After getting third in the last Titled Arena GM Oleksander Bortnyk won the April Blitz Titled Arena - it‘s his third win of a TA! GM Shakhriyar Mamedyarov came in second and the mysterious GM Grey_parrot took third place. Fourth was taken by GM Zhamsaran Tsydypov and fifth by GM Vahap Sanal.

Berserk was the key to victory for Oleksander Bortnyk in this Arena. He had a berserk rate of 100% and played 20 more games than second place. Second and third place went for a different approach. They berserked less but got long streaks with win rates of over 80%. Third placed GM Grey_parrot found his nemesis. While Grey_parrot only lost 5 games in the whole Arena, he lost 4 of them to GM Aravindh Chithambaram, who came in 6th.

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[EDIT - 2/4/2021] We were just kidding! April fools!

With so many people kept away from over the board events by the pandemic, we've been doing our best to fill the gap. But something, something is missing from that true OTB experience. A few things actually. As such, we have decided to implement "OTB mode" on Lichess, bringing a number of innovative features to make you feel you're back in the club.

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GM Andrew Tang won the Lichess Titled Arena on Saturday, holding off a strong challenge from World Champion GM Magnus Carlsen. It was his third Titled Arena victory including many other finishes among the top spots. Third place was taken by GM Oleksander Bortnyk, fourth by IM Vincent Rothuis and fifth by GM David Paravyan.

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Play Puzzle Racer here!

Recently we released Puzzle Storm, Lichess's timed puzzle feature and it was reasonably popular, with around 7.5 million completed runs since release, and that doesn't even count all the early restarts! Now, we're pleased to announce a follow-up feature, competitive Puzzle Storm: Puzzle Racer! Click the link to play against a random selection of other users in the lobby, or send a custom link to your friends and face off on the race-track in groups of up to 10.

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Calm down everybody, the title is a joke, Russians weren’t the only ones allowed to play in Saturday's Titled Arena, just the only ones allowed to finish at the top. This also wasn’t enforced by a formal rule of the competition but instead by the quality of the Russian players.

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GM Alireza Firouzja won his 13th Titled Arena on Saturday, bringing him almost even with the record 14 won by GM Magnus Carlsen. (EDITORS NOTE: Upon further review, it seems Magnus has actually won 15 Titled Arenas.) Firouzja was quickly among the leaders and eventually pulled away, finishing in 1st by a comfortable 20 point margin. Magnus played in the event too but started late, something that, as we’ve discussed before, is not necessarily a big disadvantage. His first game was played 42 minutes into the 2 hour event. By the time he surged into the top spots, the leader was just too far ahead and Magnus finished third behind Firouzja and GM Daniel Naroditsky.

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We congratulate the Stockfish developers for their latest release, Stockfish 13. Check out the release announcement for details.

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A few days ago, ChessBase released Fat Fritz 2, described on their website as the “new number 1” chess engine “with a massive new neural network, trained by Albert Silver with the original Fat Fritz.” They advertise Fat Fritz 2 as using novel strong ideas compared to existing chess engines, but in reality Fat Fritz 2 is just Stockfish with a different neural network and minimal changes that are neither innovative nor appear to make the engine stronger.

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Here at Lichess, we like to occasionally throw a bone to one of the strange subcultures that play versions of chess distinct from what we’re all used to. Even if you’re not a fan of their odd form of the game, even if their game may seem totally counter to way that chess is supposed to be played, it's nice to try something new once in a while. To that end, it was decided that Saturday’s Titled Arena would be played using increment.

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It gives us great pride to announce the arrival of Puzzle Storm; a timed puzzle feature that prompts the user to solve puzzles with increasing difficulty as quickly as possible. Give it a try here.

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