Find out what happened on the first day of the FIDE Candidates 2026 in our Round 1 Recap! GM Fabiano Caruana defeated GM Hikaru Nakamura, GM Javokhir Sindarov won against GM Andrey Esipenko, and GM Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa beat GM Anish Giri, as the Women's tournament saw draws on all four boards.
Eight women and girls have qualified for the Queens' Online Chess Festival Finals on Lichess! Watch all the games now in our broadcast and read more about the event organised by the FIDE Commission for Women’s Chess in our announcement.
Round 1 of the FIDE Candidates 2026 has started! In the Open, world no. 2 GM Hikaru Nakamura faces GM Fabiano Caruana, and the Women's top seed GM Zhu Jiner takes on former Women's World Champion GM Tan Zhongyi, among others. Follow all the games in our broadcasts.
Congratulations to GM Ediz Gürel for winning our Bullet Titled Arena March 2026, ahead of GM Andy Woodward, GM Emin Ohanyan, GM Nihal Sarin, and IM Yoseph Theolifus Taher!
Watch our next Candidates pre-event interviews with Javokhir Sindarov and Wei Yi! Stay tuned for more interviews throughout the Candidates Tournaments.
The FIDE Candidates Tournaments 2026 will begin tomorrow, in Pegeia, Cyprus! The winners will earn the right to challenge for the World Chess Championship and Women's World Chess Championship titles. Check out our Preview Blog, watch our on-site player interviews, and follow all the games in our broadcasts until .
Our March 1+0 Warm-up Arena starts today, ! Play against some of the titled players before they enter our Bullet Titled Arena at .
Lichess has arrived in Cyprus to cover the Candidates Tournament! Watch our pre-event interviews with Fabiano Caruana, Matthias Blübaum, and Tan Zhongyi.
Join us in celebrating 47 successful Lichess4545 seasons in the faster 15+15 Season 48 Kick-off Arena on ! Lichess4545 has over 800 active members and hundreds of games played on a weekly basis.
Congrats @Boggled_Toggo on winning the Lichess Game of the Month February 2026! Thank you for all your countless submissions!
Got a question for the candidates? Lichess will do pre-event interviews with Fabiano Caruana, Wei Yi, Javokhir Sindarov, Matthias Bluebaum, Tan Zhongyi and Vaishali R! Share your questions in this forum post, and some might make it to the interviews!
Congratulations to team Super monster Knights by @anuhas_dharana_2010 for winning the 2nd ChessMood 20/20 Grand Prix 2026 Qualifier with top scorers GM Andy Woodward, @Kunyavka, IM Toivo Keinänen, IM Renato Alfredo Terry Luján, and many others! Thanks to all participating streamers and 2,562 registered players!
One hundred women and girls have qualified for the Queens' Online Chess Festival Semi-Final! Watch all the games in our broadcast, starting today, . The top eight players will advance to the final on . Read more about the event in our announcement.
Congratulations to team K2N_chess by FM Konstantin Kostin for winning our Streamer Arena March 2026! Congrats also to Ronaldo Playing Chess for taking 2nd place, to The United Royal Legion for 3rd place, and to Шустрий кабан for 4th place. Thanks to all participating streamers and 1,484 registered players!
Congratulations to GM @legendreturns for winning our Blitz Titled Arena March 2026, ahead of FM Havard Haug, CM @innocentguy, IM Renato Alfredo Terry Luján, and GM Oleksandr Bortnyk!
Our March 3+0 Warm-up Arena starts today, ! Play against some of the titled players before they enter our Blitz Titled Arena at .
Lichess is only possible because of the generous time and help given by our volunteers. If you'd like to join the hundreds of volunteers helping Lichess, our Content & Social Media Team is currently looking for help. Read more and apply!
The next $1,000 ChessMood 20/20 Grand Prix Qualifier will be held on ! The event is open to all Lichess streamer teams. Read our full announcement and register your team now.
More new features and improvements were added to Lichess last month! See what the developers and community contributors have been working on in our updated changelog and discuss the changes in our feedback forum topic.
Get ready for our next Streamer Arenas on and , with prizes for streamers whose teams finish in the top 4! If you're a streamer and want to participate with your team, register now.
Congrats NM @visualdennis on winning our Women's Day 2026 Arena ahead of @Sergofanchik2026, @OM64, @Savateyev, and LM @Lance5500! Thank you to all 3,007 registered players who celebrated International Women's Day with us, playing 5,250 games and making 270,747 moves.
"Advanced Search" Status Update
All games starting from 1 December 2025 are now available for our "Advanced search" and we are experimenting with a different search backend to improve the feature. Games before 1 December might not be available yet, but we are continuing to backfill all game data and will update you again.
Happy International Women's Day! Let's celebrate together in our thematic Women's Day Arena at . All games will start from a position of the FIDE Women’s World Chess Championship 2025 between GM Ju Wenjun and GM Tan Zhongyi, where Tan played a very rare opening idea.
GM Nodirbek Abdusattorov won the Prague International Chess Festival Masters 2026 undefeated with 6/9 points! 16-year-old IM Václav Finěk won the Challengers and qualified for next year's Masters tournament! Check out our player interviews from Prague on YouTube.
Our Game of the Month February Contest is underway: Share your best Lichess standard game played in February 2026 until ! The winner will be announced on , followed by a blog post with commentary on the game.