Let's look back at the highlights of Lichess over the past year in our 2025 End of Year Update!

Due to your kindness and generosity, we received over $80,000 USD last month - the most donations we've ever received in a single month in our entire history! Thank you, so much, for believing in our work and supporting us to provide free chess for everyone.

Our Game of the Month December Contest is underway: Share your best Lichess standard game played in December 2025 until 12 January! The winner will be announced on 24 January, followed by a blog post with commentary on the game.

Congratulations to team Saqochess & friends and fan club for winning the $10,000 ChessMood 20/20 Grand Prix Final with top scorers IM Reza Mahdavi, @catask, IM Jakub Pulpan, FM Semyon Puzyrevsky, GM Haik Martirosyan, and many others! Thanks to all participating streamers and 3,135 registered players, including 313 titled players!

GM Magnus Carlsen is the 2025 World Blitz Champion and GM Bibisara Assaubayeva is the 2025 Women's World Blitz Champion! Read our final recap and check out our player interviews by IM Laura Unuk on YouTube.

After the first day of the FIDE World Blitz Championships 2025, GM Arjun Erigaisi, GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, and GM Fabiano Caruana are in shared first on 10/13, while in the Women's tournament, IM Eline Roebers is in the sole lead with 8.5/10! Read our Day 1 recap and check out our player interviews on YouTube.

Congrats FM Dimitrios Makridis on winning our 2025 Winter Marathon with a 70% win rate in 299 games, finishing 201 points ahead of 2nd placed GM @delta_horsey! Thanks to all 21,402 registered players who played a total of 164,563 games and 11,277,348 moves. The next Marathon will take place on 18 April.