More than 60 thousand players connected... wow!

I usually see about 40 thousand players connected at rush hour. Now all of a sudden I'm seeing it's more than 60k. Could it be because of the corona virus? People perforce staying at home in many countries, playing more chess online to kill time?

I think its more about chess being a great game and the lichess site being phenomenal !

When i joined the site, back in Aug 25, 2014, I remember thinking wow its up to 1800 players :)

The cream rises to the top!

Nah, I think it's definetly because of the corona virus.

That's right, peak numbers were below 20k when I started a couple of years ago, and I noticed a constant increase up to 40k till last week. I'm pretty sure it went through the roof just during the last few days. It took a couple of years to increase by 20k, now the same increment in less than a week? There must be a reason, and I'm just guessing.

Gaming service Steam has seen records as well.

We should make a plan to advertise lichess on chessdotcom at the same time. If 100 people do it at the same time, it will be hard for the mods to deal with it.

Like half of Europe is on lockdown. That's probably the reason.

68.011 Players
29.291 Games
Now!

72.023 Players
30.964 Games
now

I also wonder how many people are new and learning the game for the first time as they have time at home from work or school, which is a great thing.