Message 289476 - Python tracker

Elliot, PyObject_RichCompareBool calls PyObject_RichCompare.  That in turn does some checks, hides a small mountain of tests in the expansions of the recursion-checking macros, and calls do_richcompare.  That in turn does some useless (in the cases you're aiming at) tests and finally gets around to invoking tp_richcompare.  Your patch gets to that final step at once.

I'm surprised you didn't know that ;-)