Lichess Titled Arena in Numbers

The April 2020 Titled Arena felt much bigger than any of the previous ones. I wanted to pursue this feeling and see how it really turned out. And since I already had to download all the data I went on and tried to find out other interesting facts.

Let’s start with something simple: the number of players per arena.

Wow… what a surge for April 2020. More than twice as many players as in the most popular previous arena. And the trend continues for the May blitz arena.

What score did it take to get first?

Magnus Carlsen created a high limit in the second and third arena with 199 points each, which nobody has been able to cross so far. In december 2018, and september 2019 the results were particularly close with 1 point difference between the first and second. Interestingly, Magnus Carlsen came second twice with two and one point difference to the first.

The results in a table:

Arena Winner Score Second Score Third Score dec17 DannyTheDonkey 141 Bombegranate 124 penguingim1 113 jan18 DrDrunkenstein 199 penguingim1 132 opperwezen 120 mar18 DrDrunkenstein 199 RebeccaHarris 137 opperwezen 124 apr18 DrDrunkenstein 168 CleverTacticButFail 160 Night-King96 129 may18 penguingim1 125 alireza2003 122 Arka50 113 aug18 damnsaltythatsport 137 RebeccaHarris 117 Night-King96 114 sep18 mutdpro 121 Zaven_ChessMood 111 manwithavan 109 oct18 DrDrunkenstein 135 penguingim1 109 opperwezen 103 dec18 DrNykterstein 127 penguingim1 126 lodewijkfrederik 121 jan19 DrNykterstein 181 Night-King96 125 lodewijkfrederik 120 feb19 DrNykterstein 141 penguingim1 115 RebeccaHarris 113 960feb DrNykterstein 90 Watneg 78 Dr-BassemAmin 77 960mar DrNykterstein 98 Jasugi99 80 penguingim1 78 may19 DrNykterstein 147 ChessWeeb 117 BabaRamdev 114 jun19 DrNykterstein 152 penguingim1 128 caching 115 jul19 alireza2003 159 DrNykterstein 157 opperwezen 129 sep19 Boss1005 135 DrNykterstein 134 Watneg 120 960sep Zaven_ChessMood 70 RebeccaHarris 62 Former_Player 61 oct19 alireza2003 176 Vladimirovich9000 126 RebeccaHarris 120 nov19 alireza2003 157 penguingim1 125 TerryR2 116 dec19 alireza2003 156 Watneg 126 mutdpro 123 jan20 penguingim1 175 Zhigalko_Sergei 125 nihalsarin2004 125 feb20 alireza2003 162 mutdpro 142 Vladimirovich9000 125 mar20 alireza2003 172 DrNykterstein 153 penguingim1 148 apr20 manwithavan 152 avalongamemaster 139 Konevlad 133 may20b Feokl1995 117 Night-King96 113 RebeccaHarris 107

What about the average rating?

Here we see three big rating drops for the Chess960 arenas, but also for the regular arena in April 2020. Maybe many new titled players haven’t had time to get a good rating yet? But we also see how the rating has continued to rise over time.

Three arenas with high berserk percentages. The February 19 and September 19 Chess960 arena and the Blitz Arena in May 20. Looks like Grandmasters don’t like to see more than a minute on their clock.