You get teamed with someone who has your rating +-600 points so if your rating is 1500 you can get paired with someone as high as 2100 and someone as low as 900. It can be questioned if the range should be as large as 600 points, but I actually think that it is pretty fine even if it can be very frustrating to play with someone 600 points lower than yourself as they tend to be really poor in communicating and that often they are playing their own game an mating you instead of sitting when 30 secs up on time,
There is a major advantage with random pairing in that you can fast get a game and hopefully have some fun. There is also a major disadvantage and it is that if you want to partner someone the random pairing makes it difficult to get even matches, especially as there is no limit for how few points you can play for a win or a loss.
Hi everyone. I'm new here. I've looked though the forums for information, and see a few posts about Bughouse pairing.
I'm not sure how it works. If I'm reading correctly: You cannot set a pairing range or threshold? You can team with another person, but, no other filtering options are available. Is this correct?
Yesterday or the day before, I was going between games where I was first paired with someone who was 2000+, and the next game, I was paired with someone who was only 800 or 900.
Not to be mean about this, but, that's pretty manic. I hesitate to call it "crazy" since this is bughouse, and crazyhouse is a different game. Besides manic, the other thought that crossed my mind is schizoid, or bi-polar. Night and day, the difference between high and low-rated players and pairings, one game to the next.
And, I noticed the same again this evening. I'm around 1500. I had a few games with some 1800's, 1900's and 2000-rated players. My brain turns on, and I'm motivated to play better, or at least try to make a good impression and do well. And then all of the sudden, I get paired with someone who's only 900 and drops or hangs pieces at random. (I can't complain, I'm not much better as a team member with someone significantly better than myself, but I at least try if I'm not sac'ing to eliminate a threat or feed material to my team member.)
A co-worker taught me bug (and now he left, so here I am). The one thing he hammered into me is "don't throw pieces around the board -- if you don't know what to do, look at what you need, look at the other board, look at what is possible."
The other major difference I see is that highly rated players communicate and help out. Low-rated tend to either beg for material, or be silent-running. No communication, no attention to chat or use of the beggar's buttons. But this is nothing new. This was explained to me before I signed-up.
The pairings, however -- I'm sorry, but it's manic, crazy, schizoid sometimes.