Chess Visualization

I was curious about the popularity of chess variants at https://lichess.org.

So I grabbed the data from the lichess game database and created some visualizations.

Average number of games played per year and variant

Let's start with an overview and look at the average number of games played per year.

Use the tools in the toolbar on the right to zoom in and out!

Hover over the heatmap with your mouse for more information.

As you can see, the most popular variants happen to be crazyhouse, antichess and atomic chess, followed by chess960 and three-check chess. Less popular variants include horde, king of the hill and racing kings.

Let's get more specific!

Total number of games played per month and variant

Clearly you can see: more and more games of chess variants are played on lichess over time.

In the following we will look at which variants are gaining most in popularity!

Choose a chess variant and click on it in order to directly jump to the corresponding plot!

Antichess

In antichess the objective is to lose all your peaces (or reach a stalemate).

The number of games played per month of antichess - the second most popular chess variant on lichess - increases steadily. In march, 154723 games were played!

Atomic

In atomic chess captures result in a nuclear explosion destroying all surrounding pieces - except pawns.

Atomic chess had its peak in february but is still gaining robustly in popularity.

Chess960

In Chess960 the starting position of the pieces on both players' home ranks is randomized (960 is the number of possible starting formations).

Also, more and more played is Chess960. What a beautiful increase, right?

Crazyhouse

Crazyhouse allows players to introduce captured pieces back to the board as their own. Crazy, right?

While crazyhouse had its peak in march (183112 games), it's popularity isn't increasing that much. Still, it's the most popular chess variant on lichess!

Horde

In the horde chess variant a horde of (32!) bloodthirsty pawns has to be defeated.

Despite being scary, it's also getting more popular!

King of the hill

In King of the hill a player is victorious if she moves her king to one of the central four squares (or in case of the usual checkmate).

King of the hill seems to get played less lately. Do you know why?

Racing Kings

To win this chess variant you must race your king to the eighth rank ( a pure psychological and physical torture for the poor slow king. )

While it started rather strong, racing kings has become the least popular chess variant.

I think people have tortured this poor little king enough anyways...

Three-Check

In three-check chess the player wins who first checks his opponent's king three times.

Who can explain the peak number of games played in january?

Feedback

This is my first blog post, therefore I am especially looking forward to your feedback and comments.

Did you spot an error, solve one of my questions, find something interesting? Did you (not) like it? Are you hungry? In any case, let me know :)

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