Chess960 / freestyle time control categories

Since Chess960, or Freestyle as some brilliant marketeers have named it, is becoming more and more popular, maybe it's time to introduce different categories for different time controls in Chess960?

Right now everyone is playing bullet Chess960, which seems a bit silly to me given the nature of this variant.

This topic was recently discussed here: https://lichess.org/forum/lichess-feedback/chess960-rating-list#1

And has now been archived and cannot be replied to.

The same applies in all variants. And far too many of them are flagging contests not strategic battles, once you've got past the basics.

There are also no "quick pairings" for variants, which means mobile app users cannot start variant games or find the seeks, other than using the browser (which many will probably not know to do).

@earlpurple said in #3:

which means mobile app users cannot start variant games or find the seeks, other than using the browser (which many will probably not know to do).

At least on Android, mobile users can create a custom game of Chess960.

@earlpurple said in #3:

The same applies in all variants.

True, although I think chess960 is quite a lot more relevant than most other variants.

@Molurus said in #5:

I think chess960 is quite a lot more relevant than most other variants
And yet, based on the "number of users who played at least one game in last week" metric, Chess960 is about 5 times less popular than classical, 50 times less than rapid and bullet and 80-90 times less than blitz. Until this changes significantly, further splitting the already small pool would likely do more harm than good.

@mkubecek said in #6:

And yet, based on the "number of users who played at least one game in last week" metric, Chess960 is about 5 times less popular than classical, 50 times less than rapid and bullet and 80-90 times less than blitz. Until this changes significantly, further splitting the already small pool would likely do more harm than good.

I understand your reasoning, but I'm not sure if that's quite how it works out. The absense of a chess960 rapid category is basically the reason I don't play chess960 at all. And is the pool really that small? There have been 16 thousand active chess960 players at lichess this week.

@Molurus said in #7:

There have been 16 thousand active chess960 players at lichess this week.
OK, maybe the "Freestyle Chess" campain is really having some effect. When I checked before, Chess960 consistently had 8000-9000 players, similar to the other two most popular variants (Atomic and Crazyhouse).

Now the obvious question is if it's start of a new trend or only a temporary fashion thing. Time will tell.

@mkubecek said in #8:

Now the obvious question is if it's start of a new trend or only a temporary fashion thing. Time will tell.

It seems that it's also gaining in popularity at the absolute top. For instance: there is the upcoming Grenke tournament, which has now been dubbed "Grenke Chess Open & grenke Freestyle Chess Open". So it's a double tournament, regular classical and chess960 classical. (Both 90+30 time control.)

Guess where all the top players will be playing. Carlsen, Caruana, Erigaisi, So, Aronian, Nieman, Keymer. All in The Freestyle tournament.

This development naturally has an impact on how many people want to play chess960 online.

Every time there's a freestyle tournament, I tend to try my hand at 960 for a few games. If the freestyle group makes further traction at the top, I see myself playing this more regularly.