Years ago, when I was actively studying and playing chess in my grade school years, I was always told that “bullet hurts your chess play”. Over the years and over 10,000 bullet games later, I can confidently say that is a myth.
"Bullet hurts your chess play" is just a saying. It's not exactly a law or rule of chess or a rule of life. To someone who has had expertise in the game to a degree, they would advise newbies to take their time to play. However, the individual newbie has the right to choose to play bullet.
It's not a 100% chance that a player who plays rapid all the time will outplay a player who plays bullet all the time. However, for a large majority of players, slowing down often helps their play. There do exist exceptions (such as myself), but these are rare.
In your case, you are mixing rapid with bullet, rather than playing exclusively bullet. There's actually some sort of difference. Rapid helps you with long calculation and accuracy. Bullet helps you with pattern recognition and reflexes (and of course, some adrenaline rush).
P.S. I'm almost certain you didn't start out your chess journey playing bullet. Am I right?
Years ago, when I was actively studying and playing chess in my grade school years, I was always told that “bullet hurts your chess play”. Over the years and over 10,000 bullet games later, I can confidently say that is a myth.
Hear me out here as this is controversial. First off, if you start playing longer games like you play bullet games, you’ll obviously have problems. That’s not what I am referring to. As a matter of fact, that isn’t even the same problem. See, you moving fast and playing a longer game too quickly isn’t because you played too much bullet chess. Maybe you got used to playing too fast and can’t get yourself to slow to slow down. That’s not because you were playing bullet, that’s because you don’t have the self-control to go slow and think. Those are two completely separate problems. Moving too fast is simply the lack of self-control. That is something that must be learned by playing slower games. If you have the self-control to sit down and think when you need to, then we have no issues. I’m not suggesting new players to start playing a lot of bullet because that’s not how you learn the game of chess, but with that said bullet has many advantages that actually help your play more than hurt it.
Here's how bullet helps your play, in my experience:
You become more tactically aware
How do you win a bullet game? Is it by playing the best move every turn? Well, I guess that would help, but for most of us that’s not even an option. You win games recognizing tactics. When you only have a second or two to think on your move, you typically try to find tactics to grab a huge advantage, so you no longer have to worry as much about the clock. Being able to quickly spot combinations that lead to forks, pins, etc. is a huge skill that improves with bullet play because that’s one of your main focuses during the game. Is it no surprise that most really good bullet players also have a pretty good puzzle rush score or puzzle rating? With more and more bullet play, you start to recognize tactics faster than someone who strictly plays longer games. I’m not saying the latter isn’t as good as puzzles, but that the former is right up there if not better.
You recognize endgames
The same thing is true with endgame recognition. There are some complicated endgames that you do have to sit and think about, but most endgames come down to a simple pattern which if you recognize, you’ll generally know the best way to play it out. The ability to play endgames quickly, while not the best way to play them, is a big advantage especially if you burned down your clock in the middle game trying to come up with the best moves. I’ve been in that position so many times when playing longer games both online and in OTB tournaments. When you have 90 minutes to play and get into a situation where you have less than 10 remaining in an endgame, the fast recognition will come in handy. In most scenarios, you will have more time than just a few seconds to find the right move, but if you can do it in less than a minute, these situations shouldn’t be too challenging. Sure, taking your time in the endgame if you can is always the better strategy, but if you don’t have that option, you’ll find this skill very useful even though it may not be enough to win every time, you’ll be able to win more of these than you would be able to otherwise. This advantage of recognizing endgame patterns is only one of a greater category, which brings me to my next point.
You recognize patterns
As with endgames, chess is a game of patterns in every stage of the game. Spotting tactics, playing endgames, finding the best lines in openings you’ve never seen before are all just you being able to recognize patterns. While I’ve never encouraged beginners to play bullet, I’ve always stressed the importance of pattern recognition. With bullet you lose games if you can’t spot patterns quickly, and so, if you continue to play and play, you’ll eventually get to the point where on every move, you’ll notice something. It could be as simple as the placement of a knight, a kingside attack pattern, or anything else. When you play bullet, you start to see patterns emerge in games. Sure, these patterns won’t be true in every single position, but generally it is a good place to start when deciding on the best move. Here’s an example: You trade bishops on g3 and open the h-file to your opponent's castled king, you have a batter on the long a1-h8 diagonal, and you have a knight on f3. This is a pretty good opportunity for some kingside pressure. This isn’t always true, but it’s something you should look at. This holds true with other more subtle positions such as when is cxd5 in a queen’s gambit position appealing and when is it less advantageous. I’m not saying you should play fast and act on these instincts, that will hurt your play, but you now know to maybe start there. The other obvious advantage here is that you don’t have to analyze the position for 10 minutes just to find a candidate move, you’ll already have one or two based on your knowledge of positional patterns. Being tactically aware could fall into this category too.
More games played equals more positions to experience
Something that people tend to overlook with playing bullet, is that in the time span of 20 minutes you can play one rapid 10|0 game, you could also play 10 bullet 1|0 games assuming you use your full time. I’m not going to say that more fast games are better than 1 slower game, because that’s simply not true. What I will say is with more games comes more positions to experience and more patterns to remember. I’ve had people tell me that it isn’t true since in bullet you don’t think as much and therefore don’t remember the games. My reply to that is: can you really say the same thing about your 10|0 or even 30|0 game from a few days ago. Probably not and if so, ask yourself again in a few more days. What people don’t realize is that your brain is subconsciously picking up this information and, as I said before, learning to recognize patterns. Obviously, playing your best chess in 30 minutes for one game will have way more to offer since you and your opponent played the better moves throughout the game, but your brain will also remember, over time, what worked and didn’t work during a streak of games. This is an advantage for any number of games you play, and I’ll admit that playing slower games is better in this case, but bullet games do give you the opportunity to play more and see more which will help your brain quickly recognize what’s obviously good vs what’s obviously bad. The other big advantage in this category: seeing more openings and knowing what is good and bad in various lines.
Improved time management
I’ve hit this point a few times here, but to sum it all up, you can recognize patterns faster, play endgames with less time, and manage your clock better. If you can play an entire game in 1 minute, then you’ll have no worries using your time as you see fit. The same can not be said about people who cannot play a game in a minute or even 3 minutes. With the experience of playing a game so quickly, you have the advantage of knowing what you’re comfortable with and that comfort zone is usually more extreme than a player that strictly plays longer games.
You know your strengths and weaknesses
Playing many games gives you a good understanding of your strengths and weaknesses. If you find yourself losing games when you get into a bishop endgame with seconds remaining, then you know that’s a weakness. If you’re able to think really fast and make good/great moves in a rook endgame, then you know that’s a strength because your brain can recognize that endgame faster. If you can’t play a certain endgame quickly, you know you need more work on it.
But what about all the mistakes?
The point of bullet isn’t to play the perfect game, it’s to play the game using patterns you’ve learned. You’ll inevitably make many mistakes playing so quickly, but the good news is that these mistakes will only help you improve and see where you need more work. Unless you’re making the same mistakes over and over this isn’t bad, it’s helpful. Sure, playing the best moves in a longer game is obviously better for your play, but if you recognize that your bullet play isn’t how you should play in a longer, serious game then you have nothing to worry about. Bullet has far more pros than cons as long as you can maintain some self-control and calm when you need it. Bullet isn’t the best option for improving, but it does help you more than it hurts you.