Lichess Ladders

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I submit a game result?

There's no need to submit results: they should be pick them up automatically.

What happens if somebody doesn't respond to my request for a challenge?

You can either withdraw the challenge, or request a forfeit once the deadline to organise a game passes

What happens if somebody doesn't turn up for the game?

You have 24 hours to request a forfeit. Your opponent then has 24 hours to dispute the forfeit. If they don't, then you will be awarded the win. If they do, the mods will get involved.

If I belong to more than one ladder, can I have an open challenge for each ladder, or one overall?

You can have an open challenge for each ladder. So if you have a game scheduled on the 30+30 ladder, you can still challenge somebody on the 60+30.

Can I take a break from a single ladder, or does it need to be from all ladders?

You can take breaks from ladders individually.

Why can't I challenge anybody?

You can only challenge people one, two, three or four spaces above you in the ladder (more if it is a large ladder). If they are all already involved in active challenges, then you will need to wait for one of them to become available.

Why do I need to have 12 hours of Lichess playing time before I join?

This site is aimed at people who have shown a fair level of commitment to playing chess. We feel this is a high enough hurdle to discourage cheaters

Why do you let people with provisional classical ratings join?

As long as people have shown a serious commitment to chess (see above), we would like to encourage them to play longer time controls even if their previous experience is in rapid. blitz and bullet

But I don't want to be beaten by 1500? players who are actually 2100+ in rapid/blitz

If you're in the bottom half of the ladder, have a non-provisional rating, and are challenged by a player with a lower, provisional rating than yours then you can refuse the challenge. But don't worry about it too much: because of the way Lichess's algorithms work, you won't lose a lot of rating points if you lose to somebody in their first ever classical game.

What is UTC / why do we use it?

Because different regions are in different timezones, and different countries' clocks change at different times, or not at all (eg New York is normally 5 hours behind London, but sometimes it's 4, and sometimes 6), UTC is an unambiguous way of talking about times internationally. There is a good explanation here

I've played my game, but it hasn't been picked up. What do I do?

This is probably because you started late, or at a time that wasn't expected (perhaps because of confusion around UTC/timezones). You can submit the game manually from your challenges page.

How long should I set aside for games?

As a rule of thumb, leave aside 2 hours for 30+30 games and 3 hours for 60+30

How can I help spread the word?

Here are some ideas:

Who do I contact if something isn't working?

Please post any questions / bugs in the discord channel.

Join our Lichess team

Any issues? Post on Discord

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