LCWL: Kazakhstan Wins The Virtual Knockout Against Iran!
Division 1 is having the best season in the history of Live Chess World League. Records are broken on every week as the teams continue to surprise us!
Russia might be blaming Ukraine for not bringing 437+ players on the 4th round!! Don't be surprised if both teams bring 500+ players on the Grand Finale (10th round) 
Match of the week: Iran vs Kazakhstan!
Winner qualifies for the Championship pool with a round to spare. Both Iran and Kazakhstan knew their qualification scenarios very well. Therefore, a close contest was anticipated.
Kazakhstan got a very good crowd right from the beginning. Including the unpaired players, almost 28% of their members joined this match! That's the highest activity rate from any club.
Iran also got a strong squad with 6 GMs including @Parhamov! Still it turned out to be the 2nd best team of that night. Early losses against Peru and Serbia are hurting them now.
Serbia vs France
Some of the French players might be complaining as they are not getting paired. Team France outnumbered the opponents in the last 4 rounds! Serbia also acknowledged the importance of this round and doubled their big guns to ensure a comfortable victory!
Some Interesting Games
Div.1 got the maximum number of boards (1139) across all formats in this week!
Let's start with an easy one. White to move and win!
Hint: Go for checkmate, not for material 
Materials are equal, but a very bad position for Black. That's why piece development is so important.
This might be a good one for Puzzle Rush
Player with Black pieces missed the checkmate sequence and eventually lost by timeout!
Current Standings
Top 3 teams have already qualified for the championship pool. Considering the final round pairings, Serbia has the upper hand over Iran to grab the only remaining spot.
Coming Next...
Pairing suggests that we can expect some scorelines other than 3-0 in this round.
A wake up call for Argentina? They are one of the only 2 teams participating in all LCWL events in the highest division since 2017. Unfortunately, they are not having a great season so far. Hopefully they will make a comeback just like Kazakhstan did!
Thanks for reading. Best wishes for the rest of this season!
