Year of 2023

As another year comes to an end, let's take a moment to revisit the highs and lows of our adventures in The House and the Variant World...

- Our lichess team witnessed extraordinary expansion, surpassing 16,000 members. Thank you everyone for being part of the team!
- We continued our legacy in Lichess Bundesliga and clinched our 4th consecutive championship. The new season begins on Thursday, 4th of January.
- In the over-the-board chess scene, @MeneerMandje and @BlunderPandazz achieved the biggest dreams of every chess player and became Grandmasters.
- A number of Variant Championships marked the year, including the culmination of Atomic World Championship (AWC), Horde World Championship (HWC), Losers World Championship, and Racing Kings World Championship (RKWC). The Antichess World Championship (ACWC), Bughouse World Championship (BWC), Crazyhouse World Cup (CWC'), and Three-Check Championship (TCWC) remain ongoing.
- The variant communities engaged in various variant tournaments, such as Atomic960 tournament, Crazyhouse Team League, weekly variant team battles, and 24-hour revolution variant marathons.
- Chess.com launched the Variant Community Series (VCS), featuring editions in King of the Hill and Three-Check, with the upcoming Crazyhouse edition set to commence on January 4th.
- The House Bobble Championship gathered enthusiasm in Discord, and the numerous Bughouse Parties hosted by @larso invigorated the voice channels.
- In the software domain, Fairy-Stockfish team developed new neural networks for various variants, such as Atomicduck, Berolina, and Torpedo Chess. Lichess integrated Fairy-Stockfish NNUE analysis for variants. Additionally, platforms Pychess and Playstrategy expanded their collections by adding new variants to their already impressive repertoire.

Happy New Year! May 2024 be your best year yet!

What was your favourite – variant, chess, or The House – moment of 2023?

My favourite moment this year was when I got the 4 ASGM norms around January.

I enjoyed playing Bughouse with @larso, got couple of nice wins in Bundesliga (such as lichess.org/Ew2LgxsG), and the favourite moment was when @vlad_00 won AWC as he had been the best active player for awhile.

My favourite minute of 2023 was to still win this game lichess.org/7ykM9TBc Got 4seconds left but the computer didn't respond well for 30-40 seconds don't know it exactly anymore.
And at that the move apparantly was still executed after 30-40 and that i won.
Notice the message of dilmand with wtf which is based on that the move was execute on the board 30-40seconds later.
i don't know how this could happen that themove was executed 30-40 sec later still but it really happend.

My favourite moment this year was me thinking I had bad sleep schedule, but then reminding myself that the ADMIN often played bughouse until 6-7 am! Dedication!

I guess when I got 4th in a Bundesliga and another team wanted to pay me to play for them. But I stick to the House.

My favorite moment was when I came back after a year

My favorite moment this year was playing 13 consecutive hours in the bullet marathon :)

(honorable mention to somehow quitting ultrabullet)

I don't have any favorite moments because I am unbiased unlike everyone above and below me :p