Speed freaks

Writing in January, I described internet bullet chess, where the players have one minute for all their moves, as ‘popular, addictive and pointless’. Bullet games are shallow and unwholesome because if you stop to think, you lose the game on time. Never mind a junk food tax: taxing bullet chess is the real social imperative — or indeed banning it. Blitz chess, where the players have three or five minutes per move, is a much healthier proposition. The pleasure of a well-played blitz game goes beyond a mere adrenalin rush and the experience might well be beneficial — as part of a balanced diet, of course.

Were he alive, I presume that Mikhail Botvinnik, the Soviet world champion, would take exception even with that. ‘The last time I played blitz was in 1929, on a train,’ was his withering comment in 1988. Even in the pre-internet era, that distaste for blitz was rather extreme. After all, the 1988 World Blitz Championship in Canada included Kasparov, Karpov and Tal in the lineup. (Mikhail Tal relished blitz chess and won the event.)

Still, my qualified embrace of speed chess is a pretty orthodox point of view, which was echoed this month by Vladimir Kramnik, in an interview he gave after winning the Razuvaev Memorial, an online blitz tournament. ‘I am not against blitz in general, but bullet is harmful to young players. First, it loosens the nervous system; second, it develops the habit of playing impulsively.’ So I was taken aback by Danish grandmaster Peter Heine Nielsen’s tweeted response: ‘I used to think so too, but the present generation has proven that wrong.’ Nielsen is Magnus Carlsen’s coach, and it struck me that he is probably right.