The Chess960 FIDE Freestyle Chess World Championship 2026 starts today, 2026-02-13 14:00 UTC! GMs Magnus Carlsen, Fabiano Caruana, Levon Aronian, Vincent Keymer and others will compete for the title and a total prize fund of $300,000 until 2026-02-15. GM Hikaru Nakamura, the reigning Chess960 World Champion, declined the invitation to the event.

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.

Any chess position with 8 pieces on the board and at least one pair of opposed pawns has been solved! Lichess can now tell you definitively if it's a win, loss or draw without requiring an engine. Read about the massive technological undertaking to accomplish this partial 8-piece tablebase in our blog.

Congratulations to GM Artem Uskov for winning our Bullet Titled Arena January 2026, ahead of GM Christopher Yoo, GM Oleksandr Bortnyk, IM Renato Alfredo Terry Luján, and GM Sergei Zhigalko!

Our Game of the Month January Contest is underway: Share your best Lichess standard game played in January 2026 until 12 February! The winner will be announced on 24 February, followed by a blog post with commentary on the game.

Congrats @BRIANGD on winning the Lichess Game of the Month December 2025! Thank you for all your countless submissions!

Congratulations to K2N_chess for winning our Streamer Arena January 2026! Congrats also to IM YOSEPH AND FRIENDS for taking 2nd place, to The Dark Horse Youtube and Twitch Community for 3rd place, and to Zhigalko_Sergei & Friends for 4th place. Thanks to all participating streamers and 1,824 registered players!