Lichess Patron Tournament

In the spirit of chess and free-giving, I feel it would be great for lichess to create a tournament for patrons.

I can't find the URL, but somewhere there's a page explaining that Lichess doesn't put features behind paywalls.

Could this be the page you're looking for?

lichess.org/patron

"Are some features reserved to Patrons?
No, because Lichess is entirely free, forever, and for everyone. That's a promise.
But Patrons get bragging rights with a cool new profile icon.
See the detailed features comparison."

Don't worry, I keep on bragging.

I don't really see a need for such kind of a tournament, yet I don't agree that it's a feature per se. We have titled arenas, u-tournaments, elite tournaments, or even private tournaments that only allow certain category of players to participate .

@DVRazor Those other categories are not money though. Any player can participate in a titled arena - if they are good enough. But you cannot get there by paying. The point is not that there is never any categorizing of players, the point is that money paid is not to be one of those categories.

Yea I know @Chessty_McBiggins, bt it doesnt really stop lichess status for being free. Just as there are tournaments for certain categories, like the titled area, under 2000 rated, under 1500, under 1700, and so on... wouldn't hurt once awhile to host such a tournament...

If having some stuff for free and some stuff you have to pay for "doesn't really stop lichess from being free," then there is virtually no Web site out there that cannot be called free. Certainly any chess Web site. Once there is one feature that is only for people who pay money, the precedent is set and other such features are inevitable.

The real question is, why on earth is somebody else having paid money to Lichess a criteria worth finding opponents based on? I can see the benefit of rated tournaments - to find opponents of similar strength. Why would I care about specifically playing people who have paid money to Lichess? You say it wouldn't hurt. It also wouldn't hurt to go out on my roof right now and wave my arms like a bird's wings. I cannot see any reason why I should do that though, so I'm not going to. Why do you care about this?

Sometimes I get asked, what those wings mean right beside my nick. Then I always explain, that you have to bear those wings, when you get caught cheating three times.

Yesterday I met the first oppenent who bought that story.