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Classical Shield ArenaBattle for the Classical Shield2,041 players • French Defense Rapid Arena58 players • Playing now ≤2000 Rapid Arena189 players • Playing now

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Lichess: End of Year Update 2025

Slow exposure of a fire with a dark background.

30 Dec 2025MatthewKCanada

How you can stop sucking at KOTH

2 Jan 2026NM VoicelessFeather

The Best 1.e4 Openings For White Below 1600

29 Dec 2025LM Assios

Tacu's Enigma: The hardest chess problem

2 Jan 2026FM Sibelius_92

"The Macedonian Problemist" (2025)

29 Dec 2025GM ChessMindAI

How to Evaluate Positions, Part #1

2 Jan 2026CaseyReese

Taking Advantage of a King in the Center

28 Dec 2025JustAnotherLine44

Open tournaments

Classical Shield	10h	2041
French Defense Rapid	1h 57m	58
Hourly Atomic	27m	36
Hourly Bullet	27m	221
Hourly Crazyhouse	27m	25
≤1500 SuperBlitz	57m	90
Hourly King of the Hill	27m	20
Hourly SuperBlitz	57m	337
Hourly Chess960	57m	33
≤1700 Bullet	27m	83
Hourly Horde	57m	20
Hourly Blitz	57m	186
Hourly HyperBullet	27m	57
≤1300 Blitz	57m	61
≤2000 Rapid	57m	189
Hourly UltraBullet	27m

The Discovered Check puzzle theme is now available! Find out more about the theme, related patterns, and how we implement new puzzle themes in the blog post by @dirkster99.

Let's look back at the highlights of Lichess over the past year in our 2025 End of Year Update!

Due to your kindness and generosity, we received over $80,000 USD last month - the most donations we've ever received in a single month in our entire history! Thank you, so much, for believing in our work and supporting us to provide free chess for everyone.

Our Game of the Month December Contest is underway: Share your best Lichess standard game played in December 2025 until 12 January! The winner will be announced on 24 January, followed by a blog post with commentary on the game.

Congratulations to team Saqochess & friends and fan club for winning the $10,000 ChessMood 20/20 Grand Prix Final with top scorers IM Reza Mahdavi, @catask, IM Jakub Pulpan, FM Semyon Puzyrevsky, GM Haik Martirosyan, and many others! Thanks to all participating streamers and 3,135 registered players, including 313 titled players!