Why am I so much better at crazyhouse than bughouse?

I do pretty well at crazyhouse.  My rating has been up in the 1700s.  It's dropped to the 1600s, but I think I was doing too many speculative attacks that cost material, and I've tried to cut back on that with positive results.  I have a win over a 2100 player (@zalizagen, https://www.chess.com/live/game/1846449025), and a win over a titled player (WFM @makalexa, https://www.chess.com/live/game/1846053863).  Just now I almost beat a 2000 player (@Sandpacer, https://www.chess.com/live/game/1860024622), and I have a number of other wins against players in the 1700-2000 range.  I had three occasions where I nearly qualified for the recent championship, and only just fell short.  I do have some losses against 1400-1500 players, but I think crazyhouse has a lot more upsets than normal chess, and it's no surprise if I'm on both ends of them; a 1400 player is certainly good enough to punish you if you make a mistake at the wrong time.

In bughouse, though, my rating tends to wander around in the 1300s and low 1400s.

The discrepancy puzzles me.  I've played a fair bit of bughouse OTB, although not at a particularly high level; I'd never played crazyhouse until the recent qualifiers.  One would think that if I was going to be strong at one and weak at the other, it would be bughouse where I was good and crazyhouse where I was weak.

Any ideas why there could be such a difference?

Your might be blundering

IMO, you have more control over the extra (or extraneous) material you gather or give away; this versus Bughouse. In Bughouse you have to rely on your team member to keep track of two boards, two sets of pieces, as do you, etc.

"Flagging" in Bughouse can amount to your team member's opponent sacrificing and feeding material to your opponent. The whole "sit / wait" thing in action. Versus playing random / willy-nilly like I'm prone to do.

I've never played ZH OTB. The first thing I noticed when I started playing here on Chess.com is that I have a significantly greater degree of control over the material I'm giving up, and what I'll want or need a move or two or three or several down the board.

I do blunder, but I do in crazyhouse too.  Why would I blunder more in bughouse?

The thing is, anything that relies on your partner is equally true for anyone who has played a couple dozen games.  If that was the explanation, everyone's rating would be 3-400 points lower in bughouse, but many people have the two fairly close together.  Yes, sometimes a loss is due fully to events on the other board, but those are balanced out by wins where I don't really deserve any of the credit.

Maybe I'm just bad at communication?  But a 3-400 point difference seems a lot...

It's very easy. You are not exception. Most people in FICS have +300/400 higher zh than bug. Zh is just many times easier than bug. Mix some calculation skill with some bug patterns and you got zh. Almost everything which is legit in bug is also legit in zh unlike the opposite. In zh you must be prepared for a certain piece to come against you. In bug you must be prepared for whatever comes most of the time.

In zh the time management is the same as blitz/bullet. In bug it's totally different much harder. There is no coordination in zh. The quality of the moves is absolute like in chess ask stockfish and it will find the best move while in bug the best move depends on so many factors on both boards and it must be found very fast. Every strong chess player and bug player can become elite zh in like 500 games. While in bug you need instincts which are developed for thousands of games. I got already 25 000+ games and i still improve myself and my instincts are getting better. Pretty much that's what came to my mind without much thinking i am sure there is more.

I think that makes sense - partly.  Bug is certainly more complicated.

However, one would think it would affect everyone more or less equally.  Since ratings are all relative, rather than absolute, wouldn't the extra complication affect everyone more or less equally unless they actually specialise in bug?  Does chess.com have a large number of people who specialise in bug and not so many in zh?

I think you're over-complicating things.

In Bug: What happens on the other board *can be* influenced by play on your board. Be it pieces you give-up, or pieces you take. The other board's position is entirely up to the other players. You lack but a small degree of control over this.

I don't see losses or difference being balanced out by wins where you don't deserve credit. The only time you don't deserve credit is if your team member goes-it-alone (uses none of the pieces you take).

In ZH: You have absolute control over board state, what you take or give-up, and how the other player moves is entirely between you and your opponent; not influenced by a secondary board where pieces are moving around.

In ZH, you have more control. Like classical or traditional or standard chess, it's a two player game where a decision you make influences a decision your opponent makes. In Bug, you lack this (absolute level-of) control, given my previous observations.

In Bug, one minute you're safe, as it pertains to a standard ZH game. The next minute, your team member's opponent is sacrificing and then stalling while the pieces gained against you on your board are consumed ... and suddenly you're not nearly as safe as you thought you were, or, it sets up an ebb-and-flow situation (flurry of activity with sitting or stalling and waiting for pieces).

That's the best I can put it. I don't think things "balance," -- there's always an imbalance in Bug vs. ZH.

The other factors is that there's more to pay attention to (split your attention between) across two boards in Bug, versus direct, singular concentration in ZH.

As for communication, I haven't played bug with you enough to know whether or not you're a good communicator. That's up to you and your team member. And it's not all about "communication," but somewhat about play style as well (such as, I mostly accept my Bug status as whipping-boy to be told what to do and when to sacrifice for a win on my team member's board). Other people have more "balanced" approaches. Sometimes I've come across people I play well with naturally. Other times I resent team members who never give anything up and then yell at you to provide them everything. Communication has the same give-and-take ebb and flow compounded by play style and preferences between two players. (Where traditional, standard, classical chess is a two-player game, Bug is a TEAM SPORT; relying somewhat on interpersonal dynamics.)

Best I got ($0.02)

Well this is also true, dunno about chess.com, but in FICS most people have like 50 000 bug games and 2000zh i suppose it's no different here. If you seek a bug game it starts in 5 seconds and if you seek zh you might wait for 10 mins and you need just 1 opp. Zh always been a dead game. Over the years bug players only played zh when bored to death. This changed over the last year thanks to lichess and FICS dying so many retired buggers started to play zh on lichess. Of course there are exceptions like JannLee who actually love zh. But it's just a matter of time chess.com improve their bug and when it becomes as good as fics RIP zh again. Nobody will cry for it. In my observation with risk to insult people i would say mostly people who just suck at bug plays zh much. Of course there are always exceptions like Jann who is phenomenal at both.

 Whoever wanna try this - lets say you are a 1700-2200 chess player without bug/zh exp online. Play 100 bug games in the random pool and 100 zh games and i guarantee you you will have 300/400 higher zh rating. Same goes for 500/500 or 1000/1000. You must become really strong at bug to equalize this rating

I haven't played bug that much lately ... so ... I went and played a few games just to check myself on that feeling of control (less over Bug, more over ZH play).

Here's a pretty standard ZH (not bug) opening:

1. e4 c5
2. Nf3 Nc6
3. d4 cxd4
4. Nxd4 Nxd4
5. Qxd4 N@c6
   NOTE: End exchange. Chase off the queen.
6. Qd1 @c7
   NOTE: Material gained, now replaced. Safe (guarded), but arguably under-developed, and no more pieces in hand.

There are several variations on this theme.

On the other hand, when you play Bug, you don't have these options, unless you've coordinated openings. You don't have the knight to chase off the queen, and you don't have the pawn to fill the hole. You could sit and wait, but some players develop extensively (time) before trading. Thus, while you wait to cover holes, you're eating time, or opening up your position to threats if you don't have a team member with eyes on both boards thinking: "Oh, my team member needs this to defend or shore-up his/her position. (Get Safe.)"

Then again, I would not classify this as a "safe" bug opening. (Though I play it habitually as black; a sucker to my own bad play; negatively impacts my team member as well.)

Point being: In ZH, I know the material I'm giving away and getting back. Like in Bug when people are saying "don't give-up this or that" -- and then your opponent might start sac'ing for exactly that. Then you're at a further disadvantage one way or another.

The worst part is ... and I just ran into it again a few minutes ago ... when people are in an unsafe position, you're already down on time (as a team), and your team member tells you to sit. (Pointless.) Or, someone says: "Piece Good," or "Piece Mates" -- and you're sitting here thinking to yourself ... "we berate each other for trading, exchanging, sacrificing and playing, and then turn around and pay no attention to the fact that piece you're asking for is not accessible." (On the latter "communication" factor -- it's pretty close Murphy's Law -- piece mates, when you don't have easy access to sac, or sac'ing for a piece gets you yelled at for giving up too much and allowing defense.)

So, yes, I stick with my original comment... you have more control over your position in ZH than you do in Bug.

Oh, and you can't neglect the fact that in Bug, you've got a 1/4 chance of winning, which is less than 1/2 ... so you win fewer. As a team, you have a 1/2 chance of winning, at the mercy of whichever team coordinates or simply plays better.

I'd be interested in seeing the stats from Random play vs. strong teams in terms of standard deviation intervals over the sum of players and how people are matched to see if there's an incidence correlation of lower SD between two (random) team members winning, versus higher spread in values between two team members ratings. (Might change 1/4 to 1/3, such that a team with players who have a smaller SD between rating difference have 1/2 to 2/3 chances over a weaker team, thus ... maintaining a higher Bug rating may depend on who you select or are stuck with as a team member.) I dunno, that's an abstract thought, though.

It might have to do with your style of play.

While  both Crazyhouse and Bughouse favors agressively players, passive play is at least possible in Crazyhouse, while a passive bughouse player will always lose. Maybe you don't play very agressively, or like to sacrifice as much

haha this is Sorsi's favourite topic

Imo, bughouse just requires a lot more luck than crazyhouse

"In zh you must be prepared for a certain piece to come against you. In bug you must be prepared for whatever comes most of the time." This is what I told Sorsi last time (after being convinced that bug is tough as rocks)...

Also +1 on these points:

- The zh openings vs. bug openings Sorsi briefly mentioned and cwfrank elaborated on with his Sicilian example

- Aggressive vs. passive style of play in zh vs. bug - mentioned by Joseph_Truelson

- Bug is much more complex: two boards, anything can happen

- There is no right move (as Sorsi said). Proving that a move is objectively best or at least one of the best in bug will take ages of time because you have to analyze countless "other board options."

Also, concerning your point that all players will experience this inherent difficulty in bug, I have to say that people just adjust differently. It's like me being stronger in three-checks than antichess; I'm just more suited for one variant over the other + there are other factors like liking one variant more and thus studying it more.

Also, the uptime is bug is so important. I was playing on FICS two days ago and I had 30 secs uptime...my partner just destroyed my opponent in those 30 secs because I just sat all that time and there were no pieces coming for my partner's opponent and my partner had the material advantage. You might play bug too much like it's zh and take your time, or you might allow sacs too much, ...

Since this is a "What's the cause of my problem?" type of thread, I thought I'd take a look at some of your games to show you just how exactly you play bug like it's zh. I remember you putting your pawns too defensively in one of your bug games (and MiniGreat told you not to do that), so I thought that you might be doing more classic zh vs. bug mistakes.

https://www.chess.com/live/game/1858383617?username=MGleason

6. Be3

zh: You're fine

bug: @f2 with lots of pieces (esp. knight and queen, though the sac can be declined) and you're gone

https://www.chess.com/live/game/1859966303?username=MGleason

7. d3

zh: fine

bug: Maybe too passive, maybe fine. Probs too passive

8. Bd2

zh: Maybe fine - probs fine.

Bug: a waste of time

https://www.chess.com/live/game/1859973387?username=MGleason

22. Kxe2

zh: depends, but these types of moves could be played

bug: No...

Thanks for the comments, all.  I think that makes sense.  In short, I'm playing moves that are fine with the material my opponent has in zh, but could be disastrous if my partner starts trading in bug.

You start at 1000 in bug and 1200 in crazyhouse.

No, (at least that's how it was when I started), your first bughouse rating = your current blitz rating.

I hadn't played any blitz, so my rating was 1200, but I started Bughouse with a rating of 1000.