How can I find a game?

Bughouse doesn't show up in open challenges. I create a challenge and sometimes I can't get a game at all. I'm sure people are playing. Do I just have to wait and hope a game starts?

Guess so. The same thing always happens with me, especially when I want to play with my friends. It's a bit annoying, having to wait and spend about 10 minutes till somebody finally accepts your requests. Ask one of your friends if they'd like to play, and they'd message you back. 

The least you have to wait is, from my experience, 1 minute. There are a lot of people playing. Strange why they wouldn't want to accept a bughouse game request  when they want to play it themselves.

If it makes you feel any better, we can be friends and agree on a bughouse scheduling time.

I hope this helped.

If you have rating filtering set in your (live chess) settings, you might have to change it.

Last I looked, there's no way to set ratings filtering on specific variants. (Possibly, maybe probably work-in-progress.)

IF that's an issue. (Maybe.)

If you haven't set ratings filtering, then, it should be a non issue. Chess.com has had some on & off technical issues over the last 24 hours or so (Thanksgiving day in the United States).

Otherwise, if you've filtered on ratings, you might have to wait a bloody long time to find the right set of (the 3 other players) to match criteria.

There are fewer Bughouse (and Crazyhouse, and Variant) players than there are Standard chess players. And there are fewer lower-rated players in the (very active) Bughouse world versus lower-rated players who persist like people do in the Standard chess world. Thus, you have to wait longer if you have specific criteria set. (EDIT: AND it requires more players to start a game.)

Note: I've turned off ratings filtering in my settings just to get Bughouse games, and sometimes I still have to wait, and sometimes people start and then drop games or kill a search because it's taking too long, which then limits the pool to match players on random.

Best practice or idea is to find someone to match with on a team. That cuts the odds down to needing to find 1 other team, or 2/4 players random (limits the complexity and speeds along matching).

Best thought I got. Hope it helps.

I haven't played much bughouse the last week or so, but I'd been finding matches pretty quickly, sometimes within a couple seconds.  That said, I don't think I had a ratings filter on.

Never say such wicked words!

Hey, I've got a life outside chess too, you know.

I haven't played much bughouse in the last week or so.

OK, so @cwfrank and I both need to repent in sackcloth and ashes?

I am damned unrepentent.

Chess is life.

Of course you must repent. BUGHOUSE IS LIFE!

Well, yesterday evening, crazyhouse was life.  And I nearly made the cut.

 Wow I hope you make it some other qualifier!

I've been trying to get a game for a week now, and no apparent interest.

I need a partner to play with. Just let me know when and I'll be on.

@TheMav1116 ... I'm often on late evenings (Eastern Time). I usually can't pin it down to specific times, but I'll send you a friend-request so we can spot each other.

I have never played bughouse. I long to do so.