Overview


This season’s games were played between 23 April 2024 and 7 July 2024.

85 players participated, 29 (34%) of whom were new to the league.

In all, 277 games were played over the season. The season’s ‘unplayed pairing’ rate was 8.3%.1

White won 128 games (45.9%), 30 games (10.8%) were drawn, and Black won 119 games (42.7%). The right-hand chart shows game results by colour for each board or average rating band.2


46% 36% 55% 100% 11% 11% 44% 53% 1000-1200 1200-1400 1400-1600 1600-1800 1-0 1/2-1/2 0-1

Final standings


1st place

BrigBirk

9/11 (1957 perf)

2nd place

wmakos

8/11 (1904 perf)


3rd place

dodochesso

8/11 (1802 perf)

Best U1600

dodochesso

8/11 (1802 perf)


How the title race played out

1 10 20 30 40 50 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Round Rank before round brigbirk wmakos dodochesso t_taylor caiodias

Best scorers

Here’s everyone who achieved a plus score of +5 or higher this season3:

BrigBirk (8.5/10), dodochesso (8/11), ekopp2000 (6.5/8), t_taylor (6.5/8), wmakos (7/9)

Players with plus scores of +6 or better get the Ace award.

Stats - overview

Timing

39 66 69 49 37 16 3 0 20 40 60 Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun Day Games 38% played on weekend Sun Sat Fri Thu Wed Tue Mon 0 5 10 15 20 Hour (UTC) Day # games 2.5 5.0 7.5 10.0 12.5

Length

0 20 40 60 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 # moves Games Average moves/game: 40.2 0 20 40 60 0 30 60 90 120 Minutes Games Average time taken/game: 69.3 minutes

Most moves

Includes games ranked at or above the 90th percentile by number of moves.

Longest games

Includes games ranked at or above the 90th percentile by total clock time.4

Stats - by board/rating

ACPL and blunder rate

40 42 43 61 53 1000-1200 (11) 1200-1400 (18) 1400-1600 (151) 1600-1800 (370) 1800-2000 (8) 0 20 40 60 ACPL ACPL by rating band 5% 5% 5% 8% 6% 1000-1200 (11) 1200-1400 (18) 1400-1600 (151) 1600-1800 (370) 1800-2000 (8) 0 2 4 6 8 Blunder rate (%) Blunder rate by rating band

Lowest combined ACPL

The games with the lowest combined ACPL (including draws).

Decisive games only

The decisive games with the lowest combined ACPL.

Openings

First moves

The frequency of first move pairs by board (4545) or average rating band (LoneWolf).

0% 25% 50% 75% 100% 1000-1200 1200-1400 1400-1600 1600-1800 Avg rating band Proportion of games First moves e4 e5 e4 c5 e4 c6 e4 e6 e4 d5 e4 Nf6 d4 d5 d4 Nf6 d4 e6 d4 d6 d4 f5 Nf3 d5 Nf3 Nf6 c4 c5 c4 Nf6 c4 e5 c4 c6 NA

Top openings

All openings played in the season, excluding variations.

Best for White

White’s top-scoring openings, excluding variations. Minimum 10 games played.

Best for Black

Black’s top-scoring openings, excluding variations. Minimum 10 games played.

Top gambits

The most played gambits over the season.5

Gambiteers

The players who enjoyed the most success when playing gambits.6 Includes everyone who scored at least 50 per cent across at least two gambit games.

Openings sunburst

Click on the image below to see a sunburst plot of all openings played in the season.

Opening star placeholder

Awards

Assorted awards to celebrate the season - see the footnote for more details.7

Stats - tables

Tons of detailed stats for your reading pleasure. All tables in this section are sortable and searchable - feel free to explore!

Best performances / highest accuracy

Best relative performances

This table shows players’ relative performance ratings – that is, their performance rating over the season minus their initial rating before their first game.8 Includes everyone with a positive relative performance rating over at least five games.

Lowest ACPL

All players who played at least five games and achieved a season ACPL in the 20th percentile or below. Note that ‘season ACPL’ differs from Lichess game-wide ACPL figures, as it excludes opening moves as well as most moves played in objectively decided positions. See the footnote for full details.9 ACPLs based on Lichess’s published figures are provided for comparison purposes.

Time spent / strongest opponents

Time spent

The 50 players who spent the most clock time over the season.

Time spent per move (after move 10)

Minimum 3 games played.

Strength of schedule

The players who faced the best-scoring opponents over the season, when judged by their collective score over all their other games. Suggested by Tranzoo.

Comebacks and upsets

Comebacks

The players who achieved the most significant comeback wins and draws over the season.10 Suggested by Lou-E.

Biggest upsets

Everyone who defeated an opponent who outrated them by at least 100 points.

Repeated upsets

Everyone who achieved multiple wins over opponents rated at least 100 points higher.

Dawdlers and instant movers

Least time left after move 10

Players who had the least time left after only 10 moves…but still managed to win! Suggested by Silkthewanderer.

Instant moves

Players who made at least five ‘instant’ moves (in under 0.5s), including pre-moves.

Long thinks, lucky escapes, time trouble/travel, most moves

Longest thinks

The longest times spent on a single move.

Top 100 shown.

Time trouble addicts

Shows players by proportion of moves made in time trouble (defined as having less than a minute remaining on the clock). Includes everyone who played at least 100 moves over the season while making at least one move in time trouble.

Saved by the bell

Players who made moves with under 5 seconds left on their clock…and still won!11

Marathon Movers

The ten players who made the most moves across the season.

Need for Speed

Everyone who won or drew at least two games where they finished with more than 45 minutes left on their clock (30 for LoneWolf). Excludes losses and games shorter than 15 moves. Inspired by NLance and pulsar512b

About

  • This report was compiled on 08 December 2024.
  • These statistics are presented for general interest only. They are not guaranteed to be comprehensive, complete12, accurate, or up to date. They may be periodically revised to incorporate updates and bugfixes.
  • Any player determined by Lichess to have violated their Terms of Service when this report was compiled should not appear in the detailed statistics.13
  • Homepage / source code
  • Acknowledgements: Noun Project for the award icons; Simon Ilincev for chess_graph, which produces the openings sunburst plots.
  • Return to season reports

  1. 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!↩︎

  2. 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.↩︎

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

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

  5. 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.↩︎

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

  7. 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 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.↩︎

  8. 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.↩︎

  9. 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.↩︎

  10. 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.↩︎

  11. 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).↩︎

  12. 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.↩︎

  13. 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.↩︎