Catch 22 with your stupid restrictions

I actually have no idea what the number is :/

I can at least play a few to get him closer.

It's fifteen for variants and 20 for normal.

As someone else suggested, why not accept games in any variant for the tournament requirements? Blitz games are not hard to get.

Seeks in any variant are not hard to come by, given you are slightly flexible on time settings (e.g. from 2 0 up to 5+5). You're new to the site, you don't have to play TODAY's daily, lichess will still be around tomorrow.

If you have so much trouble findings seeks AND finding people to accept yours, just politely message a couple of online active players in said variant (e.g. look at game on lichess TV and observers / variant forums) stating "plz help me play 15 games what's your preferred time settings ?" and you'll find someone.

What variant is this about ?

@#13 because going through 25 hyperbullet games to start cheating is too easy / because people entering tourneys before even learning the variant rules are a bit annoying ? In my atomic experience, it goes 1. e4 d5 2. exd5 Qxd2# 0-1, and then the player quits the tourney.

I've faced less cheaters, as in, way way less, ever since the arena restrictions are there and I barely play arenas. Those restrictions make creating cheat accounts useless and cheaters just don't see the point anymore.

If you can't find game in your favoured variant it tells us 2 things:

1) The variant sucks so much no one plays it. Once theory creeps into variants, that usually kills the fun of a variant or bogus variants like racing kings just never were popular.

2) The interface at the moment is not encouraging players to try variants.

I'd nuance 2):
The interface at the moment has a catch-22 which discourages new players from trying variants.

I'm working on a gradual system-wide improvement... it's a huge effort though.