Live Chess World League: Ukraine Wins The Superfinal!
Team Ukraine defeated Team Russia in the superfinal of Live Chess World League and became the champions of Div.1 for the 4th time in a row!
Historic Match: Russia vs Ukraine!
Winner takes the Gold! Having this scenario, Russia and Ukraine presented us the biggest online chess battles on 17th May. Ukraine had more players right from the beginning and eventually registered 915 players on blitz! Meanwhile, Russians can be proud of being part of both world records.
- Daily Team Match: 761 boards
- Live Team Match: 724 boards
Registering thousands of players within an hour, that's just incredible! Special thanks goes to the hard-working admins of both teams.
Match Forecasts:
Objectively 45/55 in favour of Team Russia. They have a bigger team by size and slightly longer list of active players this season. But I will believe in victory of my Team up to the very last minute.
— Alexander Matlak, Ukrainian Super Admin
A very close prediction from the Russian side
The opponent has 61 titled chess players, but on May 17, we expect 15 Ukrainian GMs, and 80 titled players. According to the forecast, the opponent will bring 200 boards with blitz ratings of 2000+
— Vadim Rakhaev, Russian Super Admin
1823 players participated in this contest including 139 titled players!! In such great battles, results are really not that significant. Both teams should compile some of the best games from this contest.
I will be eagerly waiting for some in-depth analysis from our Russian friend @Nevfy
After all, that's a friendly contest and I really loved to see that Russian admin was the first one to congratulate Ukraine. Team Ukraine also received congratulations from the Parliament of Ukraine (Committee of Youth and Sport)!! Now we all are expecting a Chess960 version of the superfinal 
Relegation Pool
Argentina and Peru got 100+ boards for the first time in this season! In order to avoid relegation, that was a crucial contest for both teams. Hopefully our Argentine friends will come back strongly in the next season, just like the Kazakhs did in this season 
Czech Republic vs USA
Czech Republic also managed 100+ players for the first time but unfortunately many of them didn't get paired. As a result, that was an embarrassing scoreline for the American side.
This match was streamed by GM Martin Petr, chairman of Czech chess federation.
Remarkable achievement for the Czech Republicans as they got support from their federation!
Italy vs Denmark and Canada vs Belarus
Italy had another big match with 60 boards and Denmark made it extremely close! Our Canadian friends were also enjoying that match
WFM Maria De Rosa trapped the opponent's Queen under some time pressure!
Earlier Canada registered 72 players for their final match and won it quite comfortably. Heartiest congratulations to Team Italia and Team Canada Live!
Teams didn't give up even on the relegation pool. Australia, Chile and Spain were separated by the 4th and final parameter of the points table!!
Div.4 was full of excitement. Few teams made remarkable turnaround on the 2nd stage of this season. They will surely make Div.3 more competitive in the coming days.
U1600 Blitz
Despite having less number of teams in this season, U1600 event was another success story. Teams had some big matches with 50+ boards!! Congratulations to the winners of this mini-event.
| U1600 | Div.1 | Div.2 |
| Teams | 7 | 7 |
| Players | 806 | 326 |
| Champions | ||
| Big Match | RUS v UKR | CAN v ENG |
| 77 boards | 23 boards |
Some Interesting Games
GM vs GM! That's the only instance outside of Div.1 (Bangladesh vs Uzbekistan)
Find mate in 3!
Think twice before offering a piece!
Stats Corner
We are about to reach 10k active players and that's double compared to the previous season!
17 players had 100% participation rate in this season!
1898 boards in the super final! That could be 2433 if Russia had more players!!
196+ players are carrying flags of 76 non LCWL-playing nations! It's high time teams like Germany (21), Belgium (18) and Armenia (12) joined this exciting league. Introducing Team ROW (Rest of the World) might be an interesting idea
Behind The Scenes
First of all, I would like to congratulate the tournament director @ThomasJEvans for successfully organizing this mega event. Also congratulations to our new director @iksnicamod who did a great job by resolving many issues regarding match scheduling. Special thanks goes to @SamCopeland for his kind helps throughout this season. I'm also grateful to @Purple_Turkey for validating some of the stats. Finally, Live Chess server survived the epic battle. Well done!
Coming Next...
Combining Blitz and Rapid, LCWL is going to arrange Chess960 Cup for the first time! Admins who are planning to sign-up at the last moment, remember, 3rd June is the deadline.
Thanks for reading. Best wishes for the Chess960 Cup!
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