Lichess4545 Season 47 Round 3 Update - Old Allies, New Rivals

Way back in Season 10 of Lichess4545 league, there was a little team named The Stonewall Defenders. On Board 1, it had @HandKnit, on Board 2, @axp156 was handling the business as team captain. Granted, the team did not do that well, finished up 23rd out of 26 in the overall league standings, but this was 8 years ago. In the following years, axp156 collected over 150 games in the league while HandKnit appeared much more sporadically, but still got 25 45+45 contests under their belt.

Enter round 3 of this season, which is Season 47. 8 years and 37 seasons later, those former teammates are now fighting for their respective teams. axp156 is leading the charge at Board 1 for Panic! At The Chess Board. HandKnit is meanwhile defending the honor of Swindlers, patzers, and pawn pushers, also on Board 1. And after round 2, both of these teams were perfect, with 2-0 scores, looking to make a run and position themselves to be league contenders. Not only were these teams perfect, the players in question are also 2-0 this season. All of this was a great setup for one of the most meaningful games of round 3.

It was a battle only smarter players than me can truly understand and appreciate, but HandKnit absolutely delivered for their team, bringing home a crucial victory and nudging the match in their team's favour. The full match-up result was 4:3 in favour of Swindlers, patzers, and pawn pushers, putting them at a perfect score and very much in contention for the league title.

Elsewhere, it was a great week for @Rcyx, who is literally on fire. Well, not literally, they are figuratively on fire. Rcyx is now on a 5-game winning streak in the league and this week, they also played their milestone 45th game in Lichess4545 league. To celebrate, they made quick work of @sivakumarr.

The team match-up though stayed in the balance until the very final game, which was another exciting one. As their team led 4-3, @JokicInator15 desperately needed to break their 4 game losing streak. In their way was @Kborman, whom they had already faced and beaten back in Season 40. This time, it was an endgame grind but in the end, JokicInator15 could breathe a sigh of relief, getting back on track with a win and sealing the victory for the team by the score of 5-3.

Essence of Sahkal and the Fragrances of the 7 thus also stay perfect, with 3 victorious matches and very much in the hunt.

Most back and forth game of the week? That might go to @matman and @Utterbawbag who were trading blows and mistakes, with black eventually escaping with a victory in a hard-fought French defense game.

But maybe all that pales in comparison to what @kygreek did. Playing in their milestone 100th game in Lichess 45+45 league, they were paired against a super-veteran with over 200 games, @UpGoerFive. Now, smothered mates are sort of a life goal for a lot of chess players, but to come up with one on move 11, against an uncastled king on your milestone game...that is impressive. I wonder what kygreek has in store for their game 200. I hope not to face them!

The league marches on as we only have a handful of perfect teams remaining. Who will take charge in round 4?

Annotated games by @glbert

Long-time league veteran glbert has been getting better at chess. They have been also annotating their league games and kindly offered these for the League Ledger.

Enjoy and we hope glbert can keep them coming!

Meanwhile, let it be known that the league is still open for registrations, you can still become an alternate for ongoing Season 47 if you register at this link.

Lichess4545 is an online chess league for people who like playing long time control games online. Players are assigned to teams and play one game per week with a 45+45 time control. For more information visit our league home page.
LoneWolf is a side league of the Lichess4545 league. It is an 11-round Swiss tournament where players play one game per week with a 30+30 time control. For more information about the LoneWolf tournament visit the LoneWolf homepage.
Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-SA).
Contributions to this edition by @Tranzoo and @glbert