How good can you get at bullet chess without playing standard?

Question

I hate standard chess. Sitting there on your ass for hours on end obsessing over every single little move... it's a nerd's game. It's often talked about as being a game of intelligence, but there's a reason why computers are so much better at chess than humans, while there's no robot out there creating breakthroughs in mathematics or science. Because it's not about intelligence, it's tedious calculation and nothing else. Ultimately, all it comes down to is doing the calculations and memorizing the lines. It's a game for computers, not for humans.

It is for this exact reason that so many games end in draws. Because there's a limit to the degree that we humans can calculate and memorize lines, hence the best players are often equally good at it, hence nobody is at an advantage, hence it's a draw.

But I'm fascinated by bullet chess, or as a maximum, 3 minute blitz. Now, this is a game for humans. It's not about how nerdy you are with your calculations, it's about something that is a bit more ... intangible. It's about instinct... intuition, ... a certain feel for the flow of the game. These are human notions that you can't program into a computer, and that's what makes it so fascinating to me. I mean, a computer can play bullet too, but importantly, the computer does not think of bullet like a human does. The human plays it differently. However, in standard chess, both the human and the computer are doing the same thing: endless calculations.

So with that in mind, my question is, how good can you get at bullet chess, without playing standard chess at all?

For what it's worth, I am ranked 2300 on lichess (bullet), 2000 (3-min blitz) and 1800 (10-min rapid).

Answer 1

I think that bullet is a skill that is half chess, but half is simply the ability to think and move quickly, which is the domain of young people. Yes, you can clearly get very good at it relative to your standard level of play. Your ratings seem to prove that.

I still question whether bullet is really good for your chess on a deeper level, but you do not seem to care about that, so if you are having fun, by all means, enjoy it. Nevertheless, this may still ultimately make you plateau permanently since bullet is very shallow in terms of depth of understanding. Plateaus vary from person to person, so just how good you can get will ultimately be something that you will have to just play and find out where you stand.

If you ultimately want to improve your depth of understanding, you do not have to choose between sitting there for hours, and bullet. You can play more using controls that are more of a happy medium.

Answer 2

My friends and I used to play chess everyday before school started in high school. We were all more or less novices, knew the rules and nothing more, absolutely terrible lol. Our games were probably between a 3-0 and 5-0 min control. We didn't really measure the time we just knew we had between 25-30 mins to play a few games before classes started. I remember thinking chess games were supposed to be an hour long ordeal or more, and that we were somehow breaking an unholy rule for our fast games, didn't care though, they were a lot of fun.

I graduated 11 years ago, and since then i've played online, 1 and 3 min only games. Initially i played a few 10min and even 5 min games but i quickly learned how ridiculously easy it is for people to cheat, (yeah i cheated a few times too, i was still new to the game and a sore loser... lol). Anyway since then, i've learned all my tactics and pattern recognition from just playing and watching other really strong players play. ChessNetwork (Jerry), Kingscrusher, agadmator and the ChessBrahs have been my main influences on Youtube and Twitch. The ChessBrahs Eric and Aman really pushed me to get better because they're so damn good and entertaining lol. Currently i'm 2135 bullet 2148 blitz on Lichess, and can easily maintain a 2100 rating in both. On Chess.com i'm 1950 bullet and 2018 blitz and can easily maintain and 2000-2050 rating in both. "SoDamnMetal" on both sites, hit me up for a game sometime. I feel like the cheaters are much more abundant on chess.com and my ping is not so good there either for some reason even though i live in the US.

Literally everything i know about chess is from bullet and blitz games and i find it hilarious how many people who get frustrated in bullet/blitz tournaments and say you absolutely cannot get better at chess through these time controls. These are the kind of people that rattle off theory and opening book moves like they're rain man or the next Bobby Fischer or something but you look at their profile and they're rated 1200-1500 xD. I know 0 about theory and openings, I believe the core of chess is tactics and pattern recognition, and your only limit is how much practice you put into them.

I'd like to get into a rapid and standard time control eventually but idk, the ease of cheating kind of has me jaded, plus the thrill of chess for me is the high octane, low time controls.

Answer 3

Been there done that, done both.

You won't be much better than you can do OTB. Most players will be a few hundred rating points lower.

Top GMs can play speed chess almost as good as they do OTB. Most people play much worse.

How well you do at fast chess depends on how well you play. You would do much better if you played at a fixed increment that you must take between moves. In the old days that was ten seconds and we had weekly tournaments which greatly improved my OTB ability and kept me out of time trouble.

Bullet is its own game. If you enjoy it then go for it.

You should consider G10 and even tournaments at G30SD if you truly want to improve and also play slightly slower blitz games.

Do you have an OTB rating? I will guess that if you do not and start playing OTB it will be closer to 1500 or less. But you could be that genius that does really well.