Lichess Ladders

ANNOUNCEMENT The 3 day correspondence ladder is now open for play. The mechanics are slightly different to classical games. Rather than schedule games, the site will automatically create a Lichess challenge to your opponent. See https://lichessladders.com/ladders/5 to register and play. Anything you can do to help spread the word would be much appreciated!

REMINDER The clocks went back in some - but not all - parts of the world overnight, so if you're playing somebody in a different timezone double check the game is at the time you thought. All games are scheduled in UTC, but the time in your, or your opponent's, local zone might have changed.

In particular, Europe and US time zone differences will be an hour less than normal for a week.

UPDATE I've changed the correspondence ladder so you need to have played at least 5 Lichess correspondence games to sign up, but your rating can still be provisional

ANNOUNCEMENT The Lichess4545 team (for anybody who plays in the awesome lichess4545, lone wolf etc. leagues), is now an open one and doesn't need a code to join. You can join at https://lichessladders.com/tournament

UPDATE Game messages (eg game starts and results) are now posted in the relevant team Discord channels so you can see if any of your team members are playing / hop on to watch their games.

ANNOUNCEMENT We have a new team, Hanging Pawns, set up by @stjepan_32286 (aka Hanging Pawns on YouTube). You can join at https://lichessladders.com/tournament

ANNOUNCEMENT I'm considering opening a correspondence ladder, probably with a 2 day time control. If you're interested, sign up at https://lichessladders.com/ladders/5. If at ;east 10 people sign up I'll write the code to make it happen.

UPDATE There are now badges if you're top of the current, or overall, tournament leaderboard. Also, if you're a titled player this is now shown on your ladder entry.

UPDATE The game scheduled emails now include a .ics attachment so you can pop the game straight into your calendar

ANNOUNCEMENT Players who have joined a ladder 4 weeks ago but have never played a game are now removed from the ladder (with a warning a week beforehand). So if the ladder you're in has shrunk, that's why. Hopefully this will be another step towards keeping the quality of the ladders high.

PROPOSAL I'm thinking of removing players from ladders if they joined more than 3 weeks ago but have never played a game. They can always rejoin if they want to. Let me know in #general if you have any comments.

REMINDER If you want to dispute a forfeit, you need to do so from your challenges page, and then email admin@lichessladders.com with your reasoning within 4 hours (see section 20 of the rules). This is also clearly stated on the website before and after you raise a dispute.

ANNOUNCEMENT The U1800 ladder 30+30 ladder for players with non-provisional Lichess classical ratings of under 1800 is now open for play. Let the games begin! https://lichessladders.com/ladders/4

UPDATE If you are challenged to a game, and do not reply within 36 hours from your challenges page, then the game will be cancelled and you will be placed on holiday. For now, there will be no forfeits or strikes, to allow for honest mistakes.

ANNOUNCEMENT You can now only join a second ladder if you have linked your Discord account and joined the server.

UPDATE You can now insert UTC times into your user notes using the date / time selector dialogue. Thank you @baronvonchickenpants for the suggestion.

ANNOUNCEMENT Season 2 of the tournament will start on 2025-09-20 00:00 UTC and run until 2025-11-01 00:00 UTC. If you want to join a team, go to https://lichessladders.com/tournament. There's no extra work or games to play - if you're part of a team then any games you play will accumulate points for your team, even if you lose.

The ladders site's ability to send messages on Lichess is currently being rate limited, so make sure you check Discord / email for notifications too. It should start working again at some point, but it's out of my control.

UPDATE You can now convert dates from your local timezones to utc direct from the messages page with no need to use eg hammertime

We now have 7 people signed up to the U1800 30+30 ladder. If we can get 3 more then I will open it up for play. Sign up at https://lichessladders.com/ladders/4

ANNOUNCEMENT There is now an announcements page on the website, which is just a copy of this feed, so anybody who's not on Discord or doesn't come here often can see what's new: https://lichessladders.com/announcements

ANNOUNCEMENT My current plan is to force people to use the new, in-built messaging feature, at least for making initial contact. If you challenge somebody and they don't reply within 36 hours you will get an automatic forfeit, your oppoent will get a strike, etc. I have implemented the messaging around it (it should now be in all Discord DMs, Lichess messages and emails) but it's not actually enforced yet. I'll give it a few days to see if anybody reacts. Post in #general if you have any comments / objections.

If it happens, and it's just a misunderstanding because it's a new thing, then I can always remove the strike. Or maybe just not give a strike at all, but place them on holiday instead, at first at least.

MAJOR UPDATE You can - and should - now message people about your challenges from your challenges page on the site (https://lichessladders.com/challenges). I've added this in for a number of reasons:

• It keeps everything in one place
• You can copy Discord timestamps from eg https://sesh.fyi/timestamp/ or https://hammertime.cyou and they will appear in UTC and local times
• I have made it really, really obvious that you need to discuss times in UTC, so hopefully there will be fewer misunderstandings about timezones
• I can potentially at some point enforce the need to make an initial reply to challenges within, say, 24 hours, which will hopefully let us remove timewasters from the ladders sooner (if you have thoughts on this idea, post them in #general )

You will get notified by Discord DM, email and Lichess whenever somebody sends you a message, but you can disable this from your settings page.

UPDATE Strikes are now expired after 6 weeks. Also, if you have been on holiday for 12 weeks you will be removed from the ladder.

UPDATE I have clarified the process around disputes. You can find more on the FAQs and section 18 of the rules.

TLDR; it's up to the disputer to email admin@lichessladders.com with their reasoning for disputing the forfeit, and 'I forgot' isn't a valid reason.

NEW LADDER There is now a U1800 30+30 ladder for people with non-provisional Lichess classical ratings of under 1800. See https://lichessladders.com/ladders/4

It's open for registration now - if we get 10 - 15 players on it then I'll make it live for games. I'm experimenting with forcing people to link their Discord accounts to join the ladder.

ANNOUNCEMENT We have a new tournament team - Disciples of the Church of Basmania, set up by @matt_brownsand (Billy_Sprinkle, who came top of the individual league last season). If you want to join, DM him for the passcode and then go to https://lichessladders.com/tournament. You need to have played at least one lichess game playing the Grob / Borg (1.g4/1...g5)

The first tournament season is over! The team winner was 4545ers, and @matt_brownsand (Billy_Sprinkle) came top of the individual league, with @sylvain_35322 (hochsyl) in second place. You can see the full results at https://lichessladders.com/tournament/leaderboards. I will announce a new season soon. In the meantime, you can found out how it works and join a team at https://lichessladders.com/tournament. I think the scoring system has worked pretty well, but if you have any feedback then post it in #general

I'm considering setting up a ladder for people with non-provisional ratings of 1800 and under. If you're interested, vote for the time control you'd like to see in #general

UPDATE You can now reduce the number of game reminders you are sent. Just go to the settings page (https://lichessladders.com/settings) and check 'minimize game reminders'. Thanks @frahde for the suggestion

UPDATE Players' ratings are now included in the upcoming matches list (https://lichessladders.com/challenges/scheduled) to make it easier to find games you might want to watch. Thank you @thelizard1313 for the idea.

REQUEST If your opponent doesn’t accept a challenge, or turn up for a game, please consider requesting a forfeit, even if it won’t change your position in the ladder. Your opponent will get a strike, and be placed on vacation for a minimum of 7 days. I think this is the best way to make sure the ladders stay high quality, especially as the number of players increases.

I have cancelled all the challenges for ladders games that are currently being played because of the lichess outage. I don't know how lichess is going to handle these games, but you'll need to re-challenge your opponents if you want to play the matches.

UPDATE You can now see the upcoming 25 games across all ladders at https://lichessladders.com/challenges/scheduled. If a game is currently being played you can see that too.

UPDATE You can now see the upcoming 10 games for each tournament from the link at the bottom of each page. Plus various other minor bug fixes / tweaks.

UPDATE I have fixed various bugs in the way tournament points were being calculated. Hopefully it should be working properly now.

Season 1 of the tournament starts today! If you haven't joined a team, then it only takes 2 clicks, and there are no extra games to play - every game you play gets points for you and your team whether you win, draw or lose. More info at https://lichessladders.com/tournament

UPDATE I've decided not to do merch (too much hassle) but if you want to get your own mugs, t-shirts, whatever, printed, I've tidied up and uploaded high-res versions of the logos here: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/in9sz6x645ncuc4xib6ho/lichess-ladders-artwork.zip?rlkey=73h9hp6szjwmy5w9lls5qwj15&dl=0

UPDATE You can now accept a second challenge for each ladder, if you want to. Click the 'settings' button on the ladder page.

UPDATE You now get placed on a vacation on your first strike

If you've not been following the updates, here are the most important recent changes:

• We now have teams, tournaments and leaderboards. Every game you play accumulates points for you and your team.
• The first season starts on August 1st
• If you've been challenged by somebody under you in the ladder, you can still challenge somebody above you
• You can now choose to accept a second challenge in each ladder More info at https://mailchi.mp/1b03b8f35fe3/lichess-ladders-update-15834403

UPDATE If you have been challenged, you can now still challenge somebody else above you in the ladder. Let me know if I have broken anything, or something doesn't work as expected.

UPDATE Teams are now colour coded, and I have tweaked the scoring. Also, if you haven't seen it already, checkout the individual leaderboard. You get points for taking part in any of the ladders, and you can see the overall total, as well for each season.

UPDATE - We now have teams. No extra work for members - just join a team and whenever you play a game you'll gain points for your team. See https://lichessladders.com/tournament. Thank you @mattchess for the idea, and to everybody else who honed it.

UPDATE - You can now have closed teams too, which need a password to join. Thank you @minot for the idea.

UPDATE You can now say if you're a member of the Chess Dojo from your settings page (https://lichessladders.com/settings) and a little icon will appear by your name in the ladders. Thank you @frahde for the inspiration

UPDATE Badges now appear on the website too as well as Discord

UPDATE I have added a ‘significant contributor’ role for people who’ve helped shape or publicise the ladders in a substantial way. If I’ve forgotten anybody, DM me - it’s my poor memory, not an intentional slight

NEW RULE - If you repeatedly abandon games partway through you'll get a strike awarded against you.

UPDATE I’ve started adding some Discord roles and badges for people. The first one is for the first 25 people who signed up. It’s a ~~grey beard, but if anybody has a better, non-gender specific idea then let me know~~ dinosaur - thanks @preferredindifferent for the icon idea.

UPDATE - you can now see your game history from a link on the left (thanks @pascalgo for the idea). Also, you can see people's profiles from eg https://lichessladders.com/@/neilgd72. And don't forget you can use @Chesslise and type the /ladderplayerinfo command to view details here based on somebody's discord id.

UPDATE - you can now challenge people more rungs above you in the ladder (up to 10% of the active ladder size - that is players who aren't on holiday, banned etc.)

hpy is documenting his lichess ladders journey. First episode - hpy vs theracconking at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sF1fVBzGHoE

UPDATE - you can now view people's game history. Just click on their name in a ladder and then go to the 'more information' link.

UPDATE When you make a challenge, you now have to add notes to indicate when you are available. I've also added an explanation of UTC there. The notes will then appear in your and your opponent's challenges page. You can use markdown if you want to. Thanks @maartenduits for the suggestion.

UPDATE Penalties for taking extended breaks will reset after 21 days of being continuously available. So you could:

• go on holiday for 9 days, 23 hours and 59 minutes
• return for 21 days
• go on holiday for 9 days, 23 hours and 59 minutes and not be penalised

The fast moving 60+30 ladder is now open for games. You have 48 hours to organise games and 7 days to play. See https://lichessladders.com/ladders/3. Enjoy!

UPDATE If you are on a break you will drop a place in the ladder every 10 days. The counting starts from today (so if you've been on holiday 2 weeks already your position won't change until 10 days from now). This is cumulative, so if you go on holiday for 9 days, 23 hours and 59 minutes and then rejoin, and then leave again immediately, you will drop a place after 1 minute.

No real need for this channel so I’ve closed it

I have updated the ladder so new users cannot join unless they have 12 hours playing time on Lichess, across any of the time controls / variants. This is to make sure that we keep the ladders for serious chess players willing to abide by the rules but who don't necessarily have classical chess experience. Later on today or tomorrow, I will remove anybody from the ladders who doesn't fit this criterion. If you feel this is unfair on you, then DM me to plea your case.

People with under 12 hours of Lichess playing time who are already on ladders are now marked with a ghost icon, and cannot challenge or be challenged

You can also click on people’s names on a ladder and see how much playing time they have logged on Lichess

Thanks to @nmp, @Chesslise now supports Lichess ladders! Use /lichessladder <time control> to see the ladder info and players info for given time control ladder, use /ladderplayerinfo to find player linked lichess and notes by searching their discord username

Don't forget to link your discord accounts from the settings page at lichessladders.com/settings

I've fixed the bug where timezones weren't being picked up I think, but if you signed up recently you might need to go to the settings page and adjust your timezone.

Also, I've moved the new joiner announcements to a separate channel.