4545 Team League: Season 12

There are several reasons why a pairing might not end up being played, including scheduling difficulties, a lack of available replacements, or one of the players not showing up at the start time!↩︎

The number of games played in this statistic can differ from the number of games played in the season, as it excludes games where the result of the pairing was later changed to a forfeit win or loss.↩︎

Similar to the “official” board performance tables on the Lichess4545 website, board rankings are determined by performance rating alone. However, the ratings themselves only consider games played on a given board, while the website’s ratings ignore board numbers altogether.↩︎

“Plus” score = played wins - played losses. Also, these season scores exclude any unplayed games, forfeit results or byes.↩︎

A game’s total clock time is the sum of both players’ move times from move 2 onwards.↩︎

For these statistics, a played opening line is termed a gambit if it arises from an opening or variation that’s commonly associated with one side sacrificing some material in the opening (in return for compensation) and the side that played the gambit actually sacrificed material in the game (for at least 5 consecutive half-moves before move 16). In particular, the list of gambit openings isn’t restricted to named gambits; it also includes for example the Marshall Attack in the Ruy Lopez, the Budapest Defence, and several variations of the Two Knights Defence in the Italian Game. However, this approach excludes games where a side decides to gambit material when not playing a traditionally gambit-associated opening. Yes, those should be considered gambits. But they’re not here.↩︎

Qualifying “gambiteers” are ordered by number of gambit games played before percentage score.↩︎

Aces: all players who achieved a plus/minus score - wins minus losses - of +6 or better over the season. Archbishop of Accuracy: the player with the lowest average centipawn loss (ACPL) over the season, accounting for moves played. Giri Award: named for Anish Giri. Grischuk’s Cousin: named for Alexander Grischuk. Houdini Award: the player with the most comeback “points” over the season - players earn 1 point for winning a game after being in a position with an evaluation worse than -6, 0.7 points for winning after being worse than -3, 0.5 points for drawing after being worse than -6, and 0.3 points for drawing after being worse than -3. MVP Award: players must play at least five games to qualify, and perf. ratings are calculated using FIDE’s method. Primates of Precision: based on Lichess game analysis ACPLs. Rookie Award: to be eligible, players must have played at least four games in the season and not have played in any previous 960 league season. Tarjan Award: named for James Tarjan, who famously defeated Vladimir Kramnik in 2017. David Award: the player whose opponents achieved the highest percentage score across the season, excluding games against the player. To be eligible, a player must have played at least 5 games over the season, and their opponents must have collectively played at least 30 games against others. Egalitarian Award: the team with the lowest standard deviation across players’ relative performance ratings. Other: all other awards should be self-explanatory.↩︎

The season performance ratings presented in this report may differ slightly from ratings published on the Lichess4545 website, but both calculations are based on FIDE’s preferred method, and both exclude unplayed games such as forfeit wins/losses and scheduling draws.↩︎

Season ACPL here excludes the first 10 moves of a game, all zero-CPL moves played in zero-evaluation positions, and moves played in positions where one side has an advantage of +300 centipawns or greater that aren’t mistakes or blunders.↩︎

I award “comeback points” for each game that a player won after their opponent had an advantage of at least 300 centipawns, according to Lichess’ server analysis. The scoring is rather simple. A win after suffering an evaluation disadvantage of more than 6 pawns earns 1 point. A win after being down by 3-6 pawns earns 0.7 points. A draw after being down more than 6 pawns earns 0.5 points. A draw after being down 3-6 pawns earns 0.3 points. Then the points are added up.↩︎

Excludes moves made in positions where the mover had an objective advantage of +3 or greater. Players are first ordered by number of moves made with 5 or fewer seconds remaining, then by least time they had left (across all qualifying moves), and finally by the worst objective evaluation they faced (again across all moves).↩︎

For example, this report excludes from its analysis all games of less than 5 plies (half-moves), games that ended in a disconnection or by “cheat detected”, games that were aborted, and games that started from a custom position.↩︎

However, players who were banned from the Lichess4545 leagues after finishing a season in the top three places are still shown with a podium place in that season’s report.↩︎