What are the benefits of blitz to improve long time control play (overall play?)

The title Say's it all.

Three benefits that are tough to argue against:

- Technique Practice : Practicing good technique under time pressure is a skill that has a high ROI in slower OTB games that may often get into a time-crunch.

- Opening Practice : If you're shopping/trying out new lines, blitzing 10-20 games makes more sense than playing one slow serious game which won't let you explore an opening all that much.

-Tactics Practice:  Working on puzzles where you KNOW that there's a winning move is one thing ... blitz tends to give you a good assessment of how far your tactical training has really taken you.

I think blitz will only help in slow games if you get into a time scramble at the end of the game. I had a very strong trainer tell me that blitz leads to superficial/hasty decisions that actually hurt your slow game..... he's probably right.

how does blitz help when trying new openings ?

Good arguments for blitz, then there are those who say that blitz ruins your serious chess game. I think both sides have valid points.

I'd say blitz was mainly useful for practicing or refining what you've already done some real work on in slow mode, otherwise it's only a very superficial touch up to whatever you are working on.

For example, you can use blitz to look quickly at a variety of lines from your opening rep, something much harder to practice in long play, and you can see some middle games from those lines. All in all, though, the real knowledge gets acquired  by slow play or study.

Just a matter of being efficient with your time.  Let's say you're studying a new tabiya where there are multiple possibilites apart from the main line.  You could 

a) Play slow+serious games (not more than 1/day if you're working full-time! :)) and decide which one/types of positions you enjoy playing more. In order to explore all the recommended moves from a position, you may need to play a lot of such games.

or 

b)Play 10-15 shorter games in this line so you have had a chance to "try" out at least a few variations and decide whether this line is for you or not.    

Of course, I call this "shopping chess" and once you've tasted something that you like,  it's back to playing slow+serious games in that line so that you can actually start making progress.  

Another advantage of doing this is that while GM-written books endorse a few responses, you get to see how the average player responds in certain positions, what the natural looking moves (that occur more often in blitz)  tend to be and you gain some valuable statistical information a lot quicker through blitz.

For example : Saw an interesting article on a "Mad dog" attacking system vs. the Pirc.  Looked through those variations , tried them out in about 50 games of blitz and realized that the average club player doesn't play as accurately against it, even though the Masters who wrote the article called it a little unsound for White. So that immediately became part of my repertoire and it has served my OTB games fairly well against the players I normally face (1500-2000 USCF).

Once again  -> if you have a lot of time to invest for practicing slow games, then avoid blitz at all costs. If not => "shopping chess" may help :)

I agree that blitz cultivates hasty decisions. It also rewards unsound attacks.

However, it can assist in the development of pattern recognition, opening practice, and elementary tactics like three move sequences.

Having played 45,000+ online blitz and bullet games over a decade in which my OTB rating improved ~400 points, I believe that I can say with some authority that online blitz has been the most time consuming and least helpful aspect of my quest for chess skill. It is not without value, but probably slowed my improvement.

Blitz is fun and I will continue playing it. It also accounts for deep frustration, as when I lose twenty straight games (typically once every few months).

If you're switching opening repertoires, there seems to be only 3 ways to go: blitz, correspondence game, and actual opening preparation. CC is way too slow if you don't want to have too many games going at once, and opening preparation demands time and dedication. I think if you analyze your games later (even superficially), blitz could be best choice to learn new openings and "getting a feel" for them, which type of middlegames arises, what to do in certain structures etc.

Honestly I don't think it's good for tactics at all, but maybe it's just me.

If you are shopping for a new opening, why not play against a computer rather than playing blitz games against real oppnents? The only reason I see not to is the thrill of actually playing a game. Instead, you are able to see the positions that result from different lines without even having to finish the games. You may find a certain opening works well against your average opponent, and not the computer. But my goal is not to beat a certain group of opponents, but to take my learning and playing as far as it will go.

Yes, there is the thrill element but also for the same reasons practicing chess in general vs. a computer is not as useful as practicing vs. equal or stronger opposition...though that's a different thread topic altogether.

Though you do raise a good point => if one has limitless goals for improvement (instead of short-term goals such as "I want to climb 100 rating points!")  we might all be wiser to take the best suggestion of avoiding blitz all together, with or without a PC opponent.

As many a good chess coach has said before =>  People can only teach you how to get better at chess  ... but not how to have fun at chess ... that's entirely up to you.  Blitz chess is better than no chess at all :)

Blitz also helps you learn to make decisions faster. Someone did a study showing that there really is such a thing as taking too long to make a decision in chess. Besides getting into time trouble, you might make worse moves after 10 minutes of thinking than after 2. Blitz forces you to be more decisive and make decisions quickly.

Of course, too much blitz will lead to superficial thinking, but I think a little bit of blitz is an essential part of any chess improvement program.

I quit blitz because my turn based rating crashed every time I went on a blitz binge.  It seems that superficial decision making was spilling over into my long games.

The main benefits of blitz imhop are in addition to that which has already been mentioned are:

1.  It teaches you to recognize key points in the game.  You need to know WHEN to think in a blitz game. 

2. quick pattern recognition and practicing attacking.  A large part of attacking is instinct(which can be developed).  There are a lot of positions which there is no way anyone could calculate all the possibilities.  

3.  It teaches you to recognize the key points in the position quickly. 

4.  the importance of quick accurate hands (not only in chess boxing, but regular chess as well)

I think this is actually a skill I need some work on.  I'm a brute force tactician who takes an inordinate amount of time for every move which is why my game suffers so much when I speed it up.  Perpetual time trouble is not my idea of enjoyable chess -- I really need to learn when to stop analyzing a position.

There's one more "depressing" reason Blitz helps your rated tournament OTB games.

Not sure if this is true in other parts of the world, but the trend in the US is to make most  Federation rated games in clubs have  shorter and shorter time-controls, for reasons that are mostly financial.  For instance, Dallas's best club offers weekend tournaments with a  G/30 time control.  => So unless you're the kind of player who waits for that big G/120 or 90/30 tournament to show up (usually once in 3-4 months) or travel a lot, I suspect that there's almost an evolutionary imperative to play faster chess?

This is a very good point. G/30 is a growing trend.

However G/30 (rapid) and G/5 (blitz) is a huge difference.

I'm a beginner at chess, and have started to explore Blitz. I can verify and back up the point that it definetly helps in exploring new openings. Being able to play 10 quick games as opposed to one has definetly been a key for me. But on the other hand, since playing blitz I have definetly found myself making very silly mistakes in slow games. All in all though, one thing I do know is that chess is as much about intuition as it is calculation, and since playing blitz my intuition skill has definetly improved.