^{Source: Lichess.org}

“From time to time, like many other players, I glance through my own games of earlier years, and return to positions and variations which have gone out of practice. I attempt to restore them, to find new ideas and plans.”
— Yefim Geller

A Chess Community members at Hive is, no doubt, fully aware of the Lichess.org platform qualities. Their motto is quite simple and effective – see the cover pic. Aside of this important feature, Lichess.org has an extensive set of excellent training tools, and the top rated StockFish 14+ engine for the game analysis.

Among 700,000 members you have a bunch of top grandmasters from all over the World, with the incumbent World Champion…

GM Magnus Carlsen, incumbent World Champion
GM Shakhriyar Mamedyarov
GM Hikaru Nakamura
GM Alireza Firouzja
GM Anish Giri
GM Vladislav Artemiev
GM Andrey Esipenko
GM Dmitry Andreikin
GM Velimir Ivić
WGM Jovana Erić
GM David Navara
GM Sergei Zhigalko
GM Vincent Keymer
GM Aleksei Sarana
GM Andrew Tang
GM Oleksandr Bortnyk
GM Vladimir Fedoseev
GM Nikolas Theodorou
GM Zviad Izoria
GM Miroslav Miljković
GM David Paravyan
GM Nihal Sarin
GM Boris Grachev
GM Nikola Nestorović
GM Alojzije Janković
GM Levente Vajda
GM Simon Williams, A.K.A. Ginger GM
GM Suat Atalik
GM Aleksandar Indjić
GM Benjamin Gledura
GM Sanan Sjugirov
GM Eric Hansen
GM Zhamsaran Tsydypov
GM Rasmus Svane
GM Nikita Matinian
GM Haik Martirosyan
GM Juan Carlos Obregon Rivero
IM Eric (Oh no, my Queen!) Rosen, Stafford gambit fanatic
Jonathan Schrantz, A.K.A. Vampire Chicken

…and the most charming LiChess member of all times:

Ksenia “Pinkamena” Petrova

Let’s not forget a feature that I consider very important:

“We do not track you. It’s a rare feature, nowadays.”
— lichess.org

All those features are really great, and the members of a club are terrific, you may ask what’s the gripe? Well, there is one which you might not care for, but I consider it really bad.

You see, if Yefim Geller (see the leading quote) would try to find his own games of earlier years classified by the openings – he would be desperate! In the Advanced Search menu, you have many fields, but not the one most needed – search by the ECO (Encyclopaedia of Chess Openings) code categorized into five broad areas ("A" through "E"), with each of those broken down into one hundred subcategories ("00" through "99"). That ECO code is sorely missing from the Advanced search:

For example: you have just seen a beautiful game between Le Quang Liem and Jorden Van Foreest, where Le won with a marvelous positional Queen sacrifice in a Slav Defense variant.

[Event "Oslo eSports Cup (Meltwater Champions Chess Tour), Norway 2022"]
[Site "https://lichess.org/v42ZSdj1"]
[Date "2022.04.28"]
[Round "7.6"]
[White "Le, Quang Liem"]
[Black "Van Foreest, Jorden"]
[Result "1-0"]
[UTCDate "2022.04.28"]
[UTCTime "21:00:37"]
[WhiteElo "2765"]
[BlackElo "2744"]
[Variant "Standard"]
[TimeControl "300+3"]
[ECO "D16"]
[Opening "Slav Defense: Soultanbeieff Variation"]
[Termination "Unknown"]
[Annotator "lichess.org"]

1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. Nc3 dxc4 5. a4 e6 6. e3 c5 7. Bxc4 Nc6 8. O-O Be7 9. Qc2 O-O 10. Rd1 Bd7 11. dxc5 Bxc5 12. b3 Qe7 13. Bb2 Rfd8 14. Ne4 Nxe4 15. Qxe4 Be8 16. Qg4 g6 17. Ng5 h5 18. Qg3 Rxd1+ 19. Rxd1 Rd8 20. Rf1 Bd6 21. f4 Ba3 22. Ba1 Nb8 23. f5 Bd6 24. fxe6 f6 25. Bxf6 1-0

And you will never find it in the massive Lichess database, because you can’t search with the query ‘Slav Defense’ or D16. It’s not just a shame, it is a BIG OMISSION that should be corrected A.S.A.P.

Well, I have tried to raise the question in the Lichess blog, but nobody reacted. I can’t get in touch with the platform owners. At least not alone. That might be a job for the community. For all of you who participate in Hive Chess tournaments:

Day	Tournament	GMT	CET	Host(s)
Fri	Hivechess Tournament	20:00	21:00	Hive account@stayoutoftherz
Sat	Chess Tournament	20:00	21:00	Hive account@schamangerbert
Sun	Chess Brothers League	19:00	20:00	Hive account@chessbrotherspro
Sun	PIZZA CHESS	22:00	23:00	Hive account@cryptoniusraptor
Mon	Checkmate Coin	20:15	21:15	Hive account@hive-129589, Hive account@giacomone and Hive account@petreius