Can you get better just by playing a lot?

I think it definitely is a lot more fun just to play a lot of games....but for most of us getting over about 1500 requires some study. I got to 1400 pretty easy by just playing a lot, but had to study just a little to get over that. Chess mirrors life, you pretty much get out what you are willing to put in, and I'm not willing to study too much because I mainly just play chess to fill in time when I have nothing better to do.

@Tucker: Not sure, but I watched him say it on youtube. He never said others should not review their games...he only said that he wasn't that into doing a big review of his games because he didn't like it and didn't like that old Soviet style...Kasparov claims he does a detailed review of all his games, on the other hand.

Go to your local club.

Chances are, you will meet plenty of old codgers there, been playing chess there for 20 or 30 years, not gained or lost a single rating point.

Short answer: yes.

you can probably break 1600 just by playing 4-6 hours a day without studying at all.

But if you really want to get better and you have 4-6 hours a day to spare on chess, study for 3-5 hours and play the rest of the time.

Btw, Nakamura played bullet almost every waking moment when he was a teenager. He got pretty good.

No you wont, I saw someone who play 150,000 games in one serevr and his rating is around 1400+. If you dont learn the core of chess, strategy etc, you will do the same mistake again and again. 

There is a lot of good advice here. But my answer is yes. I got to just over 1700 by just playing. I do the online tactics trainer, but other than that I just play for fun. Studying never has and probably never will appeal to me because that isn't fun. So I probably will never improve from where I am now. But since it's just a game and the whole point is to have fun I dont see any reason to do anything over and above what I do now.

 +1 same here

Anyone who was a regular on ICC at the time can attest to what I said about Nakamura. He was online playing bullet chess non-stop. I forget the figures, but he used to brag about the % of his life he spent on ICC. That was a stat that ICC kept, so there was no exaggeration necessary. 

 Of course anyone has the chance to improve by learning own mistakes"Monkey see, monkey do method or Alpha zero method" This method require thousands/millions of games to learn to get a correct method. For example, u may need to turn a million times to fix 3x3x3 rubic cube while someone who follow the theory will solve in a few hours. In alpha zero case, A0 require  $ 1,000,000 hardware to compete Stockfish on $1000 hardware (to get comparable strength within 100 elo). Even programmers dont like A0 method.See Komodo programmer dont like that method, and you get only 100 years of time frame in your life to play chess(only 20 years is the limit to improve).

If you don't study, in addition to playing, you will waste your whole life and end up like bitter and grumpy old SmyslovFan never even able to pierce 2200.

True, I never broke 2200 USCF. I did however, spend a LOT of time studying! And, I was +2100 for quite a while. I got close.

I just want to share my own experience and hope you at least take it at face value.

Before I started to play chess regularly I played on yahoo chess some 16-17 years ago maybe more.  I Played roughly 5 thousand games there, maybe more.  I can tell you this.  during that time, I got a little better, however, my chess growth compared to now from that point to about now is a mere blip on the radar.  After that, I played regularly for about 10 years, and when I got into chess.com, I was barely 1200 in blitz.  That's 10 years of playing blitz with people of varying strength, and all I did was keep up with rating inflation...

Since then I became a member of the Prodigy program and learned a few things before I quit because I didn't have the time to devote to something as intensive as that, and saw a sharp 300 point increase in my blitz rating that has fluctuated a lot since then.

Now, I am learning different openings, as well as going through stuff I nearly have forgotten about. (tactical material), and realize that though you can learn a lot from studying different openings, it doesn't really mean much unless you played over 50000 games like I have over the course of 15 years.

I know it's not the opening that is the part of the game I need to improve on, it's rather, not blundering... learning not to blunder, and waiting for my opponent to do it instead.  

In order to do that, you'd need ideas.  You can get ideas from master games, which is what I intend to do in the near future.

So, in my experience, no, you cannot get much better by just playing.  Granted I only played 3-minute blitz, so that may be different with longer time controls.  

close only counts in horse shoes, hand grenades, and (certain) jobs lol

Have fun or work hard?  The secret of getting good at something is to keep on long enough, and therfore having fun is a good plan.   I play a lot, and usually analyze with computer. when you have played a lot, you will be more familiar with the game, and then tutotials will be more easy and fun. Tutorials can also be shortcuts to fun victories.   Winning is fun and losing is good. A good thing about losing is that your bad plans get punished and highlighted.  Every game can be a victory, you can win a point or not, and you can always win knowledge.        The other guys here has given you much fine advices and among the most efficient ones is play with long timecontrols(enough time to think) and join a chessclub. Even thoug longchess is most efficient, blitz isnt bad either, because its fun.

 Nakamura as a kid has his step father(a master) to help his chess development.

@OP You can still improve without studying, but it will take much longer for you to improve and you might hit a road block on your improvement that you might not overcome. An improvement ,that you might find after many years playing, a 1 hour of chess study might give you. Solving few puzzles per day won't take much time and will improve you.

If you can identify that roadblock, then you can work specific on that roadblock, maybe with a course, maybe with a strong friend or chess teacher. Maybe with analyzing alone or with computer. Or even better, the best way to analyze is after a otb -longchess tournamentgame  with a strong opponent or a strong player in your club. Blow that roadblock to pieces, and move on.