We held our fourth online club tournament on Tuesday 9th June. It was a Rapid play tournament on lichess.com, in which players had ten minutes per player per game. The event was an Arena format for one hour, and there were 11 players.

Congratulations to Graham Stuart (‘WillHeSac’) on winning this week’s tournament! And well done to Rob Sims 2nd and David Culliford 3rd.

This week Graham didn’t go berserk (where you gamble half your time in a game for the chance of getting an extra tournament point), but at least two of us did. Mind you, it didn’t do me any good – I lost my game when I went berserk. But David did get the bonus point when he went Berserk in one of his games.

The event format was an Arena: players were re-paired once other players had become available, whereas a tournament comprised of rounds would see most players waiting longer before their next game. A consequence of this is some players squeeze more games into the one-hour event than others if their games end quicker.

“Play fast and return to the lobby to play more games and win more points” (lichess.org on Arena tournaments).

The scoring system on lichess

This is how lichess calculates the score, from their website :

A win has a base score of 2 points, a draw 1 point, and a loss is worth no points.
If you win two games consecutively you will start a double point streak, represented by a flame icon.
The following games will continue to be worth double points until you fail to win a game.
That is, a win will be worth 4 points, a draw 2 points, and a loss will still not award any points.

For example, two wins followed by a draw will be worth 6 points: 2 + 2 + (2 x 1)

Another factor in scoring is going ‘Berserk’ :

When a player clicks the Berserk button at the beginning of the game, they lose half of their clock time, but the win is worth one extra tournament point.