Let's start 2015 the right way: with three new features!

2015 has barely started, and amazing new features have already landed.

Do the developers even sleep?

Atomic Chess

Oh yeah. This popular variant has been long requested. Happy0 rolled up his sleeves and got it done!

In Atomic Chess, the objective is to nuke the opponent king. Standard rules of chess apply, but all captures result in an "explosion" through which all surrounding white and black pieces other than pawns are removed from play.

Complete set of rules (plus some tips) can be found on the FICS website.

We think Atomic is a lot of fun, so we made it a first citizen variant on lichess. Players have a dedicated Atomic rating, can create Atomic games in the lobby, and play Atomic tournaments.

Opening trainer

We all know and love the lichess tactic trainer for improving at middle game and endgame.

But what about openings? How to respond to early threats and common situations, that arise after only a few moves were played?

Try out the new opening trainer, in which you are asked find the strongest moves to play in situations selected from Grand Master games.

Note that this feature is very new, we are collecting feedback from the community to make it better. Expect updates soon!

Tournament berserk

In Arena tournaments, the goal is to play and win as many games as possible in the imparted time.

By clicking the berserk button at the beginning of an arena game, a player instantaneously loses half his clock time! But winning the game will grant the berserk player an extra tournament point.

So think carefully. Should you go berserk and hope for a quick win with extra benefit, or play it safe to ensure your streak continues?

More speed, less bugs

A big part of lichess updates are invisible to the eye. For instance, last week, the whole tournament code was rewritten from scratch. As a result, it's much faster and robust! I won't bother you with a list of "under the hood" improvements; just be aware that lichess is continuously getting better.

In the next blog post, we will talk about lichess mobile application. Breaking news will be revealed.