This Saturday saw the inaugural Blitz Titled Arena on Lichess. With a leisurely 3+0 time control compared to the usual 1+0 Titled Arenas, we saw a huge number of players show up to participate. Of course, these numbers might also be related to the current and unfortunate "self-isolation" keeping many of us indoors. Whatever the cause, there were over 700 participants at the start of the event, with 844 playing over the course of the 3-hour contest. Participating players aside, there were also over 70,000 other users on the site - and so many streamers that the chat box was almost completely hidden. We'll try to sort something out for the future!

A slower pace for the time control seemingly led to a slower pace for the regular tournament leaders, with a longer time investment needed to secure the points. The pace even appeared too slow for some, who were forced to berserk in order to get the adrenaline rush of bullet.

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Round 3 of the 2020 Candidates Tournament was the quietest so far, with only one decisive result - but provided the winner of that point with much needed momentum and an excellent result against the world number two. 

After today, the tournament is back to being wide open. Ian Nepomniachtchi, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Wang Hao are all joint leaders with 2 out of 3 points. Following them are Fabiano Caruana and Alexander Grischuk, on 1.5 out of 3. Ding Liren, Anish Giri, and wildcard Kirill Alekseenko are all on 1 point. 

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As the worldwide situation due to COVID-19 continued to worsen and whilst global markets appear to be headed towards a global recession, day 2 at the 2020 Candidates Tournament continued with two decisive results and a miracle save by Anish Giri. Annotations on decisive results provided by IM Lasse Løvik. 

(title image photo credit: Maria Emelianova for FIDE)

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Quite understandably, and sensibly, many Lichess users have made the decision to forego their OTB clubs amid the Coronavirus outbreak. Or clubs are simply not open, again a wise decision. We know that being stuck inside can't always compare to the environment at an OTB club, but given the volume of requests we've had for advice on OTB replacements, we wanted to put all our tools in one place for you.

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Despite safety concerns because of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, the 2020 Candidates tournament, which will decide a challenger for World Champion Magnus Carlsen, began yesterday and had a lively start. The games were played without spectators and the press was only allowed a moment to take pictures at the beginning of the round before being quickly ushered out. Former World Champion GM Anatoly Karpov made the ceremonial first move. Afterwards, GM Anish Giri shook Karpov’s hand, however his opponent GM Ian Nepomniachtchi prudently declined Karpov's gesture.

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The Candidates Tournament 2020 (hosted in Russia’s fourth-largest city and the capital of the Urals, Yekaterinburg), had already attracted drama and criticism of FIDE’s decision to go ahead with the event as planned. Amidst what the World Health Organisation (WHO) has now branded a “pandemic” and an “international global health crisis”, FIDE decided to continue with the Candidates, despite WHO’s global recommendation to avoid major social gatherings. The Candidates is a major feature of the chess calendar, determining who will be playing World Champion Magnus Carlsen later this year (hopefully).

Continuing with the Candidates was largely contrary to the actions of every other major sporting organisation in the world which heeded the WHO’s advice. Major top flight football leagues, tennis events, the rugby Six Nations, Formula 1, baseball and basketball leagues have all been postponed, suspended or cancelled. Notably, many major chess events have been cancelled as well. A joint European Chess Union and FIDE statement declared “both organisations believe that priority is the protection of the public health.”

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The 1+0 Titled Arena has been a giant success, filled to the brim with excitement and entertainment. But some find 1+0 too fast. If you are one of those that enjoy competition at a slightly slower pace, then this is the event for you. Announcing the 3+0 Blitz Titled Arena! Three times the thinking time and three times the fun, for three full hours!

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After several Titled Arenas without the reigning world champion, speculation had been rife about the reason. But for March's event, Magnus Carlsen returned. How was his form? Would he be able to supplant the reigning Titled Arena champion GM Alireza Firouzja (@alireza2003)? Indeed, January's winner was also participating, GM Andrew Tang (@penguingim1). Things were shaping up for quite a battle, and the three were all quick out of the blocks - settling into the podium positions within the first 30 minutes - and a good deal ahead of the rest of the pack. A quite impressive feat when most of the top players were rated over 2900 in bullet.

The games were hard fought and often frighteningly complicated like the example below - rare to see two GMs play a game with an average centipawn loss of 100+.

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The next Lichess Titled Arena will be on Saturday the 7th March at 19:00 UTC!

The event will as usual be preceded by a bullet 1+0 Warm-up Arena, open to all players with a minimum of 20 rated bullet games. Yes, even you.

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2 years ago we released a public API for Bots, that allows chess engine developers to test their creations against players and other bots.

While the Bot API can also be used by human players, it is restricted to challenge games, and require creating a special BOT account. As a result, it has been mostly used for creating artificial opponents.

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