Family Feud! Lichess4545 Season 48 Week 3 Update

The Lichess4545 Season 48 is now in full swing. Last time we blogged about it, it was just after round 1, but now we have 3 weeks under our belt and the contenders are separating themselves from the pretenders.

Here are a few highlights from the past 2 rounds.

Family and Master clashes in week 2

It's not every day we have a situation in the league where relatives collide. Yet that is precisely what happened when @K5KGC took on @Squidgang. Not only are these two relatives, but Squidgang apparently taught K5KGC to play chess!

For a long time, it appeared that the student would overcome the teacher, but in the end, it wasn't meant to be as White didn't hold on to their winning position and blundered a rook and back-rank checkmate in quick succession.

But this family feud wasn't the only exciting contest fought in this team match-up.

In 4545, we are always excited about master players getting involved. It is even better if they get paired together and this is exactly what happened in R2 when NM @Twas-A-Trap (with White) battled against CM @Lelouch_Vi_Brittania. The game itself is above my pay grade, but Lelouch was able to find some magic in the endgame and took the W.

Both of these games mentioned contributed to an overall 4-4 in the match. Perhaps there is some level of peace maintained in the family.

Wild swings and insane King walks in week 3

Round 3 brought excitement for those who just love volatile games where you can never be sure what is going to happen. I will show you two games, where the winning player was in a forced mate not once, but twice, but won the game anyway!

We are going to start with the madness of @seandcosta (White) and @macha1313 (Black) (yes, the fiber artist we interviewed a few months ago!) I can't pick one "key moment" of this game, it was wild, but the final, inescapable blow happened on move 83.Rd5, where White punished Black's blunder, took the queen and was too far ahead to be caught at that point. Seandcosta won and contributed to their team's 5.5-2.5 victory.

In another piece of madness, check out this position (and game) after move 15.

What the hell is going on? I will tell you what is going on, that's @scoobysnack19 just casually taking their king for a walk in a game against @Rincepinned. The monarch is also about to get mated. Or is he?

Well, it was mate in 7 at that point. A few moves later, after 18.g3 it was mate in 4. But it never happened. And after Black blundered away their advantage on move 23, suddenly White's king didn't seem so insane. And after all was said and done, he led his army to victory! And it was an important one, as it helped the team eke out a 4.5-3.5 win.

Celebrating milestones in style

We also want to give a shout-out to a couple of milestone hitters. @Val1313 has been looking for that 100th win for a while now and they got it this week.

@Irongalaxy hit 100 games and they were coming into the game on a losing streak of 6 losses. But 7 was not unlucky this time as they were able to snap it, win and celebrate their #100 in style!

Going into week 4, only two perfect teams remain. 45th Variant and Slay Queen are about to clash and we will tell you all about it next week! Highlight of this match-up is the board 8 contest between @kauberdi and @ivanhomeless, who were teammates just last season (Season 47). What kind of psychological warfare can we expect? Stay tuned.

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Speaking of psychological warfare, here is a portrait/interview/I dont exactly know what to call it of one of our league members, namely @DavidSifre. Get to know the 4545 jokester!

A brief introduction about yourself

I live in Yonkers, New York – arguably the greatest city on earth. I say that because I am a retired attorney, and made a living arguing about everything. I have a wife, two kids and a dog, and we live in a house with a white picket fence and some chess boards.

How you got introduced to chess and how long you've been playing it & what it means to you?

I opened an online chess account on December 19, 2023 and that is pretty much when I started playing chess, though 37 years earlier I played a dozen or so games with an intense focus on the f pawn after I learned how the pieces moved and that a checkmate can be delivered fairly quickly if I can get ta couple of pieces to attack it.

Virtually, most people prefers shorter time controlled games, what's makes you play this league with longer time controlled classical games?

About a year after I started playing online chess, I decided to join a local chess club to socialize and get out of the house. When I first heard about the 4545 league, I thought it was for middle-aged players, but it turned out that 45 has nothing to do with the years one has lived. I signed up for the league because I wanted to get more practice at longer time controls so I would embarrass myself less during my weekly OTB game.

How is the overall experience of playing lichess 4545 league? ( You can share your best performances, best games and such stuff as well)

The 4545 League is awesome. The moderators and Chesster do a terrific job keeping everything running smoothly so that I can perform at my peak. Most recently, I exchanged my queen for a knight on move three. You can relive this moment below

The game lasted 57 minutes. It is not the end of the world to lose a game, even if it means your team loses the match. That said, I really do not like to disappoint others, and being on a team helps to keep me accountable.

Shortly before that game, I played a LoneWolf game that lasted an hour and twenty-four minutes, and beat an opponent rated 300 points higher than me

There are so many lessons to be learned from these games, but mostly, if you play me, you might receive “David’s Gift” or you might have a tough game. I won’t tell you ahead of time, because I don’t want to spoil the surprise. For you, or for me.

What does this community mean to you? (You can share if you've made new friends from here)

I’ve made some nice chess friends, both teammates and non-teammates. We play rated games, “from position” games, watch each other play , and give moral support to one another. I play on Board 8, and am often given hints and tips about what to do. They are mostly useless because if I can’t hold onto my queen past move three, their tips really can’t help me. But, I enjoy giving people the opportunity to improve me, even if I secretly know that I am perfect just the way I am.

Tell us about your ambitions regarding this league.

In time, I expect to move up from Board 8 to Board 4. I will probably hang my queen along the way, and perhaps even once I get there. As I improve with my longer time control games, I expect to move up OTB and wreck some higher rated players at my club. Along the way, I hope to have and generate some good laughs!

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To close things up, @glbert returns to the ledger pages with studies of their 4545 games. Here they are for your enjoyment and horror.

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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.
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.
Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-SA).
Contribution to this edition of the Ledger made by @Tranzoo, @DavidSifre and @glbert