It provides us nice pleasure to announce the Lichess World Championship, an occasion that will likely be contested completely on lichess.org. With the announcement that FIDE has determined to open up the World Champion title to any group that wish to run such a contest, it was solely a matter of time till Lichess threw its hat within the ring, and we really feel our World Championship can stand toe to toe with any of them! With the exception of a short interval within the 90s and early 2000s, there has often solely been one World Chess Championship contested at a time, an actual missed alternative for the game. In the previous few days the variety of Chess World Championships has rapidly ballooned to three and should quickly exceed that, a positive signal of chess’ exploding recognition. 

The Lichess World Championship (Henceforth: “World Championship”) will supplant what was formerly known as “Titled Arenas” and the title will likely be utilized to Saturday’s Titled Arena winner IM Minh Le, who turns into the 18th Chess World Champion, and joins the lengthy proud custom stretching by way of Carlsen, Kasparov, Fischer, Steinitz, and all the best way again to Morphy. Speaking of which, we’ve additionally retroactively determined that Paul Morphy was World Champion too, as a result of c’mon, it is Morphy! Former World Champion Magnus Carlsen will certainly be kicking himself for deciding to skip the World Championship to play in a completely different occasion on Saturday. He seemingly solely made this determination as a result of it had but to be introduced as a World Championship. Sorry about that Magnus, we’ve simply been busy and hadn’t gotten round to it.

So how does the Lichess World Championship evaluate to the others? While the prize fund could also be barely much less, there are quite a few different benefits. Other World Championships are performed at glacial time controls like 10+0 whereas ours zooms alongside at 3+0 and 1+0. Speaking of glaciality, different World Championships are solely contested each 2 years whereas gamers get a shot at ours each 2 weeks! 

The principal benefit of our method of awarding the World Champion title is, as has been mentioned earlier than, the sector format. Our kids will someday scarcely imagine us once we inform them that World Championships was determined with matches and spherical robins as an alternative of the scientifically confirmed most enjoyable chess match format. With no breaks in play for commercials, arenas even have the benefit of being the format most proof against attracting company sponsorship. 

Some naysayers might level out that The World Championship match is at all times the high-water mark for curiosity in chess and watering it down with a sequence of dueling World Championship titles may trigger injury to the game as an entire. What these individuals don’t notice is how a lot cash we’re going to make off of this! Perhaps in the long run a World Championship schism will “kill the golden goose” because it have been, however within the quick time period? I need a Jet Ski!

So inform us what you assume! Which World Championship is your favourite, and why is it clearly ours? Perhaps you’re thinking about beginning your personal? The Next World Championship will likely be contested on May seventh with a 3+0 time management.