2026 Atomic World Championship Announcement

Another year, another AWC. Let’s jump straight to the news: registrations are open until August 31st (read how to register below), and the first round will be played starting September 7th.

This announcement will list all the rule changes for this year, and explain them. The full version of the rules can be found here. Please read them if you don’t want to risk being disqualified because you didn’t understand how things work.

1 - Camera monitoring for top 8

Following various issues with cheating in previous editions, some matches of the top 8 will be played while requiring players to join a video call with an arbiter, and share their screen.
This will not be for every single top 8 match: only 5 or 6 matches in total will be monitored, focusing on players who haven’t been monitored yet, until all players have been monitored once, before the grand final. Then, the grand final will also be monitored. Unless they reach the grand final, most top 8 players can expect to only be monitored once, and twice at most.

I understand that this will be less comfortable for top 8 players during their matches, but they may also find comfort in competing in fair circumstances, against valid players.

2 - Registration process

The introduction of camera monitoring impacts registration: every player who wants to register needs to confirm that, in the case they reach the top 8, they consent to being recorded, and for the audio/video recording to be saved and analyzed for anti-cheating purposes. Consent to be recorded is necessary, under EU data protection laws.
All recordings will be deleted 7 days after the tournament ends. No recording will, under any circumstances, be shared outside of tournament organizers and Lichess moderators. More details about that in section 8 of the rules.

How to register for AWC 2026:
Step 1: You can register by leaving a comment in this forum thread, or you can register privately by sending a direct message to @Atomic.

Step 2: Whether you registered in the forum thread, or by messaging @Atomic, you must message @Atomic to say that, in case you reach the top 8, you consent to the storage and processing of your audio/video data, according to the section 8 of the rules. If you do not do this, you will not be registered.

3 - “New” time control: 3+2 (previously 3+1)

“It’s 3+2 baby.”

4 - The top 8 seeded players will go straight to the top 16 double-elimination stage.

This format change reduces the amount of unbalanced matches taking place, and is more fair to players seeded from seed 25 to seed 40. Previously, players from seed 25 to 40 would be placed in the same group as top 8 seeded players, and they would have almost no shot for reaching the final stage, in a single elimination match against them. Now they get better chances against top 9-16 seeds, who will have to prove their worth a bit more, to make it to the final stage. This also means that there are only 8 groups this year, so the main tournament will start with 40 players : 8 groups of 4 players, and the top 8 seeded players waiting in the final stage. The remaining applicants will play in a qualifier, like last year, to reach the group stage.

5 - Seeding ratings can include peaks and performances from alt accounts now.

This change is made because in several cases it already applied for some, mostly due to the main account not having enough arenas played, having a specific blitz alt account, or players with several accounts who would decide to play on the account with the strongest performance anyway. This now makes it clear and available to all : tournament performance and peak ratings from alt accounts can count (if the alt can be confidently established as yours). Peak ratings from high RD on new accounts will not be counted.

6 - Some requirement changes

The required amount of atomic games to participate is increased to 1000 (previously 500). The account age is increased to 6 months old at least (previously 4). The minimum peak rating to join the tournament is increased to 1800 (previously 1700). This will allow to select dedicated players and reduce the amount of forfeits in the early rounds.

Players too low rated to register in the AWC can join the U2000 Atomic Championship instead as an opportunity to compete with players of similar strength (but I do not organize this event and it is not of my responsibility).

I'm looking forward to this next edition, and I think you should too. Cheers!