18-year-old GM Volodar Murzin is the 2024 FIDE World Rapid Champion! GM Alexander Grischuk came 2nd and GM Ian Nepomniachtchi 3rd. GM Koneru Humpy has won the FIDE Women's World Rapid Championship, for the second time after 2019, ahead of GMs Ju Wenjun and Kateryna Lagno!

GM Magnus Carlsen quit the FIDE World Rapid&Blitz Championships after being unpaired from Round 9 for violating the dress code by wearing jeans and refusing to change them. He didn't appeal the decision, calling the incident "a matter of principle". FIDE issued a statement explaining that these "rules have been in place for years" and apply "equally to all players".

Our 2024 Winter Marathon starts on 28 December at midnight UTC! Join us for 24 hours of 3+0 Blitz and be part of one of the biggest chess tournaments in history. The top 500, top 100, top 50, top 10 and the winner will all get a unique trophy.

Our first Titled Arenas for next year have been announced - as usual, they will be preceded by a Warm-up Arena open to all players.

A new progress bar in the open tournaments section of our homepage shows you the remaining time of started arenas, making it easier to see how much time is left before you join a tournament.

Lichess is translated to 80+ different languages. Thank you to Tux960 for translating over 11,000 words this month for our Tamil translation! You can help contribute other languages with Crowdin.

Congratulations to GM Andrew Tang for winning our Titled Arena December! GM Nihal Sarin took 2nd place, ahead of GM Daniel Naroditsky in 3rd place.