Blitzmarathon 2024!

Finally our MARATHONMAN HUB18 alias Hans Barmbold found the time to write a report concerning that stunning event!

The Spring Marathon 2024 was scheduled, from 11/05/2024 at 02:00 to 12/05/2024, 02:00; available at https://lichess.org/tournament/spring24 .
A long, long day of chess, 24 hours; the Blitz Marathon took place! A day can seem quite long. The time mode was 5+0, with the possibility to halve the time to get extra points. The prize was a digital trophy in the Lichess profile for the Top500 (Top10, Top50, Top100 and Top500). It was my 9th Trophy for such a Marathon (6x Top50, 3x Top100). 22053 players took part! 204.887 Games were played and 14.587.923 Moves! You could say that almost all of Lichess was on its feet!
I played for about 16 hours, with breaks in between, 280 Games in total. I slept 6 jours, from 6 am to 12. My Performance was 2365, with an average opponent rating of 2434! 444 points were enough for a place in the top 30, my second-best result, 23rd Place!
Many of the SC Turm team also took part. W08 got 30th Place!
All in all, it was a very interesting experience, exhausting but challenging in a positive sense. The next game was constantly starting, the next strong opponent was waiting, sometimes a game lasted only 30 seconds, you resigned even in a hopeless position or your opponent did so. I halved the Time 100%, first Time in a Marathon!
I like the Arena format very much, my best Performances All-Time were at Marathons!

In summary, it was a great, successful format and a wonderful organisation by Lichess!!!