Why I hate Blitz or Lightning (Quick) Chess

 My blitz rating is far higher because I don't play long games too much.  I havent' been playing the 3 days per move much lately either(I can't always get to a computer and I tend to "lose the position" after leaving).  I play blitz and 10 min games mostly now.  10 mins is PLENTY of time to make a good plan and execute it.  Even in 5 mins there is time to make some good planning. 

One of the people I play with was saying how she thought blitz was all about speed and not about skill.  I think a greek gift combined with a Double bishop sacrifice a few mins later changed her mind on that. 

Blitz is great for getting yourself to key in on the important parts of the position(and that is after all what ALL chess is about).  If you don't you ARE toast. 

 You want to improve Ur last 5 Min's in a longer OTB game, learn how to play your endgame better, then u wont make so many mistakes. Blitz games are more for fun then for skill development.

I may be the only one in the world who thinks this, but blitz bores the heck out of me! It sucks up all the fun and I'm just left pushing internet wood (I do like OTB blitz better than internet blitz). I don't know why that is how it is for me, but it just is. I perform MUCH better in the last 5 minutes in a long game than a 5 minute blitz game. The least amount of time I can play without getting bored is 15 minutes, I've tried to improve my blitz but it just doesn't work for me.

I usually only play blitz to increase pattern recognition faster.. That is all I benefit from it.

A few blitz games (5 0 or higher) may even provide some benefits to real chess (simple tactics, opening experience etc.). In excess, it will train your mind to have a superficial and distorted thought process leading to poor decisions that don't stand scrutiny.

I think blitz is a good way to practice your tactics. However, I would rather play blitz games with additional time per move. For example, 5 min plus 5 sec per move. Also, I don't appreciate games won just because of time forfeit.

3 ~ 10-minute Blitz teaches us the importance of doing our homework, managing our time, thinking under pressure, making the best decisions under difficult situations which allow very little time to react.  Of course, it's fun (not a job), and we win & lose some.  Otherwise, chess.com would have been devoid of great minds.  Just love it, & learn from it.  Someday, you might be glad you did.

i would say one minute games are a sin. with an additional 1 sec per move its ok.

i have won quite a few 1 min games, by simply making wrong sacrifices and the oppenent wastes times thinking over them.

Sometimes, you lose when checkmate was just one move away, because you just ran out of time.

Sometimes, you lose, bacause you tried to queen a pawn, and lost vital time. may be there should be autopromotion of pawn to queen in quick games, or atleast there should be an option for that.

I seriously think that there should be an addtional second per move for all games under 5 minutes.

I dislike fast time controls, too.  I like to play chess because I like long, slow, steady thinking.  For me there's no point in playing chess if I have to move fast.  It's the thinking that I enjoy.

hah!  blitz is indeed the crack cocaine of chess and I am frequently angry with myself for playing it too much!  However, playing it sometimes is okay...

-I get to try out new ideas quickly without wasting hours on a long game.

-I've stopped caring about my blitz rating being 300 points lower than my correspondence rating, making it easier to try new things in blitz (multiple times at 5 minutes each, see many opponents reactions quickly)

-That business of getting beat on time by someone a couple hundred rating points lower than you is annoying, but maybe the reason they had the totally lost position is that you didn't manage time well at the start - so of course you APPEARED to have an advantage because you'd spent more time on your earlier moves.

-That business of getting beat on time by someone a couple hundred rating points lower than you is because you need to work on your end game!  And there's no better way to go through bunches of end game variations than by playing blitz chess!

But yes, I know your frustrations and I need rehab too.

There is an option to auto-queen in the Live Chess Section, you have to click on the settings tab which is to the right of the main lobby tab.  As for increments, they give you that option as well so just create your games with an increment, problem solved.  No need to make it mandatory for everyone.

When I play blitz I try to simplify the position as much as possible and get to an ending so I can work on playing endings under time pressure. Because even in long games I always use almost all of my time. here is an example from a tournament I played in over the summer the time control was 2hr 30min, and after 4hrs and 58 min we reached this position I was black and had about a 1min 30s and my opponent had 30s.

it,s not chess , it,s beat the clock. that,s what you watch the most, but i haven,t played it for years

white blundered should have been a draw,3 move rule. or the 50.

I say if it isn't making you better then it is worthless.

I don't know about you, but I don't play for money. I play for fun, and blitz is fun. I want to improve, but at blitz, because, as I said, it is fun. As for the complaint about time, I don't think that is correct. I have played a good bit of blitz, and rarely ever win or lose on time. If you are in a lost endgame, you will lose, unless your oponent is absolutly terrible at time management. The time is only as much of a problem as you let it be. It's not like cocaine at all. Cocaine can kill you, blitz chess can't. You might not be good at long time controls, but who cares? Who are you to say that long controls are better to know than shorter ones? Social chess games don't last hours. Blitz chess is exciting and entertaining, with as much depth and strategy as longer time games.

Increment games are good pace setters for training games IMO.  Pick a certain number of minutes and give it a 10 second add on.

It sounds super long for online chess (for me anyway) but I actually like it for OTB games at a club.  You can't clock someone who gets 10 seconds a move :)

Just gonna throw this out there... beating a 2000 FIDE player in a slow game doesn't make you 2000.  Was it even rated?  (I beat a master in a slow game, but at a club, and he wasn't playing very hard, as evidenced by how badly I lost the next game ;)

Are you active in tournaments?  How many have you been to this year?  Chess.com blitz rating is not so far off from USCF in my experience.

And in online games I rarely encounter computer cheats, even in long time controls.  The ones who do you can tell pretty fast.

It is fun but yea.......

You got a point

Agreed What do you say now?

Bullet is recreation, blitz is tactics practice, correspondence is training. OTB is where it is at, but that's no reason to eschew other forms of the game.

Recently I was getting very frustrating after another blitz losing streak that put me from the low 1200s back to the high 1100s - again - and I viewed my all-time rating statistics ... I was shocked to see that my highest blitz rating ever achieved was 1262 or so, and I had this in December 2010! More than a year ago, and I didn't improve in the slightest way, even though I played almost daily. Very frustrating. Yes, I know that I suck at playing fast (see my avatar), but if you do something every day for over a year, there really should be *some* improvement, I think ...