The Legend of 1900 (Elo)

Dear Esteemed Lichess Members,

Having watched many World Chess Championships and innumerable tournaments, I've come to the conclusion that there's little correlation between the strength of the participants and the entertainment value of the games. To be sure, Magnus's moves are better than most, but if soundness were our only concern we might as well watch stockfish play, well, stockfish.

The fact of the matter is right now the most entertaining (and I suspect also the most viewed) online matches are probably PogChamps, but I feel we can do better. Firstly, PogChamps doesn't really involve chess players (just social media "personalities") and, secondly, whatever drama the games produce is at best tangentially related to chess - in fact to call it a chess event at all is somewhat charitable.

But what if we had a contest between two amateur club-level players? For once we could directly understand and relate to the players on both a human and chess level. The back and forth of each contest would keep almost every game from ever becoming a foregone conclusion after the first hour of play. Almost every result would be decisive, and if there was even a modest prize (say a few hundred dollars) and perhaps some media coverage the sporting pressure and drama could well prove captivating to a wide audience.

In light of this I've decided to start the worlds first World Chess Championship match for players rated 1900-1999 on lichess.org with a prize fund of five hundred dollars. A qualifier will be held as soon as I can gauge what interest (if any) the chess world has for this idea, followed by a match of twelve games played, publicized and broadcast on lichess.org for the title of "Legend Of 1900 (Elo)".

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I really do think this would be fun. Your suggestions/comments are appreciated, please share them below.

Thanks,

• Zug

P.S. -> To reduce possible chicanery, only established players with a clear lichess history will be considered, and no player with a peak rating above 2099 need apply.

P. P. S. -> I've also another (admittedly unorthodox) idea to thwart most potential swindlers - the "qualifier" tournament will state that the winners of the tournament gain a cash prize for doing so but the actual qualifiers for the twelve game match (and a much greater prize) will be picked randomly from all participants regardless of their tournament placement. I might go so far as to even exclude the top ten finishers - in this way, those that are most likely to cheat are thus much less likely to qualify for the actual match.