Happy New Year from the Lichess team, who wishes all you virtual wood-pushers out there a splendid start to 2016! Hopefully everybody's recovered from their vacations, obligatory family bonding, and the carbohydrate-induced lethargy so prevalent around the holidays. The Lichess super-coders are already back to work and extra-inspired; given their progress, it seemed time for a blog post. On the docket are two items: the new variant Racing Kings and a new prize tournament, the Second ChessWhiz Cup!

Racing Kings

Curious? Could we convince you to pull away from coverage of the legendary Tata Steel tournament for a bit? If you haven't already laced up and headed to the track (groans) for a test run of this bizarre variant, a general summary and the rules can be found here. If you like it, thank Lichess' own revoof (or on GitHub) for his hard work, and Unihedron, Happy0, and ChessWhiz for testing!

ChessWhiz Cup II

Now to the second order of business – another ChessWhiz Cup! If your memory is fuzzy, the first Cup (which got it's namesake from the generous sponsorship of ChessWhiz), drew in hordes of players bloodthirsty for the grand prize. Fittingly, the second tournament will also celebrate the addition of our newest variant, Racing Kings. Here are all of the important details:

WHEN: Saturday, January 30th @ 4:00 pm GMT

WHERE: Here!

FORMAT: 2 minutes per side with a 2 second increment per move, 60 minute tournament duration

As usual with everything on Lichess, it's completely free to play, no strings attached. The prize is one-twentieth of one bitcoin, which coincidentally, is worth about twenty US dollars. So log in, register, and get yourself in the running for that prize!

Thanks again to all of the players out there for making Lichess what it is today!