With a 50 points lead!
GM Andrew Tang (@C9C9C9C9C9) won his 4th Titled Arena very convincingly. He was followed by IM Minh Le (@mutdpro) and GM Daniel Naroditsky (@RebeccaHarris). In 4th place was NM Jasugi99 and 5th was GM Sergei Zhigalko (@Zhigalko_Sergei). Tang did not let any doubt come up that he was going to win this Arena and led it through the whole tournament. In the end he won by a lead of 55 points to second place Minh Le.
Round 2 of the World Cup continues, as the first impact of Covid-19 is felt.
The risk of Covid-19, already looming in the tournament since IM Mohamed Ervan's withdrawal in round 1, took centre stage in round 2. Even before this latest round began, GM Levon Aronian was forfeited in the first game due to potential Covid-19 infection. Continuing to be symptomatic with flu-like symptoms for the second game of the round, Aronian withdrew as his Australian opponent, GM Bobby Cheng qualified through to round 3, where he will face GM Vladislav Kovalev. [Title photo credit - Anastasia Korolkova / FIDE]
Aronian has since released a statement on Facebook, clarifying he withdrew due to “having a high fever and tonsillitis”. It has been widely reported and documented that Covid-19 commonly manifests with fever and sore throat, although it is unclear if Aronian has Covid-19 or another illness with similar symptoms.
Round 1 of the Chess World Cup started just outside Sochi yesterday, in an exposition centre nestled in the scenic mountainous landscape of Krasnaya Polyana.
Some players who had arrived early - or were seeded into a later bracket - spent some time tackling the local peaks before preparing to tackle their opponents.
World Champion Magnus Carlsen won the Blitz Titled Arena by a 15 point margin on Saturday over 2nd place GM Oleksandr Bortnyk and 3rd place IM Minh Le. More notable than the victory for Carlsen was his incredible winning percentage. Carlsen started the event winning an amazing 30 games in a row. He then lost two of his last four games to finish with a winning percentage of 94%. It’s unclear if he got tired or simply felt sorry for his opponents.
Congratulations to the Stockfish team for the latest release of their world class engine! Stockfish 14 is now available for download, as always, 100% free/libre open-source software, just like Lichess.
The new version of Stockfish wins four times more game pairs than it loses against the previous version (+40 Elo, more in Chess960). Part of this comes from collaborating with Leela Chess Zero. See the official release announcement for more details and improvements.
GM Vladislav Artemiev won the Katara International Chess Tournament 2021 on Wednesday, beating GM Andrew Tang in the finals. The final match was full of insane swings. Initially, Artemiev took a commanding 5-1 lead in the best-of-12 match, only 1.5 points from victory. Then, Tang reeled of 5 straight victories to take the lead himself. Artemiev won the 11th game and was winning the 12th too but was forced to settle for a draw due to insufficient material. In the tiebreak, the first game was a draw. Artemiev then won the second game to win the tournament. Due to the 1+0 time control the pace of the event was incredible. Before the result of a game could completely sink in, in the players were already 15 moves into the next one.
[EDITORS NOTE: An earlier version of this article showed an incorrect start time for the finals]
There were plenty of opportunities this past weekend to play elite bullet chess with more than $10k in prizes up for grabs, and the action will continue this Wednesday with the Knockout Final of the Katara International Tournament 2021 featuring World Champion Magnus Carlsen.
The world's best bullet players gather to see who comes out on top.
It is with great pleasure that we announce the return of the Katara Bullet Championship in 2021 and the participation of World Champion Magnus Carlsen.
Last year's event was a great success that saw Magnus win the finals against GM Daniel Naroditsky in spectacular fashion. Magnus will try to defend his title again this year. The event will start with 2 qualifiers on June 20th.
Only users who have verified their identity and title may play in Lichess Titled Arenas. They are not, however, required to identify themselves to the public, and if asked, Lichess will dutifully keep their identity secret, regardless of its effect on winner-announcing blog posts. Revealing a user's identity who hasn't consented to it is not only highly unethical, but a serious crime in Europe.
GM Daniel Naroditsky won his third Titled Arena on Saturday by a comfortable 21 point margin. Second place was GM Sergei Zhigalko, and Third was IM Thomas Beerdsen. The games were quite close among the top trio. Naroditsky scored 2/4 vs. Zhigalko and 2/3 versus Beerdsen, but performed much better against the lower end of the table. After the event, Naroditsky graciously donated $250 of his prize to be used for the prize money of the next Bullet Titled Arena.