuances each move carries in Classical. 

I don't really like blitz as people are tryhards. Bullet is just better. (Don't question why my blitz is my highest)

Bullet and blitz are way more fun than rapid

But in rapid you can put lots of your mind into it. They all have their fun side.

rapid in a way feels less like people are sweating and more calmer so its a weird sensation, either way blitz and bullet definitely feel more challenging especially under time pressure endgames

One question/thought about this post:

Seems like OP is saying he wants to play fast tc at a level where slight errors in theory will be punished. I feel like that would be quite a high level. My friends who are like 1600s and 1700s in rapid don't even stress out that much over opening theory, play maybe five book moves but mostly it's trying to stick to good principles. Surely that would meet the criterion for "high intermediate" to you?

If that's what you're going for (play fast tc only when it helps you) then by all means go for that, I have a friend who stopped playing blitz because he felt that blitz wasn't helping, and he enjoys chess a ton playing mainly 15 | 10 rapids.