Luke McShane

Speed freaks

issue 21 November 2020

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.

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