Controversial Topic - Variants Haters & Variants Being Unpopular

So we have the tpr who always says
"Refrain from bullet and variants"
in literally any topic about improving.
And people follow that advice, and start to hate variants.
Now think about this;
if 3-Check was invented before chess, we'd all try to improve at it and our goal would be to give Three Checks.
Regular Chess would be a 3-Check Variant in which you had to checkmate in order to win.
Same thing for King Of The Hill.
(Because those two have the simplest extra rules)

Hating variants does not make any sense.
Variants can not harm your chess skills.
It's like playing some sort of video game.
Playing NOT chess can NOT harm your chess since it's NOT chess.
Of course, nobody is forcing you to play variants.
But please stop making people hate variants. This is their own choice.
And if everyone hates variants, Nobody will play them and they will die out after a while.
The exact thing would have happened in regular chess too, as I explained.
If 3-Check was invented earlier, everyone would try to improve at it.
And tpr would say
" Refrain from bullet and non-3-check "

According to variants haters, variants are not valuable. So being good at a variant is not an achievement.
Being good at regular chess is (sort of) impossible for us mortals, since people are hiring (very) strong players to teach them.
We have to hire stronger guys in order to get better than them.
And if we don't have the money or passion or time or we just like to play for fun, those rich guys which hire strong players gets better and we can not.

That's why we play variants (at least for me).

And if you keep making people hate variants,
We will not be able to play against anyone after a while.

For two months, ended approximately 2 weeks ago, we had non-stop automated Atomic Chess tournaments made by jatekos.
In that time range, Atomic Chess had his Golden Age. Many people started playing atomic. Then because of some strange reason (boycott) jatekos stopped those tournaments and closed his accounts.
Now neither there are many atomic tournaments nor atomic seeks (or maybe I can't see them because players make them for their rating range. I'm >2100 Atomic for who are lazy to check my profile. )
.
We had more games and active players when there was non-stop tourneys.

Now Atomic chess is slowly dying.

Thanks to all variants haters.

I don‘t like bullet and I don’t like variants. If asked I say so. But everyone can do what he wants to do, sure. I even encourage others to play bullet and variants - because doing that you don‘t get better at chess. :D :D :D

#1 Dear @savagechess2k, you misunderstand.
If you want to become world champion in atomic chess, then by all means play atomic chess only and refrain from ordinary chess.
If you want to win bullet tournaments, then by all means play bullet only and refrain from slow chess.
But if you ask for advice about how to get better at normal chess, I say refrain from variants and bullet.
I do not hate variants, in fact I like Chess960 or Fischer Random because it is without opening theory, although it is rather slow in development before it reaches a normal kind of position.
If anybody has fun playing variants or bullet, that is fine with me.
I just say that playing variants is detrimental to your ability in normal chess, or at least it does not help.
The same goes for bullet, where you train yourself for superficial thinking and where such thinking is rewarded by wins. It leads to bad habits: playing too fast and too superficial.
I also think you overestimate my impact: if variants are less popular then that certainly is not because I adviced you not to play variants when you asked for advice about how to get better at chess.

"Refrain from variants"
is an answer for "How to becoke world champion in regular chess"
But not
"how to improve at regular chess"
Because if something is NOT chess, it can NOT harm your chess.

Well, have you tried playing regular chess just after several games of atomic?

Shooting yourself in the head is NOT chess but I am pretty damn sure it can harm your chess.

@polylogarithmique
Nothing bad happens except I sometimes forget its regular chess and play 1. Nh3 or 1. Nf3 (only happens in very fast tcs like 1/2+0)

@logflume
Playing atomic chess and suiciding is quite different

@savagechess2k
"except I sometimes forget its regular chess and play 1. Nh3 or 1. Nf3"
Am I starting all my games wrong‽ :O

On the main topic, I like to play some variants, bughouse OTB for example is great fun.
On the other hand, here is the main problem I see with blitz and bullet and variants:

www.treehugger.com/bikes/backwards-brain-bicycle-you-cant-ride-bike-unless-you-practice-everyday-8-months.html

This article describes a bicycle with the steering reversed, and someone who learned to ride it, and then was unable to ride an ordinary bicycle. I think the same thing happens with slow chess and variants and fast chess, getting used to one can skew your thought processes for the rest. For example, if you play bullet a lot, you get used to disregarding things like pawn structure that are of importance in slower games, and lose the habit of analysing each move you make for deep tactics and hidden in-between-moves, if you play antichess a lot, you get into the habit of hanging your own pieces on purpose.
It is very hard to have your cake and pie and cookies too when it comes to vastly different variants and time controls.
It is probably best to have a "cool off period" before a serious chess game or tournament in which to only play and analyse slow chess.

Of course, you can not focus on normal chess at all and become a three-check player instead, or a specialist king-racer.
In general, unless you are one of the few people who play chess for a living, whatever you are doing is good if and only if you enjoy it. :)

i think the only variant that might hurt your playing ability would be antichess lol