When will blindfold become a separate variant?

Right now the feature is ok for playing with friends, otherwise you can't know if the other opponent is also playing blindfold. Why isn't blindfold a chess variant such as 960, horde etc? Do you think it is qualitatively inferior to stuff like "atomic" ?

Why should it be a "variant"?

It is better as option only.

One of the main reasons why blindfold isn't a variant because it does not require a change of strategy from normal chess.
Nearly every variant has different rules and requires you to play differently in order to succeed.
You only have to know the chess coordinates to play blindfold, which may not affect how you normally play.

@aerdna69 said in #1:

Right now the feature is ok for playing with friends, otherwise you can't know if the other opponent is also playing blindfold. Why isn't blindfold a chess variant such as 960, horde etc? Do you think it is qualitatively inferior to stuff like "atomic" ?
In a long game like 5+1 it is difficult to police if opponent is really blindfolded or have they opened the position on new tab or their chessbase . Having played a couple of blindfold variant games on chess.com and i wasn't surprised when 1400-1500 ( blitz ) saw better than me in middlegames after getting worse positions from openings as there i could see clearer and punish them . I stopped doing that and only play it with friends now

@MrPushwood said in #2:

Why should it be a "variant"?

for the same reason horde is a variant. Why should horde be a "variant"?

@AnimeWillDieSoon said in #5:

In a long game like 5+1 it is difficult to police if opponent is really blindfolded or have they opened the position on new tab or their chessbase . Having played a couple of blindfold variant games on chess.com and i wasn't surprised when 1400-1500 ( blitz ) saw better than me in middlegames after getting worse positions from openings as there i could see clearer and punish them . I stopped doing that and only play it with friends now

It is a just a matter of willingness. If you want you can catch cheaters in blindfold, in the same way you are now catching cheater in normal games.

No way to find if opponent has the position in another tab, it is better as a feature than a variant

@Chosenbond said in #8:

No way to find if opponent has the position in another tab, it is better as a feature than a variant
I absolutely disagree. Of course you can know if there's the same game in another tab.

@aerdna69 said in #9:

I absolutely disagree. Of course you can know if there's the same game in another tab.
Nah, we can’t.