15,000+ hours of chess

Hi there,

I was browsing on the lichess website, when I came upon the most active players page, and noticed @german11 has played for more than 625 days on lichess.
Impressive!
According to some study you become a master on the field after 10,000+ of practice.
But sadly it doesn't seem german11 is improving, while I know bullet / blitz aren't well renowed to improve your game. I was wondering why this bruteforce method doesn't seem to help.
This is by no mean to diminish the player but to bring understanding.
Would I improve in blitz and bullet by playing 100k games ? or it wouldn't be an efficient way to drastically improve.
Why doesn't this method seems to work, is it because no one analyze their bullet / blitz games ? or is it pointless to analyze those game ?
Waiting for your answers

He achieved something else — he's a lichess legend.

This is the era of smart hardwork
Just hardwork won't help
And blitz and bullet don't help in improving
Rapid and classical help in improving

I decided to fact check the 3 posts here. DrHack "the myth buster" is on duty!

-The 10,000 hour myth was propagated by a violin study of undergrad students during a 4 year stretch of college education.

If you happen to be a violin player, and manage to practice 10,000 hours on top of your guided studies with professors during your 4 years at school, you are more likely to land a job in a symphony orchestra as the principal. Everyone.. and I mean everyone.. locked into this study and decided that it must apply to every subject and method of learning. It doesn't.

-German11 is sadly not a legend, though I am sure he is a decent fellow.

It would take a tragic accident with a time machine to send German11 into history far enough that we could forget some facts and blow them out of proportion enough to make him a legend. Current day people rarely become legends because they can simply dispel any incorrect facts about themselves. Bummer.

-Hard work does in fact help. Ask any health professional or firefighter in 2020.

-Blitz and Bullet don't help a player improve. Debatable. It seems that blitz and bullet get a bad reputation in terms of learning. They happen to be great repetition tools - especially in the early moves of the game.

When a fact needs to be checked! When you regret your posting decisions - as I often do!! There will always be DrHack - myth buster. Cheers.

Ah.. perhaps I've overlooked something in the good old webster. Definition d. subscript.

Definition of legend - Merriam Webster

d: a person or thing that inspires legends
a baseball legend

So the fact that he inspires the legend that he is in fact a legend perhaps makes him a legend. I can get behind that.

Heres the thing with the 10000 rule you have to want to improve and have the capabilities to do so.

German does not want to improve he just plays for fun. Most people who play blitz and bullet only are doing it for the fun if you actually analyze each game afterwards you can indeed improve playing blitz and bullet. I am proof of that I played perhaps 100 games in my life 10+0 or longer and look how far ive gotten.