Lichess4545 Ledger 141
Lichess4545 Ledger
Issue #141- March 7, 2021
by @gingersquirrelnuts, @izzie26, @kostasvl and @lc91
Our third weekly ledger begins with another stunning exclusive...
Lichess 4545 Mods announce Acquisition of Pay Magnus Group.
Through this latest acquisition, the mods continue to expand their empire.Now they're in charge of the well-loved brands Chessable, CoChess, New in Chess, the Champions Chess Tour, Everyman Chess, and Ginger GM Simon Williams. They also own Chess24.
A randomly summoned mod commented:
"We saw that Pay Magnus are gradually gaining ownership of the entire game of chess, which is of course what we want to do, so it was a natural decision to remortgage the yacht and put in an offer."
"Sure, it will be a bit more work for us to run all their companies, but in heltour and chesster we trust. At least we'll be putting Chess24 out of its misery - it's for the best - and merging the Champions' Chess Tour with Rapid Battle. Also, all Chessable courses produced by top GMs will be made free of charge and taught by Chesster the ant."
Meanwhile, Magnus himself tried to adjust to the new reality by registering for LoneWolf a few days ago. Unfortunately, he didn't react too well when Flipiflapi told him about the league's non-provisional rating requirement. Suggesting the Weekly Classical Arena as a "great way to get games and rating points" may not have helped matters either.
It is also unclear at this stage whether Jabe from Chessable will be joining the ledger team.
In this edition:
- An update from week 3 of the 4545 league
- All the news from around the leagues
- More puzzles, this time drawn exclusively from LoneWolf games
- A game study from the league, submitted by drchessdad
State of the 4545 League
After three rounds of Season 25, two teams are currently in the lead, both with six match points but only one match point ahead of the chasing pack, comprising seven teams! Our two leaders are The Knights Who Say Ni-dorf and Run van Foreest Run, which as Fate - aka the Swiss system - would have it, have been paired against each other in Round 4. At the time of publication, two results are still possible with one game left to play (scheduled for 1800 UTC this evening).
Check out every Round 4 pairing here.
Around the leagues
A brand new season kicked off last week with 110 (!) games being played in the Open section, and 66 in the U1800 section.
Watch this space for more LoneWolf news and analysis in the coming weeks.
By @Vegemite_Fighter
To paraphrase Bob Dylan, the chess960 starting positions they are a changing. After three rounds Coachjohn, Silkthewanderer, Grzybozbur and MoistvonLipwig all lead with 3/3 points.
In the under 1600 section Tranzoo leads on 2/3 despite losing to Silkthewanderer.Here’s a position from move 16, ...Qxb5. In Silkthewanderer vs Tranzoo. Look at the artistic Knights. Bob Seeger would start singing “Night Moves”.
Book Club
By @Ecclesiastic
We're making steady progress working our way through 100 Endgames You Must Know. On Monday, we'll start playing through minor endgame positions arising from master games. As always, new members who want to participate are always welcome - please see #book-club and ping Ecclesiastic.
Infinite Quest
By @Silkthewanderer
With yet another victory at the top board, moistvonlipwig ascends to Level 5 and is now the solitary leader. The next one to try and stop him will be eie24 in a rematch of their Week 4 encounter that went 3:1 in favor of moistvonlipwig.
While the frontrunners clash, there are seven players who have a chance to get closer to the top by levelling up from Level 3 to Level 4. Among these are Zubenelgenubi and nadjarostowa who had that chance last week already, only to get held back by eie24 and Grizzzly1000 respectively. They are still in a position to reach Level 4 within the week... but now they will need to win their respective match in a 3:0 sweep to do so.
Featured Player of the week: izcms02
izcms02 has been with us from the start, steadily making progress with an overall 4-3 record in the matches so far. This week they have a great shot at Level 4 provided they can defeat rampichino who reached that level just last week and certainly didn't get there by being easy to beat.
Infinite Quest is perpetually ongoing with new pairings for a four-game Rapid (15+10) match issued every Wednesday. Winners gain XP and reach ever higher Levels. Scoring is nonlinear; higher levels require more wins so newcomers can catch up very quickly.Of the 64 players that have started their Quest, 38 are currently active. Players can join, pause or resume any time they want. If you are interested, check our documentation and standings or join us in our channels #quest-herald (signups / results) and #quest-tavern (general discussion).
Theme Brawl
By @Lou-E
Another week, dear readers, and another edition of Tales from the Brawl! It was a slow start to this one, as an emergency at work left this beleaguered tournament organiser unable to put out the standard ten-minute warning, meaning that many did not make it to the competition in time for the first round. C’mon guys, do set a reminder in your calendars as a failsafe, I won’t always be around to hold your little hands on the way in! Thanks to some heroic last-minute advertisement by Tranzoo and gingersquirrelnuts, our combatants eventually did sheepishly shuffle single-file into the Brawl Hall, half-point byes in hand, ready to knock seven shades of schach out of each other in the Italian Game, Two Knights Variation, Knight Attack. That’s right, that cool opening you learned when you first started chess that you don’t play anymore because you’re too scared of unclear positions! This week was won, not for the first time, by PracticalNiceGuy. And, as I’m quite fond of saying, it couldn’t have happened for a nicer guy! Coming in at 2nd and 3rd were adande1 and VicPez. A quick scan through the tournament history will tell you that, as I mentioned last week, these three are always there or thereabouts; but I believe this is the first time they’ve all been represented in the same Top 3. Aw, friends! We actually almost had a dethronement this week, except that the tiebreak rule that I literally just made up right this second means that the player with the lower Rapid rating comes out on top, and since out of PracticalNiceGuy and adande1 this is adande1, it is adande1 who stays top of the all-time leaderboard. You go, adande1! Have I said adande1 enough times yet?
Okay, enough of that, time for Game of the Week! And have I got a treat for you this time around. A real David & Goliath game, with two players some 650 (!!) rating points apart battling it out in one of the classic sharp openings. And it was a real thriller between PracticalNiceGuy, our eventual winner, and gingersquirrelnuts, this very publication’s beloved nut enjoyer 
. As we all know, rating points tend to matter less the sharper the position gets, as a single error can flip the eval on its head at any moment - so you’ll want to stay tuned for this one. From the starting position 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6 4. Ng5!, our game began with the standard (read: almost forced) move 1…d5. After 2.exd5 Nxe5!? the next move was 3.Nxf7!, and we had a Fried Liver Attack on the board. Hold on to your hats, folks. 3…Kxf7 4.Qf3+ Ke6 5. Nc3 - standard fare so far - but 5…Nb4 and it was White who blinked first with 6.a3? (6.O-O c6 7.d4 Qf6 and this line, while at times unclear, is known to be good for White). A dastardly attempt to muddy the waters against a far-weaker opponent, or an honest-to-Caissa mistake? Only PracticalNiceGuy knows…What matters is that our underdog seized upon the correct move, 6…Nxc2+. As a certain master is fond of saying, simple chess best chess. Next, Black snapped up the rook as expected, but it is not a trivial matter for Black to maintain the advantage here and with 8.Bxd5+, White unveils not inconsiderable compensation. Perhaps a3 was a calculated risk after all? Another interesting idea is 8.Nxd5!, and believe it or not there is actually a single master game in this line, uncorked by Mr. Fire-On-Board himself, Grandmaster Alexei Shirov. So, for the sake of romance, let’s choose to believe that White saw the compensation and played 6.a3 as a deliberate ploy to draw the ginger squirrel out of the tree, with the intention of stomping it to death in the grass nearby. Actually, the more I look at it, the more convinced of this I am.
Let’s stop for a second and examine the Shirov line 8.Nxd5. The immediate threat, of course, stems from the discovered attack from the bishop after Nb6. Therefore Black must find a way to prevent this threat. The only way to maintain the advantage is in fact the unlikely 8…Qh4!, attacking the undefended bishop before it can become a problem. The game - played against Lithuanian GM Sarunas Sulskis - continued 8…Kd6!? 9.d4 Be6 10.Re1 b5? 11.Nb4!!, where the threat of Qc6+ is simply too great. Shirov wins the game in spectacular fashion. But, returning to the game at hand, White plays the somewhat more direct continuation 8.Bxd5+, and after a couple more moves White, who is currently down the exchange, forces their opponent’s king to c5! With this move, though, White’s knight is threatened, and they blunder with 10.Nc3??. Better was 10.Bxb7!, actually threatening mate on the next move with Qc6#. This means that the rook cannot be saved, and so Black must play the only move 10…Qd7, threatening the knight in return. If White were to then play something like 11.Nc3, getting their knight out of the way, Black can use this tempo to move their rook away in turn and, for now, would still be up the exchange. So capturing the rook is necessary, but then Black can capture the knight, and is up two points of material. Are you lost yet? I am. Something something deep dark woods…anyway, returning to the game. 10.Nc3.
Black first forces the bishop back to a2 with 10…c6, and follows it up with the confident central thrust 11…Qd4! This covers the g4 square, threatening to trap White’s queen by pinning it against the king. Clearly feeling the pressure that Black was putting on them in this position, White seemed to blunder yet again with 12.d3, and Black seized upon this open goal with the expected Bg4, however White can block with 13.Ne4+!, so it isn’t as devastating as first it seems. However, after 13…Qxe4 14.dxe4 Bxf3 15.gxf3 we arrive at a position where the complications have mellowed somewhat, and due to the material imbalance (have you been keeping count? Black is up a whole rook) we can confidently assess the position as quite a bit better for Black. Even if White can snap off the Black knight currently holidaying on a1 - and this certainly looks like a possibility - White will always be worse going into an endgame with a set of doubled pawns, a relatively inactive king sitting on an open file, and being down the exchange. It is from here, however, that Black began to lose their nerve. They started confidently enough, with Re8+, grasping the open file with tempo, but with the clock ticking down and presumably exhausted from the tense tactical battle that came before, Black wavered over the next couple of moves and managed to get themselves into a fair bit of trouble.
16.Bd2 a5!? (Stockfish gives this move a ‘mistake’ designation, but in practical terms I feel this is a little harsh. One perhaps slightly better move in this position would have been 16…Be7, finally developing the bishop and connecting rooks, but surely 16…a5 is not so disastrously bad as our machine overlords would have us believe). White escaped the pin with 17.Ke2 (only 16 moves too late amirite) and Black tried to extricate their erstwhile knight on a1 with the somewhat hopeful Ne2?!, but of course White saw this coming and skilfully prevented it - 18.Re1! . After some piece shuffling which was somewhat uncharacteristic of the game so far, White managed to get their bishops active and scoop up not one, but two of Black's kingside pawns, and at this point our furry friend must have been absolutely kicking himself, perhaps unsure how such a good-looking position had somehow turned so sour. Black was still in it, however, but shortly after this unfortunately came under too much pressure and cracked. May I point out that Black was running on fumes, time-wise, having literally seconds to make each move here. So it is hard to be critical of a player who up to this point held their own against a much higher-rated opponent.
The winning manoeuvre from White started with 26.b4 (a mistake, according to the engine, but whatever. Stockfish wants Rd1 for some reason, and I'm too tired to investigate exactly why), and after 26...axb4 27.axb4 Black played the inaccurate 27...Kb5?!, allowing White's 28.Be7!, forking rook and pawn. It is still not a lost game though, and perfectly playable for Black if they find the only move, 28...c5. Play might in that case continue 29.Bxf8 Rxf8 and if we count up material, White is only up a single doubled pawn. My estimation is that the game is equal at this point, as these wild sacrificial games tend to end up at the highest levels. But, alas, Black elected to play 28...Ra8?? and, well, I'll let the rest of the game speak for itself.
One last thing to point out is the winning combination in the position after 35...b4. White obviously starts with the rook check, and capturing the pawn on b4 and of course the pawn cannot retake as it is pinned by the dark-squared bishop. 36...Ka5 then, and the following move is Rb4+ to which Black responds Ka4? (Ka6 is still losing but, you know, not immediately.) The killer move selected by White is not the obvious Rb1++ (although, again, still winning, and almost definitely better), but the rather more subtle 38.Rxc5+!, where Black's king simply has no good squares and White can win as they please. It was in this position that Black timed out.
So Black didn't get checkmated, but rather lost via the somewhat more graceful falling of the flag. To quote De Niro in Raging Bull, "You never got me down, PracticalNiceGuy!". Many thanks to our cast in this one, PracticalNiceGuy as White and Gingersquirrelnuts as Black, for such a delectable treat of a game, and congratulations to the winner, who went on to win the whole tourney. It was a great Brawl this week and I'm thoroughly looking forward to the next!
Theme Brawl is a five-round Swiss competition using the "From Position" functionality of Lichess to battle it out in a different opening each week, one that's suggested and chosen democratically by members of the #theme-brawl channel. Come and join us over at #theme-brawl to vote for the next opening and take part yourself. Theme Brawls are played on a Monday night and voting for the next week’s brawl ends Friday 17:00 UTC. If you’re interested, further information can be found in the rules document, or you can just message Lou-E directly with any queries you might have. Happy Brawling!
Lichess Bundesliga Update
By @gingersquirrelnuts
This is a twice-weekly team blitz tournament played every Thursday and Sunday at 1900 UTC. To play, join the Lichess4545 League team on Lichess.
There are 17 tiers with promotion and relegation between tiers. We started the week in tier 13, and for the third time in a row it was a week of two mid-table finishes.
On Sunday, we ended sixth in our group. tmoila was top scorer with 38 points and omertil following behind with a personal best 24.
On Thursday, we were tantalisingly close to promotion in 4th place, with Pawndercover (24 points) taking the top scorer position.
Thanks to one of our most enthusiastic players SycoraxCirce for noticing that we've had 10 different top scorers in the last 10 tournaments. Here they all are: eie24, SycoraxCirce, Chewbacca_Defense, Lord_Axe, xToms, mathijshuis, lnt, NLance, tmoila, and Pawndercover.
Stats Corner
Compiled by @lc91 with lichess4545_stats_puzzles
Weekly Stats for Season 25 Round 3:
- The fastest mate was white on move 15 found in Gamelink White: kajom, Black: cecilpurdy.
- The fastest draw was found in Gamelink White: pendru, Black: mathijshuis, Gamelink White: ssyx, Black: sidetracked_owl.
- The fastest resign was black on move 7 found in Gamelink White: skyfaller1, Black: god666.
- The biggest upset was 156 points in Gamelink White: reodor, Black: ironvil.
- The longest game ended with white on move 104 Gamelink White: chewbacca_defense, Black: sundancekid1019.
- 2 was the lowest ACPL in Gamelink White: skyfaller1, Black: god666.
- Combined minimum ACPL was 11 in Gamelink White: y3ll3r, Black: timmah4651, Gamelink White: skyfaller1, Black: god666.
- The longest think was 37 minutes 18.0 seconds on move 27 in Gamelink White: scarff, Black: hhh1001.
- The most time left was 54 minutes 26.0 seconds in Gamelink White: cornelius25, Black: kinozarco.
- The most time spent by a single player was 117 minutes 7.0 seconds in Gamelink Black: sundancekid1019.
| Board | MinACPL | CombinedMinACPL |
|---|---|---|
|
1 |
2 by skyfaller1 GAMELINK | 11 by skyfaller1/god666 GAMELINK |
|
2 |
15 by nottwitchy GAMELINK | 34 by theknugdorf/k-night-moves GAMELINK |
|
3 |
5 by timmah4651 GAMELINK | 11 by y3ll3r/timmah4651 GAMELINK |
|
4 |
11 by zubenelgenubi GAMELINK | 36 by pic1991/tonuka GAMELINK |
|
5 |
8 by dave3 GAMELINK 8 by polo60 GAMELINK |
17 by kramopolis/dave3 GAMELINK |
|
6 |
21 by karpyan GAMELINK | 54 by karpyan/doevert GAMELINK |
|
7 |
15 by rebelme GAMELINK | 35 by rebelme/bobfisga GAMELINK |
|
8 |
12 by halifax2345678 GAMELINK | 61 by tsmhansen1/lucagaglia73 GAMELINK |
|
9 |
14 by lionelhuttzz GAMELINK | 45 by lionelhuttzz/bluper GAMELINK |
|
10 |
20 by rsava GAMELINK 20 by pacmandoor GAMELINK |
72 by diego_illarzac/rsava GAMELINK 72 by qhov/pacmandoor GAMELINK |
Season 21 Round 1:
- The fastest mate was white on move 16 found in Gamelink White: yago666, Black: omertil, Gamelink White: kingchase, Black: rendingding.
- The fastest draw was found in Gamelink White: pacmandoor, Black: crmaster2013.
- The fastest resign was white on move 9 found in Gamelink White: rzaga, Black: decelo.
- The biggest upset was 197 points in Gamelink White: moogroc, Black: eskaayy.
- The longest game ended with white on move 93 Gamelink White: actuville, Black: mcnate.
- 4 was the lowest ACPL in Gamelink White: astralfenix, Black: lnt, Gamelink White: rzaga, Black: decelo, Gamelink White: zosiu, Black: lathanhay.
- Combined minimum ACPL was 9 in Gamelink White: astralfenix, Black: lnt.
- The longest think was 17 minutes 40.0 seconds on move 8 in Gamelink White: mronemore, Black: rwiedenhoeft.
- The most time left was 46 minutes 32.0 seconds in Gamelink White: diego_illarzac, Black: checkmate711.
- The most time spent by a single player was 70 minutes 6.0 seconds in Gamelink White: actuville, Black: mcnate.
Reader Submissions
By @drchessdad
We thank drchessdad once more for agreeing to present the latest entry in his study of 4545 games.
Puzzles
Created by you, compiled by @izzie26
This week's puzzles are drawn exclusively from past LoneWolf games (up to the end of Season 20). You also may find these easier, collectively, than the last two ledger sets.
Click on each image to open the original puzzle.
| timothyha (2141) - david252525 (2206) ⭐ | S19 R6 | 18 Sep 2020 | link |
Golodion (1998) - garfield1980 (1851) ⭐ | S15 R6 | 23 Aug 2019 | link |
Axp156 (1946) - hetraie (2098) |
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| ruben_pt (1850) - zilong67 (1873) ⭐⭐ | S7 R2 | 6 May 2017 | link |
sparc (1884) - edd8 (1666) ⭐⭐⭐ | S7 R4 | 20 May 2017 | link |
astralfenix (2185) - OldOx (2359) ⭐⭐⭐ | S18 R9 | 24 Jul 2020 | link |
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| ECelal (1900) - drchessdad (2080) ⭐⭐⭐⭐ | S19 R5 | 13 Sep 2020 | link |
Fianchettoed (1888) - stinsonite (1826) ⭐⭐⭐⭐ | S10 R9 | 28 Apr 2018 | link |
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Thanks for reading the ledger! Feel free to join #lichessledger if you would like to contribute in any way or provide any feedback. Both are highly encouraged and appreciated.
Some useful links, especially for new members: 4545 Player's Handbook / Rules / FAQs / TV / Overview / History
Lichess4545 Ledger #141 © 2021 is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Thanks to everyone who contributed this week: @drchessdad, @Ecclesiastic, @gingersquirrelnuts, @izzie26, @kostasvl, @lc91, @Lou-E, @Silkthewanderer and @Vegemite_Fighter.
Contemptible as ever, the editors claim they aren't responsible for any errors and omissions. There's no point getting angry; read IsaVulpes's latest popular expose instead.