standard chess with pawns missing

Hi fellow Admins, 

Do any of you know of a variation in game board that removes pawns at the beginning when playing?  I was challenged a 5 day per move game with 4 pawns removed.  My opponent claims that  "it will only let me challenge people with balanced odds".  I looked in the variants of chess games but saw nothing about this!  I have submitted a bug report to help/support but was wondering if anyone else has run across this before?  here is the link to the game.  I am white and this is the opening position.

  https://www.chess.com/game/daily/343673311

Did Chess.com reply to your report?

When playing against members in your friend list, one of the options is an Odds game:

https://support.chess.com/article/1824-how-do-i-play-an-odds-game

It isn't the default and should have to be chosen each time.

yes, odd games are quite fun to play. unrated of course.

https://www.chess.com/game/daily/325439788

So, this guy wanted you to play a game with him where you have 4 pawns removed and he keeps his?  How pathetic.  You can't learn how to play chess like this, you'll never see the positions in a real game. Just play people around your level and play a real game of chess.

Variants are an insult to the great game of chess to begin with.

he doesn't decide which pieces will be removed; it's automatic, according to the rating difference. I find variants amusing and interesting; specially "fog of war".

So I went to look at this scammer and I found another game where he’s doing it

The answer from support/help:  "The pawns are missing in this game: https://www.chess.com/game/daily/343673311 because it was started as a game from "Custom position". "  

Such games are automatically unrated, so don't worry too much about it. Accept the challenge if you want to try it or decline it if you don't. It's as simple as that.

Thank you, I did accept the challenge and playing.