I'm a big fan of the slower time controls, but having 8+0 count as classical is a little silly. Would it fragment things too much to create a "Rapid" category in between classical and blitz?
Maybe have Blitz end at 10|0,
Rapid 11|0 to 30
Classical 31|0+
I fully agree
People that seek anything more than 15+10 are rare in the 'classical' category. So, this 'rapid' category you propose would pretty much stay the same as the actual classical, whilst this new 'classical' would be a desert.
I like this also.
That's pretty much what I expect will happen too. But it doesn't make sense to call 8+0 "Classical". I'd rather the time controls have accurate names even if it means that it's hard to find a game at 45+45
@nevernessThere are plenty of players playing standard chess. At any time, I can quickly find an opponent under any time control, with whatever rating I want.
In variants, it's much harder!
I like this idea too.
NonMasterAlex, it won't become any harder than it already is, to find a game at 45+45. It's just that the games you don't care about (8+0, 10+0, 5+5 etc) won't be showing up anymore when you filter for classical games while you wait for a 45+45 opponent to come along.
"I'm a big fan of the slower time controls, but having 8+0 count as classical is a little silly."
I don't have a problem with 8+0 being classical. Why bother changing something that trivial? The developers have better things to do.
I can see both sides of this. On one hand, you're right, it's rapid. It just is.
On the other hand, if we split the rapid and classical pools, they'll be even smaller and have less games played in them than already is the case. I think that's one reason why the current classical ratings are so smushed together compared to blitz ratings; that is, if you look at people that have a fair number of games in both blitz and classical, I've noticed many of them will either be low rated with a much higher classical than blitz rating (like 1500 blitz 1800 classical), or high rated with a much higher blitz than classical rating (like 2500 blitz 2300 classical). This is also supported by looking at the list of top players: the top classical ratings are lower than the top blitz or bullet ratings, and I don't think anyone would argue that's because classical is just the least inflated overall. Although theoretically it should reach equilibrium after a while, I think that if there are very few games played, you will tend to see this sort of "smushed"-ness (if you will forgive my technical language). If I'm right, imagine what it'd be like if you have a "classical" pool that's only for games that can't be classified as rapid!
Additionally, I think that a lot of the very high rated players playing online chess in general use it for blitz and bullet, while they play classical games OTB. This would mean that a new classical time control category might be largely weaker players, inflating the ratings a bit and making them deceptive. Somewhat ironically, this might be partially kept in check by that it's easier to cheat and not be caught with longer time controls, but I don't think that particularly helps the argument for creating a separate classical category.
Wall of text aside, though, I wouldn't be against seeing this happen. I think 8+0 should probably still be rapid, not blitz, though, just to make sure there are enough rapid games being played. I'd also make 25+10 be classical for the same reason, although your suggestion might already accommodate that (I don't know what sort of formula lichess uses to categorize things with increments).
tl;dr: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
