I pulled the August 2025 Lichess database and analyzed rating correlations and checkmate patterns.



Rating specialization:

Different time controls show moderate to strong correlations, but plenty of outliers exist. The strongest correlation is bullet-blitz (0.884), weakest is classical-bullet (0.739).



Biggest rating gaps I found:

\- 1,704 points between bullet and blitz (same player)

\- 1,281 points between classical and bullet

\- 1,223 points between classical and blitz



This suggests some players really specialize - either they're quick tactical players who struggle in long games, or positional players who can't handle time pressure.



Checkmate squares (814,646 mates):

g2 is the most common square for checkmate (6.3% of all mates). For specific pieces:

\- Queen mates: g2 (9.1%)

\- Rook mates: e1 (6.2%)

\- Knight mates: f7 (9.6%)

\- King mates: f2 (8.9%)



Queens deliver nearly 2/3 of all checkmates (528,016 games). Kings delivering mate is incredibly rare - only 235 instances out of 814k checkmate games.



Also looked at opening success rates:

\- London System gives White +7.7% advantage

\- Caro-Kann is the best equalizer for Black (-2.4% White advantage)

\- Van't Kruijs Opening is nearly perfectly balanced



Full analysis: [Medium](https://medium.com/@yash918jadhav/from-raw-chess-data-to-insights-a-pyspark-journey-through-3-3-million-games-478eed2636fd)

GitHub: [Github](https://github.com/YDJ00)

Rating differences across time controls and checkmate square patterns - analyzed 3.3M Lichess games