As talked about in our earlier weblog, the Aktobe Open (a part of the Kazakhstan Cup) determined to grant an invite to the winner of a collection of occasions held on Lichess. The primary stage was staggered over 24 hours into three blitz arenas, to permit for participation the world over. Participation in every enviornment had wonderful turnout, with over 15,000 whole gamers coming into. Amongst them, a number of sturdy titled gamers joined the occasion, which led to many high-level video games already within the first stage of the qualifiers! 

The Swiss portion of the occasion featured 41 gamers amongst certified and wild playing cards, whereas placing up for grabs seven spots of the KO part. For the eighth spot, Lichess invited Pavel Eljanov as a wildcard, the present world #33 and persistently FIDE-rated 2700+ for a number of years. Savchenko concluded the Swiss in tenth place, however clinched a qualification spot to the ultimate Knockout bracket after a final minute withdrawal.

To assist Lichess’s stringent Truthful Play necessities, the knockout event – which was the third and remaining stage of the qualifiers – required not simply reside monitoring of the video games by moderators, but in addition connecting to a Zoom name with arbiters for all gamers. Within the Swiss stage, this had been required from untitled or lesser identified gamers.

Within the prime aspect of the bracket, GM Boris Savchenko beat IM Jakub Pulpan after which GM Pavel Eljanov easily. On the opposite aspect, IM Siva Mahadevan engaged in an edgy battle in opposition to IM Nikoloz Petriashvili, resolved solely in an Armageddon tiebreaker. In the meantime, Croatian wunderkid GM Leon Livaic waltzed previous GM Maxim Dlugy in straight units. Within the semifinals, Siva confirmed to be a tenacious participant – forcing his opponent, Leon Livaic, to the Armageddon stage once more. 

The ultimate was resolved by two fast video games with a rating of 1.5-0.5 in favor of Savchenko, with each gamers exhibiting their love of chess by analyzing their sport for a number of minutes within the Zoom name afterwards and congratulating one another. A really beautiful signal of sportsmanship, from two gamers who clearly had plenty of respect for one another. 

The group of this event was intense, however we’re comfortable to name it a whole success! Due to the Kazakhstan chess federation for his or her cooperation and beneficiant patronage and to all people within the Lichess staff who was concerned!

If you’re an organizer and want to do one thing related, don’t hesitate to contact us!