Lichess4545 Ledger 058

Lichess4545 Ledger

Issue #058 - April 25, 2018

State of the 4545 League

by @SpiteKnight

Welcome to Season 12 of the Lichess4545 League everyone! We have a lot of new members this time around creating a record number of 40 teams, and ~300 participants including the alternates. It's a testament to all the hard work put in by the volunteers and moderators of the League and we would like to thank them for all the wonderful work they do all season long. We have some very interesting team names this season, makes for an interesting end of season award for the best team name. I am also glad we've moved away from naming our teams with names having any relation to pineapple on pizzas.

For all the new members of the League, I'd like to highlight that you now have 24hrs to contact your opponent on slack and/or Lichess, from the time the pairings are released. You also have to provide a minimum of at least 3 distinct times on at least 2 separate days when you contact your opponent within the 24hrs. We encourage all our participants to adhere to these rules in order to ensure a smooth and fair scheduling process. We hope you have a wonderful first season. More information on the rules can be found at: https://www.lichess4545.com/team4545/season/12/document/rules/

Anyone in the League requiring assistance on how to keep the Chess God happy should get in touch with IM @lovlas, as he managed an 8/8 score on Board 1 of Season 11. Truly an amazing feat! Congratulations to him! It may even be the only time this was ever done in the League, making it a remarkable achievement! You can view the summary of Season 11 here.

We had a very cool event take place on Lichess on Sunday, most of you may have even caught the live stream, of GM Andrew Tang (@penguingim1) playing against the chess engine, Leela Chess Zero. GM Andrew Tang managed to win one game and draw six. The sole victory and three of his draws came in his pet time control, the ultrabullet. It was an excellent and highly interesting event, kudos to the Lichess team for organizing it. @arex has provided everyone with a great write up of the entire event which was a pretty good read.

For those who are interested, you can also check out an interview with GM Andrew Tang conducted by the Ledger team in one of the previous issues, here.

New League Moderators:

Two new moderators have been added to the League moderator team. Welcome, @sgis and @glbert!

🏆Board Championship Series🏆

Here are the results of Season 11's (Unofficial) Board Championship Series! After this write-up by tournament organizer @colwem, an interview with him follows.

"As for the board championship series, I must stress its unofficial nature here. For instance, @lovlas who went 8-0 with a TPR of 2992 on board 1 is most definitely the official board 1 champion, but @erinyu who won the board 1 tournament is the unofficial champion. Most of the official champions declined to take part."

Board 1:

Semi-finals
- #1 @erinyu🏆 vs #4 @aliquantus 1-0
- #2 @badplayer_cm vs #3 @sonata2 ½-½
  - @sonata2 vs. @badplayer_cm 5+3 tiebreaker 0-1
Round 2:
- 1# @erinyu🏆 vs #2 @badplayer_cm 1-0

Board 2:

Semi-finals
- #1 @archone vs #4 @Paolone 0-1
- #2 @axp156 vs #3 @gucelli 1-0
Finals
- #2 @axp156 vs #4 @Paolone ½-½
  - @Paolone vs @axp156 45+45 revanche Thursday April 26th 19:00 UTC

Board 3:

Semi-finals
- #1 @NiSn vs #4 @wolf21🏆 ½-½
  - @wolf21🏆 vs @NiSn 5+3 tiebreaker ½-½
  - @NiSn vs @wolf21🏆 5+3 tiebreaker 0-1
- #2 @jivey vs #3 @rgpchesspe ½-½
  - @rgpchesspe vs @jivey coin toss tiebreaker 0-1
Finals
- #2 @jivey vs #4 @wolf21🏆 0-1

Board 4:

Semi-finals
- #1 @kjfoster17 vs #4 @rottenpawn 0-1
- #2 @moinmann vs #3 @rodeo🏆 0F-1X
Finals
- #3 @rodeo🏆 vs #4 @rottenpawn 1-0

Board 5:

Semi-finals
- #1 @xEmpCC vs #4 @Lalaze 1-0
- #2 @forhavu vs #3 @Giampy62🏆 0-1
Finals
- #1 @xEmpCC vs #3 @Giampy62🏆 0-1

Board 6:

Semi-finals
- #1 @Nothing vs #4 @GOKUBA 0F-1X
- #2 @Tranzoo🏆 vs #3 @joeymellberg ½-½
  - @Tranzoo vs @joeymellberg 5+3 tiebreaker 1-0
Finals
- #2 @Tranzoo🏆 vs #4 @GOKUBA 1-0

Interview with @colwem!

by @luvgangster

@colwem has jumped into the Lichess4545 community head first. With only a few seasons under his belt, he has already taken up the helm as captain this season of The Da Vishy Code, moved up a board, and organized a single elimination, two round tournament for the best performers of the past season with the #board-championship series. Thanks to his hard work, we have an exciting new tournament available to those who wish to watch the top individual performers each Lichess4545 season duke it out to see who the best of the best is. We sat down with him to get his thoughts on the tournament's overall success and future!

Hi! Thanks for taking time to do this.

You're welcome. Or I guess it's spelled welcoem.

Or colwem...So first off, where did you get the inspiration for the board championship series?

Season 10 I finished third on board six, one point below second place, and unfortunately I never played either of the people ahead of me. It felt a little unfair that I didn't have the opportunity to beat them, but more importantly it felt like we were missing an exciting opportunity. I just wanted the chance to actually fight for the top. Also, every season as soon as the season starts people always start talking about outside the box changes to the league and we were talking about playoffs. No one really likes team playoffs but I thought individual playoffs would be a lot of fun.

How do you feel the Lichess4545 community reacted to your idea? Did you have trouble in organizing the event?

No, it was way easier than I expected. I never encountered any resistance from anyone. Only encouragement and appreciation. I invited the top eight on every board because I assumed that some people would decline the invitation. I was worried though that I would get a bunch of non-responses making it difficult to know when to start the tournament or if I should wait. Turns out that wasn't a problem. Everyone responded with a yes or no within two days. In addition top eight was perfect. Never had more than four declines. There was one game that had a complicated resolution but other than that everything was very smooth.

That's quite impressive. Sometimes organizing tournaments can be a headache.

Yeah. Well, two rounds I think makes it easier. Very small tournament.

Seems like a great way to end the Lichess4545 season as it finishes before the next season begins.

Right, well that was another factor that inspired me. I figured that at least some people would rather not take a two week break and would rather just keep playing, so here's something you can do.

On to the tournament itself... What was the format for the tournament?

Semi-finals, then finals. Single elimination. Higher seeded player got choice of color. Draw resolution was up to the players but I recommended just playing 5+3 blitz games until you get a decisive result. For the most part draws were settled by a blitz game but I think at least once the players just flipped a coin haha. And the final for board two is going to two 45+45 games.

Ah, so I assume the championships are still on-going to some degree. How many boards have had a champion crowned as of now?

All are done but for board 2. Board 2 finals take two is scheduled for tomorrow, Thursday April 26th 19:00 UTC.

Here is an interesting sample of a position from the board championship match. From board five's fighting matchup between xEmpCC vs Giampy62.

With Lichess4545 growing to a whopping forty teams, do you see any changes to the #board-championship series (or maybe just Lichess4545 in general)?

The #board-championship series was successful and easy so I'm definitely planning to do it again.

Changes to the league! Right now I really like the idea of spliting the league in two for a number of reasons. First, with only twenty teams, then each team feels more like they actually have a chance to win. Second, we can have fun championship matches in the week after the season between the two top teams (obviously this would conflict with the board-championships). Most importantly, we can maybe get rid of alternates by letting players from league 1 act as alternates for league 2 and vice versa.

What an interesting idea for fixing the alternate problems! Honestly never thought about that, although I do think there are some potential issues with people who sign up late and still wish to participate.

Yeah, my suggestion is to put this on the survey, most specifically, figure out what percentage of participants are willing/eager to play more than one 45+45 game a week. If we know that there are enough people in the league who are willing to end up playing on two teams at the same time because of drops, then we don't need to keep as many alternates.

(Once again, thanks to @colwem for the interview and for the #board-championship tournament!)

#Chess960 Announcement

For all those who prefer a dynamic game from move one, @mn8 is running a Chess960/Fischer Random tournament! If you're interested in participating in the 25+5 weekly tournament, have suggestions for how to make the tournament even better, or are just wondering what Chess960 is all about, head on over to the #chess960 channel in the Lichess4545 Slack. Registration tentatively closes this Saturday (28/4/2018).

Video Reviews

by @quirked

We'd like to thank @quirked for running the ChessLeagueTV as well as he does and providing us with excellent reviews of the nominated games of Season 11! Two of them have been done so far, with four more to go!


Post Lichess4545 season #11 reviews: Board 6 Round 3 meangreen (1446) vs Donkey-Kong16 (1365) Gamelink. The unexpected strength of Board 6, Profilaxis, improving pieces...	Post Lichess4545 season #11 reviews: Board 5 Round 7 Illcheckyoumate (1768) vs Lukhas (1669) Gamelink. Understanding the idea of your opening or the problem behind pet setup/opening, when initiative become importants, create a plan from the structure...

Stay tuned to the CLTV Youtube page for VODs and streams.

Weekly Stats

by @kraaft

Stats for Season 10 Round 7:

The fastest mate was black on move 21 found in Gamelink White: nikolai_tesla, Black: staincastle, Gamelink White: lalaze, Black: derdodo12345.
The fastest draw was on move 23 found in Gamelink White: glbert, Black: bamabeeblebrox.
The fastest resign was black on move 12 found in Gamelink White: nimzovit, Black: robert-paulson.
The biggest upset was 357 points in Gamelink White: tupel, Black: the_loving_boy.
The longest game ended with black on move 104 Gamelink White: rampichino, Black: lenguyenthanh.
114 was the highest ACPL in Gamelink White: caxmati, Black: highsilence.
11 was the lowest ACPL in Gamelink White: randomjsdev, Black: sebastianjl, Gamelink White: arthi15, Black: tonychess75, Gamelink White: glbert, Black: bamabeeblebrox, Gamelink White: lalaze, Black: derdodo12345.
Combined maximum ACPL was 188 in Gamelink White: khidal, Black: dalejos.
Combined minimum ACPL was 22 in Gamelink White: glbert, Black: bamabeeblebrox.
The longest think was 20 minutes 27.0 seconds by 29 in Gamelink White: xpedro, Black: grizzzly1000.
The most time left was 42 minutes 40.0 seconds in Gamelink White: tupel, Black: the_loving_boy.
The most time spent was 81 minutes 30.0 seconds in Gamelink White: rampichino, Black: lenguyenthanh.

#series-general
Stats for catch-up week between R6 and R7:

No mate occured this week.
The fastest draw was on move 25 found in Gamelink White: delpire, Black: gogoyubari.
The fastest resign was white on move 11 found in Gamelink White: johnsonbronson, Black: liamvo.
The biggest upset was 138 points in Gamelink White: johnsonbronson, Black: liamvo.
The longest game ended with black on move 36 Gamelink White: shalexander, Black: johnsonbronson.
64 was the highest ACPL in Gamelink White: shalexander, Black: johnsonbronson.
9 was the lowest ACPL in Gamelink White: johnsonbronson, Black: liamvo.
Combined maximum ACPL was 99 in Gamelink White: shalexander, Black: johnsonbronson.
Combined minimum ACPL was 51 in Gamelink White: delpire, Black: s2004k1993, Gamelink White: johnsonbronson, Black: liamvo.
The longest think was 16 minutes 37.0 seconds by 18 in Gamelink White: delpire, Black: s2004k1993.
The most time left was 90 minutes 38.0 seconds in Gamelink White: johnsonbronson, Black: liamvo.
The most time spent was 100 minutes 9.0 seconds in Gamelink White: assassin_in_white, Black: f1nn33.

Chess Study

by @quirked

Click on "Open" for the interactive exercice and to see next chapters without the bug.

A small sample of this 29 chapters study are reviewed on a previous CLTV video: Link.