Live Chess World League: Iran Defeats Russia!
Plenty of actions are going on in the First Division of LCWL. Team Ukraine secured comfortable victory over Team Kazakhstan while Iran won an epic battle against Team Russia!
Match of the week: Iran vs Russia!
Iran got the best squad of this season, with an average Blitz rating of 2747 for their top 20 players! Almost all the Iranian big guns were lined up except Firouzja who played in season 1.
We've got Fedoseev vs Parham game on the first board of blitz contest!
Here is the decisive game analyzed by popular Bangladeshi GM Ziaur Rahman @Ziachess74
Knowing that every single point matters in this contest, Persians were not tired of winning!
Kazakhstan vs Ukraine
Ukraine defeated a spirited Kazakhstan side who were enjoying the longest winning streak (11 wins) of this division. Ahead of this big match, both teams improved their squad significantly. Therefore, both sides anticipated 200+ boards in every format!
| Team | Season Opening | After Rd.6 | After Rd.7 |
| Kazakhstan | 474 members | 663 - 39.9% 🔺 | 961 - 102.7% 🔺 |
| Ukraine | 2725 members | 3701 - 35.8% 🔺 | 4221 - 54.9% 🔺 |
Top 2 teams with highest growth rates!
Being the smallest team in the division, Kazakhstan activated 35% of their players in a single night! Recently their federation is also arranging some interesting events 
Some Interesting Games
Div.1 got 1915 boards across all formats in this round!!
Let's start with a nice puzzle rush from FM Amirhossein Jamshidi (Iran vs Russia)
Question of the day: How many queens are enough to win a game of chess? 3, 4, 6 or even more? (This game is taken from Kazakhstan vs Ukraine match)
Can you find checkmate here? (Argentina vs Serbia)
How often do you miss checkmate and then draw by repetition!! (France vs Peru)
Current Standings
Two close matches changed the results after adjustments are made. Another one was about to change! Kazakhstan and Iran know that very well
Unpredictable season! After defeating Serbia by 2-1 and Russia by 3-0, Iran is still out of the championship pool!! Even if Kazakhstan didn't lose against Argentina, Iran could qualify in place of Serbia! Even for Russia, those 3 points earned against Ukraine are just GOLD!
Stats Corner
Div.1 teams have greatly contributed to this league by featuring so many strong players with huge crowd! Being an admin myself, I appreciate the sincere efforts of those hard working admins.
Big games of this season:
Remember, the 2nd Stage matches will carry double weight! Which team is your favourite to win the title? Let us know in the comments.
Fair Play Award goes to Team Kazakhstan! Well, such award is yet to be introduced in LCWL 
LCWL should get little smarter about multiplayers issue. Special thanks goes to the Australian admin @Purple_Turkey for helping me in validating some of the stats 
Thanks for reading. Best wishes for the 2nd stage of this season!
