Chess960 Arena on Lichess

Last month, in (Not so?) Rare Birds, Summer 2017, I took my periodic look at recent / forthcoming chess960 tournaments. One small event that received a mention was:-

GM Yermolinsky VS. IM Bartholomew Chess960 Consultation Match: Former U.S. Champion GM Alex Yermolinsky and IM / YouTube sensation John Bartholomew will lead two competing teams in an interactive consultation Chess960 (Fischer Random) match.

I'm always interested in any YouTube sensation that has to do with chess960 and I found a relevant clip on the 'John Bartholomew' channel.

Chess 960 Arena! (1:41:10) • 'Streamed live on Apr 10, 2017 • Join the tourney on lichess.org: [...]'

That last link leads to IM Fins Arena #0HECUP4x (lichess.org), which now has the tournament results. Between the start and the end of the live stream, there is plenty of discussion about chess960. The embedded chat is an integral part of the show.

Twelve Popular Posts

Since adding the 'Popular Posts' feature to the blog (see my comment dated 17 December 2015 on the Adieu! post), I've noticed that a few posts consistently appear in the 'Last 7 Days' list at the top of each page. Which posts are the most popular overall? Here's what Blogger.com reports as most popular of 'all time':-

• 2013-12-21: Fischer and 'Wild Variant 22'
  
  
• 2012-05-19: Top 10 Myths About Chess960 (*)
• 2012-07-14: Non-random Fischer Random
• 2011-03:12: Chess960 Online Play Sites (*)
  
  
• 2015-06-27: Whispering a Fond Adieu!
• 2013-11-09: Carlsen Played Chess960
• 2012-07-21: Recent Comments (*)
• 2010-11-21: Calculate SP Numbers in Your Head (*)
• 2012-11-24: Waving a Yellow Flag
• 2011-12-03: When Vishy Met Bobby

I've split the list into three groups. The first post has a view count nearly double the second group, where the posts have about 50% more views than the third group.

Compare this with a similar exercise I did in December 2012: Top Posts of All Time. Of the seven posts on this current list that appeared before December 2012, four were on that first list; I've marked them with an asterisk '(*)'. Three of those posts address common questions about chess960, but I have no idea why 'Recent Comments' continues to be popular.

These statistics can't be taken too seriously. I also have a 'viewed' count for each individual post on the blog, where 'Online Play Sites' and 'Calculate SP Numbers' show about the same number of views. In the same ballpark with these are two more posts that are missing completely from the list of top posts:-

• 2010-11-28: Another Chess960 Position Generator
• 2011-12-17: Not Everyone Likes Chess960

Of the nearly 400 posts on the blog (not counting the artificial pre-2009 posts), these twelve attract the most attention from the search engines.