Artificial intelligence for Atomic, Horde, and Racing Kings!
You may know about Stockfish, the strongest chess player in the known universe. It's a fantastic chess artificial intelligence, and like all the greatest programs, it's open source and actively maintained by enthusiasts (yes just like lichess :)
Naturally we use it on lichess:
The next step after learning how the pieces move.
I'm hesitant to dispel the myth that chess is unapproachably complex. It has been useful in making some people think I'm a lot smarter than I actually am. The truth is that chess can be difficult and complicated but no more than many other skills that people master on a regular basis. I'm often asked how to get better at chess. This is difficult to answer and I can't explain it in one sentence. A few paragraphs, however, should be plenty:
The first thing any ambitious new chess student needs to learn is not to hang pieces. "Hanging" pieces means giving one away to your opponent: for example, placing a rook where it can be captured safely by a bishop. Most games between absolute beginners are decided by these ‘one-punch knockouts’ where one player gives away an important piece (or checkmate) and the game is essentially over. All the cleverness in the world will not usually save a chess player when his opponent has an extra queen. The inverse mistake is also common, where one player delivers his queen to be taken for free and their opponent fails to notice.
The legendary 24h chess tournament is back.
TL;DR: What? 24h long 5+0 tournament. When? Saturday the 6th of August, 12:00AM (GMT). Where? lichess.org/tournament/summer16
True to its tradition, lichess presents this summer edition of the ever popular seasonal chess marathon.
A new way to learn chess!
Until recently lichess.org was not much use to a person who doesn’t know how the pieces move, but now, we have something for them. lichess.org/learn will teach new players everything they need to know to play a game of chess. From the basic movements of the pieces to lesser known rules like en passant and stalemate.
Practical Strategies for Closing the Gender Gap in Chess
To understand the benefits of playing chess, think of chess as a mental gym. When you play chess, you engage your brain in critical and demanding ways. Your brain is constantly developing to adapt to this more mentally intense environnment. Thus when you repeatedly play chess you get, well... smarter. Memory, critical thinking, calculation, mental dexterity and executive function in early childhood are just some of the wonderful benefits of playing the game of kings.
As long as chess has been chess, chess has been mainly played by men. The question of the “Gender Gap” in chess was recently discussed in the New York Times:
All the little things we've made over the past 5 months.
Outstanding progress on lichess mobile app!
As you know, lichess is built and run by a vibrant community of chess lovers. Some are coding the site itself, some are catching cheaters, some keep the servers up and scaling; and these two guys, veloce and freefal, are doing wonders with the mobile app.
So what's new since the previous mobile app review?
The ultimate chess teaching and learning tool.
Here comes lichess shared analysis! It's full-featured, it's free for all, it's gorgeous and fast and awesome; and in all modesty, it's the best thing that happened to chess since the invention of the smothered mate. We call it: Study.
Featuring crazyhouse champion JannLee!
Your chance to play a super GM!
