Is JanLee a Big Fish in a Small Pool?

Right now JanLee is the undisputed world number one in Crazyhouse.

But will that remain the same if (in a hypothetical world) super GMs like Carslen, Karjakin took up Crazyhouse seriously and started to work at it as much as they do in classical chess right now?

I'm pretty sure the super GMs and pretty much any GM for that matter will dominate JanLee. Why is that? Here's why.

Currently GMs only take Crazyhouse as a hobby or a stress breaker-

This is obvious, if you are a GM, your primary concern will be classical chess. You will spend hours and hours together preparing lines for tournaments, so much so that you will hardly get any time for crazyhouse. Whereas JanLee spends all his time studying and playing Crazyhouse.

In the recent Crazyhouse Championships held on Chess.com, we saw 2 GMs finish in the top 10. If these GMs can make it to the top 10 of a crazyhouse championship with the strongest player pool ever by just playing it ocassionally, imagine what would happen if they started taking it seriously. Now imagine what would happen if super GMs took it seriously.

At the core, it is still a chess position - 

When you look at a crazyhouse position, it is still a chess position, with the same piece movement rules. The only thing different here is that the pieces that were captured come back into the game. But you are still evaluating a chess position. And who is better at evaluating a chess position, who is better at seeing tactical opportunities in a position, who is better able to calculate deeper? Carlsen or JanLee? Of course it is Carlsen or any other GM. Because of their superior vision of the board, they will perform much better. This will be further validated by my next point.

Rise of Stockfish - 

Up until recently, the strongest crazyhouse engine was Sunsetter. But someone tweaked the code of Stockfish and taught it to play crazyhouse and suddenly Stockfish was seen to play exponentially better than Sunsetter.

Why do you think this happened? The reason for this is in Stockfish's evaluation function. It analyses a chess position better than Sunsetter can ever imagine. And because it does this so well and because a crazyhouse position is nothing but a chess position, these skills of Stockfish translate to crazyhouse as well and that's why it plays so well. In a recent match, it even annihilated JanLee himself.

The same thing applies to humans. Carlsen's evaluation function is much much better than JanLee's; and with this superior evaluation function, there is no doubt that Carlsen or any other super GM will dominate this game.

There are titled players who take Crazyhouse seriously --on Lichess, you have: IM Opperwezen, IM PenguinIM1, IM Bugzilla, FM ChickenCrossRoads, FM VABORIS / GulimaniRises, and so on.  These guys all consistently lose to JannLee.  At some point, you just have to accept that, at root level, what generates good crazyhouse players is fundamentally different than what produces good chess players, and that JannLee is simply in a league of his own.  

It's not at all clear to me why a Super GM would suddenly dominate at Zhouse, even given considerable practice.  Bodybuilders don't beat Arm Wrestlers in Arm Wrestling, and it's not a question of merely spending more time on learning arm wrestling.  There are limits to the transferability of skills. 

Zhouse, for example, stresses the ability to find forced mates far more than standard chess.  Rarely, if ever, do I win chess games because I have found a forced mate -- all my training is in tactics and positional play to generate enough of an advantage to induce resignation.  There are other obvious differences -- endgames don't exist in Zhouse, understanding color complexes are more important in Zhouse than chess, opening theory is brand new in Zhouse allowing for essentially any lines, and so on.  Players like MasterTan are, by their admission, not great at standard chess, but are in the top 10 in the world in Crazyhouse.  Clearly there is not 100% correspondence between the two games, and it's not merely a question of dusting the cobwebs off. 

In any case, it's rather pointless speculation to assert that a Super GM would naturally dominate at chess if they were to give it enough attention.  For starters, how much attention would a super GM have to give to Crazyhouse for it to be deemed sufficiently comparable to JannLee? JannLee dominated FICS for over a decade.  Should Carlsen be given ten years to warm up?  And it's not like JannLee studies Zhouse like a SuperGM studies chess -- he's not pouring over opening theory and analyzing engine lines.  He has an unbelievable talent for Zhouse that won't be emulated by Super GMs any time soon.  

I'm pretty sure that a titled player does not take crazyhouse as seriously as JanLee. Let's not be naive, they spend a considerable amount if not their entire time playing or analyzing classical chess. 

I looked into IM opperwezan's account on another site and he's rated at 2640 in crazyhouse and JannLee's rated 2875 on the same site, not much of a difference I see.

Now IM opperwezan has achieved this feat by just playing it occasionally. Imagine what he could do if he spent all his time analyzing crazyhouse? Now imagine what a GM could do, now imagine what a super GM could do?

Also, I see no GM on that list, only IMs, NMs and FMs.

I think you're severely underestimating the calculation abilities of GMs. 

Peeps like Carlsen are not going to devote to Crazyhouse; they got classical chess stuff to do!

Be aware that Jann is also not a professional Crazyhouse player like all of us. Basically we all have school, job, girlfriends, boyfriends, families and kids. Of course players like Carlsen or Hikaru will be probably in top of Crazyhouse, but I do not think that to be in top you will chess skills like Carlsen. I believe 2200-2300 FIDE is enough. 

PS. It is my opinion

That's why I said, in a hypothetical world.

Yeah, you're right. I don't think the top super GMs are ever going to devote to CrazyHouse; in fact, I personally hope CrazyHouse does not take over classical chess; it is a fun variant give or take, but I still like classical much better.

And what was the score in his match?

Everything that you've mentioned here, like ability to find forced mates, tactics, color complexes etc are all chess skills. Are you trying to say that a GM doesn't correctly understand color complexes correctly? 

Is there a particular skill a crazyhouse player has that a chess player doesn't? I can't think of any. And the opening theory that you mentioned, that can be learned very easily.

If JannLee had put as much effort into standard chess as he does into crazyhouse, he would probably be an IM or better.

 But what do you think about my OP @MGleason?

I'm not sure.  A crazyhouse position is not quite a chess position.  There are patterns from normal chess that no longer work.  There are patterns that are unique to crazyhouse.  The balance of plusses and minuses between pawn structures, colour complexes, initiative, and more is all very different.  An elite GM would have a lot to un-learn before they could really reach a similar level in crazyhouse.

If JannLee had gone into chess instead of crazyhouse, could he instead have been a 2700 GM?  If so, then a 2700 GM who went into crazyhouse instead of chess might reasonably expect to be about the level of JannLee, rather than his superior.  Or would JannLee have only made IM?  Then maybe a Nakamura or a Vachier-Lagrave could have gotten well above JannLee's level.

To a certain extent, this is like wondering whether Capablanca would beat modern GMs if he were given a couple years to catch up on modern opening theory - except that, as modern GMs are still alive, there's a theoretical possibility that it could happen.

Except that it probably won't happen, because there's decent money to be made in high-level chess, and not so much in crazyhouse.

Best observation (and a good example) right here. -- "Transferability of Skills."

I agree with most other points, but in my opinion Stockfish is strong in Crazyhouse despite its evaluation function, not because of it, so I cannot follow this argument. SF already played quite well (compared to my level) after I had implemented the rules without adusting the evaluation function to account for pieces in hand (and fixing this of course significantly improved strength). Even though we have tweaked the evaluation function for Crazyhouse in some respects, specialized zh-engines probably still have a more accurate evaluation. I think that Stockfish's superior search is the main reason for its success in Crazyhouse.

Hmm, not much time to discuss this thread in much more detail, but I think I can offer a few quick points:

- Jann is 2200 FIDE...so let's say CM strength

- The extra 600 points Carlsen has on him come from what? Well, Carlsen is obviously stronger than Jann at tactics, but how much stronger is he really? The answer, in my opinion at least, is not much. The big reason why Carlsen is 600 points stronger than JannLee is because he can understand chess imbalances like no other. Also, he knows so much opening theory that he can even deviate from opening theory and still come out unscathed (again because of his superior ability to correctly judge pawn structures and bishop vs. knight type of imbalances).

- Take opperwezen for example: he has basically played as much zh as is necessary to become JannLee - still, though, he hasn't! opperwezen is only 150 points higher rated than Jann anyway (standard TC FIDE Elo).

- Jann doesn't seriously study the game. He is very talented at crazyhouse tactics and basically understands the game like no other. Many of the lines Jann plays are theoretically losing, but he is so strong that he can make them work! In a sense, that's what Carlsen does!

- Still, though, I do not doubt there could theoretically be players much stronger than Jann. If Nakamura STUDIED the game and quit classical chess, I don't doubt he MIGHT become stronger than Jann.

Nakamura might have needed to switch from classical chess 5-6 years ago to be better than JannLee.

That's the thing: JannLee has focused on crazyhouse.  What could he have done in standard chess if he had focused on that?  We don't know.  What would Nakamura, MVL, etc., have done in crazyhouse if they had focused on that instead of standard chess?  We don't know, but if they had, they might never have become GMs in standard chess.

?? Why would he have needed to do that? He could just quit orthodox chess now, or play it only rarely, and still pick up zh and get good at it.

Young people learn things more easily.  To become a top-level GM, you need to start at an early age.  To become a JannLee might take several years of focus on crazyhouse, and starting at 30 or so might be too late.

I have no doubt that top GMs could reach a similar level and maybe higher, but to reach that level in crazyhouse and reach the very top of the chess world is very difficult.

Ah so your argument is that since Jann started at 15, his brain was better able to absorb the patterns?

I started at 5 years old, and I'm not a GM.

Everyone has their upper limits.