Last Saturday, Lichess held a Meetup in London, in a pub near the World Championship Venue. People turned up en masse, from beginners to seasoned players, making the evening a huge success, as demonstrated by this heartwarming reddit post. Thanks to all the players that took part in our blitz tournament, and congratulations to the top 3 finishers: Robbie Cahar, Anil Cengiz and Eric Rosen, who all got a limited edition London Meetup hoodie.

While the team didn't have time to work on Lichess features for this Meetup, we still had time to take some pictures, enjoy our selection below.

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It is not often that the chess world unites to criticise Magnus Carlsen, but on Monday evening in London the World Champion had few supporters after his decision to squander a highly favourable position and offer a draw to his challenger Fabiano Caruana as soon as legally permissible in the final classical game of the world title match in London.

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“This will not be a draw!” declared almost every pundit in the packed World Championship press room after 20 moves of the tenth game between Magnus Carlsen and Fabiano Caruana but – it seems inevitable in the 2018 title match – defence triumphed and a tenth consecutive draw was the result.

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Standing on the platform at Holborn underground station in central London, a short walk from the World Championship match venue The College, two young Norwegians are in animated discussion about the game they have just seen, where challenger Fabiano Caruana - for the second time in three games - went close to knocking over World Champion Magnus Carlsen.

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It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a World Championship match which starts with a run of draws will see that run broken by a win from the challenger.

In his 1995 match against Garry Kasparov, Viswanathan Anand scored the first win in game 9, in 2016 Sergey Karjakin broke through against Magnus Carlsen in game 8, and Boris Gelfand followed six draws against World Champion Anand with a game 7 win in 2012. (Did I mention that after these deadlock-breaking wins, the challengers did not win another game and all lost their matches?)

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This Saturday 17th November, the Lichess4545 league is organising a 15+15 tournament for its 3rd year.

The league is for people who want to play slow chess, improve, and meet other chess players but with the convenience of the internet. Starting as little more than a few dedicated enthusiasts and a Google spreadsheet, we now have over 300 actively playing members and many more who remain part of the community. Along the way the league has formed its own website with its own TV page of league games, developed its own league bot @chesster, started a league newsletter Lichess4545 Ledger, created several ancillary leagues, compiled end of season awards and funded and highlighted games for end-of season video reviews with several prominent youtubers and streamers. Thanks to the hard work of several developers and volunteers as well as the enthusiastic players who actively participate in all aspects of the community, we have been able to continually improve and develop a place for fun, comradery and serious study of chess.

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The action began early on Tuesday, so early that it preceded the start of Game 4.

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Surfing on the World Chess Championship happening in London from 9th to 28th November, Lichess is organising a community meetup in London on Saturday 24th November, come see us!

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The position on the board after 10 moves in game 3 of the World Championship match between Fabiano Caruana and Magnus Carlsen will look very familiar. It’s a very similar Rossolimo setup to the one that Caruana used in game 1, which was generally agreed to not be a success for Caruana.

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The most dramatic moment in Saturday’s game 2 came at move 10 when Fabiano Caruana played Rd8. Afterwards, World Champion Magnus Carlsen was noticeably uncomfortable at the board. This was not because his position was objectively in any trouble, but because he realized that this was the sort of move that Caruana would have meticulously prepared beforehand with the help of a team of strong computers and GMs. Meanwhile, Magnus had to find moves on his own with the clock ticking.

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