A Legendary Horde Match
This Friday, July 13, a Horde match will take place at 18:00 UTC. The match will be contested between svenos, a French FM who has been rated as high as 2826 in Horde, and StubenFisch, a young chess player who is one of Horde’s most active (and perennial top 3!) players and probably the “face” of Horde. The match format will be as follows:
2x 15+10 4x 10+0 6x 5+0 10x 3+0 15x 1+2 5x 1+0
A Community Event
Do you want to hang out with other Lichess community members? Meet the Lichess team and convince them to implement bughouse? Find your way to Montreal on the afternoon of Saturday, July 28th. Bring a chess set and clock or just hang out with food and drinks available. We will be meeting at the picnic tables near Smith House in Mount Royal park from 2pm to 5pm. Stay tuned to Lichess social media for updates and a back-up plan in case of rain.
Please RSVP with the Facebook event if possible
Two Titans Battle it Out
This Saturday, May 12th 18:30 UTC, a match will take place between two of the best bullet players on Lichess. GM Paco Vallejo and GM Andrew Tang will put their chess skill and mouse speed to the test. They will play 12 games of 1+0 and 12 games of 2+0. The public will be able to watch both players in real time on their live streams and listen to their thought process (to the extent that fast chess allows).
A new way to play chess
Today we're officially introducing a special type of user account: Bots.
World Champion Magnus Carlsen's dominating winning streak comes to an end
On Star Wars Day, in the 5th event of its kind, we got to see 237 titled players, including 44 GMs, participate in two hours of bullet craziness. Would World Champion Magnus Carlsen continue his total domination of the Lichess Titled Arenas, or was it time for someone else to take home the jackpot first place prize of $3,000?
Magnus, the quadruple Titled Arena Champion, started the tournament livestreaming his participation on Twitch, but a suspicious internet connection quickly forced him to play the rest of the tournament without livestreaming. GM Andrew Tang (@penguingim1), who streams frequently, was also noticeably missing from Twitch, choosing not to stream in order to increase his chances of winning the event.
The new AI puts on an extremely strong performance against the human Grandmaster
As previously announced, on Sunday we got to see a historic match between GM Andrew Tang (@penguingim1) and the self-taught chess engine, Leela Chess Zero.
Historic because Leela is not a traditional chess engine. She learns and improves over time exclusively by playing chess against herself. This means she's free from human tendencies and limitations. Maybe it's possible for Leela to come up with new concepts, or combine existing chess principles in a new way? That's one of several reasons many people are excited about Leela.
The Lichess Titled Arena returns with a $3,600 prize pool!
In April we hosted the Lichess Titled Arena 4 tournament. 218 titled participants, including 34 GMs, played for a total prize pool of $3,200. World Champion Magnus Carlsen overtook GM Andrew Tang towards the end of the tournament to win it in dramatic fashion. For the fourth time, Magnus decided to donate his first place prize back to Lichess for the next event.
Now we are announcing Lichess Titled Arena 5, which will take place on Friday, May 4th. Thanks to Magnus's generosity, and a $350 donation from an anonymous donor, the total prize pool for this event is $3,600, including the huge $3,000 first prize. There are prizes for the top five places.
How strong is the new artificial intelligence called Leela?
This weekend, GM Andrew Tang (@penguingim1) will play a match against an unusual opponent, namely a new self-taught AI-based chess engine called Leela Chess Zero. Match details can be found at the bottom of the page.
Improving your chess with Interactive Lessons (and some new Practice content)
In the previous blog post, I covered the Lichess Study feature. In this post I want to focus on a relatively new Study feature, namely interactive lessons.
When you create a new chapter in a study, you have four modes to choose from.
Analyzing and studying chess with Lichess
Lichess Study is a part of Lichess that lets users analyze and annotate chess games, variations and positions. Study can be used to analyze your own games, study famous games, learn a particular opening or endgame, build and organize your opening repertoire or collect your favorite puzzles.