Life in the Clueless Zone

It's happened a few times.
In a Crazyhouse tourney, watching a game, I'll see both players piling up the pieces to drop. It gets to an endgame. Either player could easily win by dropping something with check, but…no.
They play it out. None of the drop pieces gets used.

Here's one example:

[Event "Live Chess - Crazyhouse"]
[Site "Chess.com"]
[Date "2023.02.25"]
[Round "?"]
[White "NN"]
[Black "NN"]
[Result "1-0"]
[Variant "Crazyhouse"]
[ECO "A00"]
[WhiteElo "1054"]
[BlackElo "256"]
[TimeControl "180"]
[EndTime "6:25:54 PST"]
[Termination "NN won on time"]

1. e4 d6 2. Nf3 Bg4 3. d4 Bxf3 4. Qxf3 e6 5. Bc4 Nc6 6. d5 Nd4 7. Qd3 e5 8. Nc3
Be7 9. Be3 c5 10. O-O-O h6 11. Na4 Bg5 12. c3 Bxe3+ 13. fxe3 a6 14. exd4 exd4
15. cxd4 cxd4 16. Qxd4 Qg5+ 17. Kb1 Qg4 18. g3 Nf6 19. e5 Ne4 20. Rhe1 Nf2 21.
Qxg4 Nxg4 22. exd6+ Kd7 23. Re7+ Kxd6 24. Rxf7 Rhd8 25. Rxb7 Rac8 26. Nb6 Rc6
27. Bxa6 Nf2 28. Rc1 Rdc8 29. dxc6 Rxc6 30. Rxc6+ Kxc6 31. Rxg7 Kxb6 32. Rg6+
Kc5 33. Rxh6 Nd3 34. g4 Kd5 35. g5 Ne5 36. g6 Nxg6 37. Rxg6 Ke4 38. Kc2 Ke3 39.
Kc3 Kf3 40. Re6 Kg2 41. Rf6 Kxh2 42. Rg6 Kh3 43. Kd3 Kh4 44. Ke3 Kh5 45. Rg1 Kh6
46. Kf3 Kh7 47. Kf4 Kh6 48. Kf5 Kh5 49. Rh1+ 1-0

Evidently, not knowing they can drop a piece to parry the check, Black loses on time. (If you analyze this game with Stockfish, you'll see the eval pingpong back-and-forth, like +64 to -64 with every move. Beautiful.)

I mean, they join a tourney…and they don't know the rules of the game they're playing! Love it.

Just yesterday, I was in a Crazyhouse tourney. I dropped a piece with check, and my opponent asked (something like) "Wait. Where do you get that extra piece?"

(Got it from you, buddy.)

SF's analysis:

Wow, that ACPL is even higher than my typical games.

Ivanchuk, who does not play zh, once played like this.