Blitz Chess: Really Chess?

I've been playing and studying chess semi-seriously for the past year. I was intrigued by the idea of speed chess. Once I join chess.com I was able to play several games of speed chess in a row. My rating is around 1280 and even though I think of myself as having some chess skill in most of my games I win on time while down material.

It seems that speed chess isn’t really chess. In chess you need to think and analyze. Speed chess is just click, click, click. What do you think?

In 5 minute chess you have enough time to make semi good moves and it seems to reflect the OTB ratings of chess players. Of course if you're not used to blitz it wont reflect your rating. For example I have been getting performance ratings of 1900+ uscf in my recent tournaments, and I'm rated 1904 blitz here. So it's fairly close.

Blitz chess is chess although a somewhat different version. Now for bullet... nop.

Um I assumed it was probably pretty good, it's a bit late here to do some serious analysis.

Sweet game. Did you win on time? I'm assuming you did cause it was a three minute blitz game. 

Of course its real chess, all the rules are the same and the pieces move the same you only have a shorter time control which does not affect how the game is played.

So Blitz chess is only in my opinion real chess for the higher ranking players.  Like above 1800 or so.  Most 1800 players know the book lines of their opening repertoire really well so they can play at high speeds as the moves can be memorized and played out. 

I read a post by Jermey Silmans saying that he suggested that blitz chess was a good way to learn patterns fast.  He then explained that a study was done and on Blitz games and with in the study of Blitz players their chess game actually got worse. 

Although Blitz can be a big adrenaline rush, it is not in your advantage to play these types of games if you are begginging player.  

But if you like the rush of Blitz i would suggest learning lots of Gambit lines as they can be fun.

Apart from the benefits of tactics practice and shopping/trying out opening lines, you can try to keep yourself honest and only play blitz with a 5 second increment. That ways,  you'll still have to play "chess" to win and not rely on race-condition cheapos/distracting moves to flag a strong opponent.  Most strong players can hold draws and win won positions with < 5 seconds to spare provided they have a delay/increment. This is an even more logical way to practice if you play OTB tournaments in your Federation where time-increments/delays are mandatory. 

I think the crucial matter is not whether or not Blitz is real chess, but the role that it ought to play in the training schedule of a keen chess player. Blitz is fun, and to be good and Blitz you need to be a good chess player. But how does Blitz help you improve your game? How much time should you devote to Blitz vis-a-vis other training exercises and long games?

Blitz is probably good for pattern recognition (as someone above said) and for tactics, although you won't get much feedback on the latter. If you just play Blitz and don't study specific themes, you will keep making the same mistakes over and over, even if you develop an eye for tactics you won't improve much your positional play (I may be wrong, but this is my impression). That is simply because Blitz allows you to learn only through trial and error, and knowledge of positional play is not something you're likely to acquire purely through trial and error.

Perhaps one day someone will carry out a randomized experiment to find out if Blitz is an important part of a chess player's training. You'd need a control group (who would learn chess from scratch and not play a single Blitz game) and a treatment group which would play Blitz as part of their training. After some time you'd see which group is better at chess. An experiment for chess-loving social scientists perhaps.

I like blitz as a training measure for "board view" - a good chess player has to look at the board only for a fraction of a second and immediately sees all hanging pieces and possible mates in one on both sides (if he/she is an even better chess player, also mates in two/three/... and positional features). I believe blitz is a good training for this - if you get to the point where you almost never hang a piece in a 5 minute game, you probably won't do it ever again in a long game (with exceptions, even Kramnik did it ;)

Probably overall slow chess is more important and has the greater learning value, however it's devastating if you go to your chess club where everyone plays blitz and you can't win a single game because you're just too slow ... a healthy balance is best, I think. It also depends on how you play your blitz games - the "playing good" part should have more importance than the "playing fast" part, and a game in which you had a winning position but lost on time probably has more of training value than a game where you were hopelessly lost but won on time. Like in bullet, when in the last seconds you sacrifice all your pieces to get your opponent over the clock, from this you don't learn chess :) Playing good moves and avoid blunders should always be one's priority, the speed in which one is able to do this should hopefully increase with experience and practice.

I do find Blitz to be a faster form of chess, but chess none the less.

Benefits include more than actually help in openings and tactics (as mentioned above), but the overal time for a game. 10 minutes is a rather convinient time for a chess game compared to an hour. In my busy day to day schedual, I might not have time to sit down for an hour and a bit and play a game, thus I play a game or two of blitz just to get that chess urge down. And if it downs the chess urge, I suppose its chess.

It was a draw by agreement.  If you read the information at the top of the game, you'll see a 1/2-1/2.  1-0 would be a win for white, and 0-1 a win for black :)

I love blitz.  The moves might not be as good as the ones played in standard time control, but you'd be amazed at how some people can stick to the basic principles and even play positionally in blitz.  I wish I could do that =/

I have played blitz about an hour a day for the past two years. And when I mean blitz, I mean 1 minute games.. I have see some very amazing players that do things in a minute most average to above average players couldn't think of in an hour. Blitz chess has helped me learn openings, make much better moves and look for traps and forks. I can see the board in a different light now. One downside is the that I am inpatient now when I play an untimed game. I already know your opening and what how I am going to respond up intil midgame. So why does a player take 20 minutes to move 5 pieces? That annoys me. I'm like, come on, I know your gonna move here there or there, then I am going to go here then there then take that piece etc etc. Blitz is my favorite and if your good at blitz, then how is it possible your not good at regular chess?

Ha! Touché! If blitz chess "downs the chess urge" then how can I argue that it isn't chess? :)

Check out this Blitz game. This is an example of the kind of games I see that made me wonder about whether Blitz games are chess. After reading the great comments I now see that the player and not on the speed of the game determines whether it's chess or just "click, click, click."

Which really begs the question, are waffles a breakfast item when served with fried chicken?

Yes and they're still waffles, but is it breakfast?

Well there's a dichotomy, and a proper use no less.   It's like an equation with 2 variables.   The time of the meal being an unknown but the style of the food being known.  Breakfast items are breakfast items, regardless of the time of service.   Hence the gestalt of the chicken and waffles question.   Each item is clearly a different and yet clearly definable item in terms of its basic gastronomical orientation and YET they are served together.   Help my paradigm is shifting and I get make it stop!

This is strange.  I like chocolate and q-tips, but I don't like them together either.  Your's seems to be more of a neurological sort of problem, I think.

besides, chocolate and peanut butter can be served at any meal.  In some cases at EVERY meal :)