The Lichess Titled Arena had its strongest field yet, setting a record for total number of participants (188) and GMs (31). However, even the stronger competition was not sufficient to stop World Champion Magnus Carlsen from winning his third straight title by a commanding margin of 62 pts. Afterwards, Magnus again donated his prize back to lichess to be used for the next edition’s prize fund. When will the chess world be able to produce a bullet player strong enough to take the prize money away from him?

Finishing in a distant second was GM Daniel Naroditsky who managed a very respectable 3/6 against Magnus. In third place was lichess fixture IM Vincent Rothuis, the only non-GM to finish with a prize. Fourth place was taken by the people’s champion GM Andrew Tang who also live streamed the event. The fifth, and final prize was collected by French GM Jules Moussard who finished a single point ahead of 6th.

Further down the table was GM Georg Meier, who heartbreakingly fell from 3rd with 10 mins left in the event all they way down to 8th with a series of bad results at the very end. The lower parts of the table also contained significant star power in the form of popular chess streamers like NM ChessNetwork, IM John Bartholomew, IM Christoph Sielecki, IM Lawrence Trent, and CM Kingscrusher.

A large number of titled players streamed or recorded the event, either playing or providing commentary.

Commentating in English was IM Alex Astaneh Lopez. Russian commentary and adorableness was provided by LM Tihon Chernyaev. Players that played in the event while streaming included: GM Andrew Tang, IM John Bartholomew, IM Christoph Sielecki, NM Chess Network, and many others.

The next Titled Arena will be roughly a month from now, exact date and time to be announced soon. If the trend continues it could be the largest and strongest yet. Stay tuned to all the standard channels for information.

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