A not-so-new addition
Lichess is very proud to announce the Lichess Bundesliga. Formerly known as the “Quarantäne Bundesliga,” it's a massive league with hundreds of teams and thousands of players, including many titled players participating every week.
and the winner is... We can't say. Again.
The Lichess Chess 960 Titled Arena took place yesterday and typically these blog posts announce the winner. Unfortunately, that won’t be possible this time... again.
GM Peter Svidler will be joining us Thursday and Sunday on the Lichess Twitch channel for the first in a series we’re calling “Lichess Plays.” Peter will be taking challenges from Lichess users in whatever time control he prefers. The streams will be on Thursday (01-Oct) at 19:00 UTC and Sunday (04-Oct) at 18:00 UTC.
Why does Lichess allow anonymous users? Or why does it allow anonymous users to play in Titled Arenas at least? The first question is very simple: everyone on the internet has the right to be anonymous and websites have the responsibility to protect their identity as far as they can- if they even know their identity! The second question is not as simple. Other chess websites require their titled-only competition participants to publicly identify to play. Lichess could presumably do the same.
Today on the Lichess Twitch channel, former World Championship challenger GM Boris Gelfand will join WFM Maria Emelianova to give commentary for the 2020 St. Louis Rapid and Blitz tournament featuring Magnus Carlsen, Hikaru Nakamura, and numerous other Super GMs. Gelfand is a six-time World Championship candidate (1991, 1994–95, 2002, 2007, 2011, 2013) and won the candidates tournament in 2011. He then drew a World Championship match with Viswanathan Anand but lost in the rapid tiebreaks.
A pair of amazing tournaments will be taking place in the next week on Lichess with a combined $400,000 prize fund. Featuring World Champion Magnus Carlsen, former World Champion Garry Kasparov, and many other Super GMs: Vachier-Lagrave, Caruana, Nakamura, Aronian, Svidler, Firouzja, and more. We will get to see Carlsen and Kasparov play their first competitive game since Magnus was 13 years old. Speaking of teenagers, we’ll also get to see 17-year-old phenom Alireza Firouzja test his mettle against Garry and the rest of the heavy hitters.
With 5 minutes left to go in the Lichess September Blitz Titled Arena, GM Andrew Tang’s chances to win seemed slim, he was 6 points behind GM Oleksander Bortnyk and 4 points behind GM Alireza Firouzja. However, Arena streak scoring rules increased the chance of a comeback dramatically and Tang had “fire,” i.e. he was on a winning streak and every point scored would be doubled. After 2 quick victories Tang was suddenly only 2 points behind the leader. As the clock ran out, he quickly agreed to a draw, giving him the 2 points necessary to reach the leader. When he returned to the tournament standings page his heart sank to see his name in second. He and Firouzja both scored 125 points, but Firouzja took 1st on tiebreaks.
Announcing our schedule for upcoming Titled Arenas!
We're pleased to announce a schedule for our upcoming Titled Arenas!
All events will be preceded by a warm-up arena open to all players with a minimum of 20 rated games in the relevant time control and variant.
To paraphrase a famous football saying: chess is a board game with 64 squares and 32 pieces, and at the end Magnus wins.
Bullet Chess with the best in the world.
The qualifier rounds for the previously announced Katara International Bullet Tournament took place today. The five top finishers from each event progress to the knockout finals featuring a $10,000 prize fund.
The first of the qualifiers was a tense affair, as all three turned out to be. An hour and a half to separate around 2,500 players is no simple matter, with just the top 5 in each - the top 0.2% - walking away with a place in the next round. Unlike the Titled Arenas, there were no restrictions on entry beyond 15 rated bullet games, but the top echelons were still packed with masters. Still, several untitled players did well such as the Puzzle Rush legend Dimitrakis Ladasi (jimakos) who placed 7th in the first event. Some of the usual suspects were also involved, like Andrew Tang (penguingim1), despite the very early hour for him. We don't want to spoil any surprises, catch a replay of the action below or see the full list of qualifiers at the end.