LoneWolf and Chess960 finish their seasons!

LoneWolf Season 28 Recap

Season 28 of the LoneWolf league has come to an end, with a number of first-time winners and impressive performances from more seasoned players. In the Open section, @defensive_resources achieved their first-ever league win in only their third season, scoring 9 points. Veteran player @wookash_888 also scored 9 points but had to settle for second place (for the second time!) based on tie-breaks. Meanwhile, @chessinsomniac finished in third place in their debut Lonewolf season, scoring 8.5 points. Additionally, @lyqst finished as the best U2000 player in the Open section with 7.5 points and finishing 11th overall.

In the U1800 section, three players earned their first-ever podium finishes. @feskslo dominated the field, securing the league title with one round remaining and finishing with an impressive 10 points, two points ahead of their nearest competitor, @rosquet, who won silver with 8 points, while @n00ts finished third with 7.5 points. Meanwhile, @cousindeci, who finished fifth overall with 7.5 points, ended up as the best U1600 player in the section.

Aside from the final podiums, several other players achieved impressive career milestones during the season. @Whizzz became the first player to play 200 LoneWolf games, while @adande1 and @pedropablo72 both passed 150 games, and @AACtrl, @pinallwizard and @IsaVulpes all reached the 100-game mark.

267 players participated in LoneWolf this season, including 89 new joiners. 890 games were played across both sections. We would like to give a special shout out to the winners of the Marathon Movers award this season: @defensive_resources (with 564 moves) and @BigPig93 (with 537) and also the winners of the Giri Award for achieving the most draws: @SouthForge with six draws in the Open section and @dreadedMonkey with three in U1800. Check out lots more interesting stats from the season at https://rahulan-c.github.io/lichess4545-stats/reports/stats_lwopen_s28.html (for the Open section) and https://rahulan-c.github.io/lichess4545-stats/reports/stats_lwu1800_s28.html (for U1800).

The LW mods would like to thank every player who participated in season 28 and wish them all the best in their future games. Congratulations to all the winners and podium finishers, as well as those who achieved notable milestones during the season. We look forward to seeing everyone return next season! And if you want to play more LoneWolf, you can already sign up for the next season here: www.lichess4545.com/lonewolf/register.

Chess960 Season 24 Recap

Bow down to the new Chess960 king...after eight weeks of sweat, tears and caffeine, we finally have a champion! And it’s not just any old winner...they're arguably the most decorated player in Chess960 league history! In fact with three league trophies and nine podium finishes, they're basically a human trophy cabinet.

That didn’t mean they had it easy this season. Indeed, even at the end AACtrl tried their best to spoil our hero’s coronation, but MoistvonLipwig wasn't in the mood for spoilers. They came, they saw, and they conquered with their Chess960 prowess.

Congratulations to our new victor, the one and only Chess960 ruler!

In the other big match-up, @AlexGaul showed their endgame mastery and delivered a victory over @Sesquipedalism, securing a podium finish and knocking Sesq out of the top three (after leading the pack for most of the season). Sometimes that's just how the cookie crumbles.

So in the end, @AlexGaul took home bronze while @Scrooge nabbed silver by the skin of their teeth (read: on tiebreaks). Meanwhile, @Sincraxis repeated their best U1600 performance from season 23.

Our sources tell us that the top five finishers from season 24 have already signed up for season 25. It promises to be another eight exciting weeks of “random” action and we will keep you posted!

LoneWolf is a side league of the Lichess4545 league. It is an 11-round Swiss tournament where players play one game per week with a 30+30 time control. For more information about the LoneWolf tournament visit the LoneWolf homepage.
Lichess4545 is an online chess league for people who like playing long time control games online. Players are assigned to teams and play one game per week with a 45+45 time control. For more information visit our league home page.

Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-SA).
Contributions to the text by @M0R1, @Tranzoo, @izzie26
Title image by Midjourney