Leela Odds Challenges on Lichess: Second iteration of the queen odds bullet challenge

During the last months, a multitude of minor improvements has been made to improve the Leela piece odds bots on Lichess, and it is time for another challenge – this time it will be queen odds at 1’+0".

In addition to the Leela Odds challenges published in this blog post 3 months ago, there also was a queen odds bullet challenge with a similar “first participant to get a positive score with at least 10 wins” format, which was claimed rather quickly by GM Awonder Liang. To showcase the improvements made over the last months, we’re now announcing another queen odds bullet challenge with a slightly different format:

Instead of the first participant to make a positive score, we’re interested in the best possible match scores achieved on a day over several weeks, with the following format:

• Matches go until one side has won 20 games at 1’+0"; draws don’t count, so a match score is either +20-x or +x-20. Games Leela loses due to potential technical problems are ignored.
• Each player has one attempt per day from their official account, starting from a fresh 0-0 score.
• The challenge is open to all titled players LM and above (GM, IM, FM, NM, LM) with a 2700+ Lichess bullet peak rating (50+ games) and their identity revealed, with possible extensions after personal request to Hissha via Lichess or in the Lc0 Discord.
• And of course, evidence of engine use during the games will lead to a disqualification from the challenge.

We hope that this challenge will not only provide a lot of interesting and entertaining games, but will also give us a better estimate on the performance of LeelaQueenOdds and the rating required to achieve a positive score at bullet TC.

Summary of the challenge conditions:

• LeelaQueenOdds plays white with its queen removed lc0.org/Q
• time control is 1’+0"
• challenge is open to all titled players LM and above (GM, IM, FM, NM, LM) with a 2700+ Lichess bullet peak rating (50+ games) and their identity revealed, with possible extensions after personal request (see above)
• the challenge will run from 2026-07-24 00:00 UTC until at least 4 different eligible players with a 3000+ bullet rating (either Lichess or chess.com) have completed the challenge, but at least run until 15th of August 23:59:59 UTC.
• matches go until either side has accumulated 20 wins, with one attempt per (Lichess server) day; the best result counts as the final score.
• the participant with the best positive score (i.e. reaches 20 wins before Leela and holding Leela to the least amount of wins) will win the challenge and a $300 prize
• the two participants with the next best scores (not necessarily positive) will be awarded a $200 resp. $100 prize, even if no one wins the challenge

UPDATE 2026-06-27: Challenge postponed

Unfortunately, all Leela bots including LeelaQueenOdds are facing major technical problems since last week, causing stalling challenges, abandoning games and repeated significant downtimes. This makes it impossible to provide players with the necessary playing conditions where they can perform to their maximum strength, which in turn prevents the challenge from achieving its goals. We have therefore decided to postpone the challenge to after the technical problems have been fixed; eligible players which have already reached the “20 wins for either side” condition will have their results counted once the challenge resumes, but will be allowed a “fresh start” under the challenge conditions with the better result counting.

UPDATE 2026-07-23: Challenge has been resumed

The technical problems have been sorted out, and the challenge has been resumed. There were minor changes to the match conditions to invite more high level players and allow multiple attempts, in order to hopefully see as many high level games as possible.