How can we bring increment blitz chess players [back] to lichess?

For whatever reason, it looks like most stronger players that play increment blitz have moved over to chess.com. I can get a 3 2 game there in a matter of seconds. That also used to be the case on lichess back when there were FEWER players here!

I'm not so fond of playing on chess.com and so what can we do to revive increment blitz back here? How about throwing 3 2 tourneys into the mix more regularly? Definitely including an occasional elite (2200+) increment tournament.

Any other ideas? We need to reach that critical mass somehow or the time control is going to die altogether (as something regularly playable) on lichess and that'd be quite the shame!

In the best part of the day, entering the 3+2 pool will give you a game after ~10 seconds, on average.

In the worst part of the day, entering the 3+2 pool will give you a game after ~14 seconds, on average.

For 3+0, pairing time is almost half of that, on average.

I understand, but I cannot to play anyone tournment.....

@arex That is definitely off. Well, or everybody playing 3 2 has blocked me. ;-)

Assuming you're searching for at least 2200+, if those are your actual data the problem is that you're probably only considering people that get matched. Most people will not sit around for minutes waiting to get paired, and so what matches that DO happen will be artificially biased to be much shorter than the 'real' time to get a match.

Make sense?

In other words, imagine I leave the pool if I don't get paired after at most 30 seconds. That means anytime I do get matched the time to get paired is always going to be less than 30 seconds, even if I end up leaving the pool 90% of the time because it takes 30+ seconds.

@OhNoMyPants That's true, we measure leaving as well.

We could pair people faster if we reduced the rating similarity requirements, but I'm not sure that's a good idea.

Right now, 50% of the time, your opponent will have a rating within 42 rating points of your own.

There should be increment tournaments. All FIDE competitions are with increment. It would also stop the nonsense of people trying to flag each other with K+N vs. K+N.

Ah, you're giving me aggregate stats.

Filter that down to times that a 2300+ was paired. The reason I use a manual filter is I was facing players way below me just about every single time. Here, I'll do a quick experiment. I'm going to enter the 3 2 pool a few times with no filter.

Okay, some amazing impromptu data @arex. The first number is my rating compared to who I was paired against. The seconds being the approximate time for pairing.

Game 1: +76 rating points, ~10 seconds. Amazing and uncommon outcome.

Game 2: +266 rating points, ~15 seconds

Game 3: +329 rating points, ~30 seconds

Game 4: +248 rating points, ~15 seconds.

That's pretty typical, except the first outcome!

You can't look at aggregate data here. 3 2 lacks the critical mass necessary to keep entertaining games running for higher rated players, which was what motivated this post. And oddly enough Lichess used to have the critical mass to keep those games running, back when we had fewer players. It's a shame!

I would like 2+1 tourneys:)

@OhNoMyPants might be helpful if you could also post similar data with the filter in place.

my 2 cents: I agree with your suggestions of having more tournaments with increment.