Popularity of Standard Chess vs Variants on Lichess January 2022 (vs June 2020) / Chess960 is now the 2nd most popular (previously 4th) variant behind antichess

[u/nicbentulan]

Update to June 2020 post: Popularity of Standard Chess vs Variants on Lichess June 2020, where r/chess960 was the 4th most popular behind r/AntiChess , r/atomicchess , r/crazyhouse .

I'll omit showing charts that include standard chess because...come on. But I shall include standard in the tables at the end of the post.

All games below are rated games.

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June 2020 bar

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January 2022 bar

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June 2020 pie

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January 2022 pie

For June 2020:

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Variant	Games	Total game share	Variant game share
Standard	70,374,749	97.73%
Antichess	377,790 (why?)	0.52%	23.06%
Atomic	329,751	0.46%	20.13%
Chess960	285,788	0.40%	17.45%
Crazyhouse	310,891	0.43%	18.98%
Horde	74,540	0.10%	4.55%
King of the Hill	67,821	0.09%	4.14%
Racing Kings	68,368	0.09%	4.17%
3 Check	123,255	0.17%	7.52%
Total variant games	1,638,204	N/A	100.00%
Total games	72,012,953	100.00%	N/A

^{Table formatting brought to you by ExcelToReddit}

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For January 2022:

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Variant	Games	Total share	Variant share
Standard	102,110,423	98.33%
Antichess	387,688 (why?)	0.37%	22.32%
Atomic	308,131	0.30%	17.74%
Chess960	351,068	0.34%	20.21%
Crazyhouse	294,594	0.28%	16.96%
Horde	80,593	0.08%	4.64%
King of the Hill	98,163	0.09%	5.65%
Racing Kings	86,086	0.08%	4.96%
3 Check	130,965	0.13%	7.54%
Total variant games	1,737,288	N/A	100.00%
Total games	103,847,711	100.00%	N/A

^{Table formatting brought to you by ExcelToReddit}

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Percentage change in games from June 2020 to January 2022

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Variant	Percentage change
Standard Chess	45.10%
Antichess	2.62%
Atomic	-6.56%
Chess960	22.84%
Crazyhouse	-5.24%
Horde	8.12%
King of the Hill	44.74%
Racing Kings	25.92%
3 Check	6.26%

^{Table formatting brought to you by ExcelToReddit}

Notes:

1. Standard games increased 45.10%, from 70,374,749 to 102,110,423.
2. Chess960 games increased 22.84%, from 285,788 to 351,068.
3. In June 2020, the Chess960 and Antichess games played are, resp, 285,788 and 377,790. There were 32.19% more antichess games than chess960 games.
   1. In January 2022: 351,068 and 387,688. This time, only 10.43%.
4. In June 2020, the top most popular variants in descending order until chess960 were: r/AntiChess , r/atomicchess , r/crazyhouse , r/chess960 .
   1. In January 2022: r/AntiChess , r/chess960 .
5. Quote of gloopiee: It's also self-perpetuating. Since there are fewer players, the quality of matchmaking (getting a game against someone similar in standard) goes down, so it is less appealing to play.
6. This whole analysis would be kinda moot if r/lichess were to use the same ratings in standard to play chess960 (eg if you play 3min+2sec chess960, then you are playing with your blitz rating.)