Questions

Everything worth asking before you pay.

If something here is unclear, support will answer in plain language.

Getting started

Why do I have to connect a Lichess account?

Because prizes go to a verified person, not a username someone typed into a form. The link is how we confirm who you are, check that you meet a tournament’s rating limits, and make sure the seat you paid for is yours. Without it we can’t let you buy tournament access.

Do you see my Lichess password?

No. You authorise on Lichess’s own page and we never see, receive or store your password. We also cannot play games as you or read your private messages.

Can I use two Lichess accounts?

No. A Lichess account can be linked to exactly one Chess4prize account. This is what stops someone entering a rating-capped tournament more than once.

Is Chess4prize affiliated with Lichess?

No. Lichess is an independent, free, donation-funded chess platform. We use their public API to run tournaments there. We are not endorsed by or connected to them.

Entering a tournament

Where do the games actually happen?

On Lichess. Chess4prize does not run a chess server or a board. We handle registration, eligibility, results and prizes; Lichess handles the chess.

How do you stop people who didn’t pay from joining?

Two independent locks. Your Lichess username is added to the tournament’s entry list when your seat is confirmed, and Lichess refuses anyone who is not on it. On top of that, each player gets a personal entry code tied to their own Lichess account — it is computed from that account’s name, so it simply does not work for anyone else. Sharing the tournament link, or a screenshot of your code, lets nobody in.

What happens if my rating changes before the tournament?

Eligibility is checked again when payment is confirmed. If that check fails, your entry is held for review and the fee is returned if you cannot be admitted — you are never charged for a seat you were not given. A rating that moves after you have legitimately been admitted does not remove you from the tournament.

What if I close the payment page halfway through?

Nothing is charged and your seat is held as unpaid. Return to the tournament page and you’ll see a button to finish paying — you will not be charged twice.

During and after

How quickly do standings update?

Every few seconds while a tournament is live. We read the tournament centrally and serve the same copy to everyone, which is why the page stays fast even with thousands watching. Each page shows when the standings were last confirmed.

What if Lichess goes down mid-tournament?

The page keeps showing the last confirmed standings and tells you they are paused, rather than presenting stale numbers as current. Syncing resumes automatically once the connection returns.

When do I get paid?

After the tournament is settled and the fair-play check on the winning accounts has run and answered. Every prize is approved by a person before it is paid, and the payout itself is made by hand rather than automatically — there is no wallet and no stored balance. The status is tracked in your results history. We have not committed to a maximum time between a tournament finishing and a prize being paid, and we would rather say that than publish a number nobody has agreed to.

Can I get a refund?

A full refund is due if the tournament is cancelled, or if we take your payment and then cannot admit you. It goes back to the card you paid with, and it is issued by a person rather than automatically. If you entered and simply did not play, the fee is not returned. The refund policy covers every other case.

Fair play

Do you detect cheating?

No, and we do not claim to. The games are played on Lichess, and Lichess’s fair-play systems are what analyse them. What we do is read the account standing Lichess publishes, write down what we read, and refuse to pay a prize to an account Lichess has marked. No automated system here decides that somebody cheated, and no language model is involved anywhere in the process.

What do you actually check, and when?

Your Lichess account standing, at four moments: right after you link the account, periodically in the background while it stays linked, when you take a seat in a tournament, and again before any prize is approved. The last one matters most, because Lichess marks accounts after the fact — sometimes days after a tournament has finished.

Could I be flagged just for playing well?

No. A high rating, a dominant score, a winning streak or an unexpected result against a stronger player produce no flag, no case and no consequence on this platform. Strength is not a signal and we do not treat it as one. If your play is genuinely suspicious that is a judgement for Lichess, who have the games; our record contains no assessment of how you played.

What happens if Lichess is unreachable when you check me?

The check is recorded as inconclusive, which means exactly what it says: we could not read your account, so we know nothing. It is not a finding, it does not open a case, and repeated outages never accumulate into one. The only thing it affects is a prize approval, which needs positive proof rather than an absence of bad news — so we run the check again instead of concluding anything.

Who decides, if something is found?

A person. A case is opened for a named reviewer, who sees every check ever run against the account — including the ones that found nothing — and the facts each was decided on. Closing a case records a decision and a written reason; withholding a prize or restricting an account is a separate deliberate step, so reviewing and punishing can never be the same click.

Can I see what you hold about me?

Yes. Write to us from the address on your account and ask for your fair-play record and the reason behind any decision that affected you. We keep the checks that found nothing too, because “you were checked and nothing was found” is a different statement from “no record exists”.

Versions

How do I tell which version I am using?

Sign in and open the Control Center from the header; the About panel names the build you are running and can ask the server whether a newer one is deployed. A web page updates by loading again, so that is what it offers — there is nothing to download and no installer.

Why do the versions have names?

Because it is easier to say “that changed in 2.1” than to quote a commit. The name is what a build is called out loud; the build id underneath it is the exact commit the running code was compiled from, and that is the one that settles arguments. The full list of versions and what each one changed is below.

Version history

What each version of Chess4prize changed. Updated when a new one ships.

ChessOS 2.2
23 September 2026
The landing page moves, and the opening steps aside.
Two animated sections built from real tournaments: a ring of cards that turns on its own and gathers into a deck as you scroll, and the next tournament resolving out of focus behind a countdown that is only shown when it is honest. The 2.1 opening is retired — an introduction everybody has already seen is a toll — and the Control Center moves behind sign-in, where an account's controls belong.
ChessOS 2.1
21 September 2026
A front door, and a way to see what you are running.
An opening sequence that moved from a close-up of the board to the hero in one shot, four soundtracks with a choice about sound before anything played, and a short guided tour of the tournaments board. The number of people on the site became a real measurement rather than a decoration, and the Control Center gained an About panel that tells you which build you are on and whether a newer one is deployed.
ChessOS 2.0
September 2026
Everything visible, rebuilt.
The interface was thrown away and built again on one design language. The signed-in Hub, the tournaments board you move through rather than scroll past, the tournament stage and the spectator room anyone can watch from, and the fair-play record that keeps the checks which found nothing as well as the ones that did. Live standings started being served from our own database instead of asking Lichess once per viewer, which is why the page stays fast with thousands watching.
ChessOS 1
August 2026
The machinery, working.
The first Chess4prize that actually ran end to end: an account, a Lichess connection, tournaments you could enter, and a prize that could be paid to a verified person. The pages around it were plain. Everything underneath them was real, which was the entire point of the version.

Still have a question?

Support replies within one working day. Include your Lichess username if it’s about a specific tournament.

Contact support

How it works

Prize rules are on the prize pools page.

Getting started

Why do I have to connect a Lichess account?

Do you see my Lichess password?

No. You authorise on Lichess’s own page and we never see, receive or store your password. We also cannot play games as you or read your private messages.

Can I use two Lichess accounts?

No. A Lichess account can be linked to exactly one Chess4prize account. This is what stops someone entering a rating-capped tournament more than once.

Is Chess4prize affiliated with Lichess?

No. Lichess is an independent, free, donation-funded chess platform. We use their public API to run tournaments there. We are not endorsed by or connected to them.

Entering a tournament

Where do the games actually happen?

On Lichess. Chess4prize does not run a chess server or a board. We handle registration, eligibility, results and prizes; Lichess handles the chess.

How do you stop people who didn’t pay from joining?

What happens if my rating changes before the tournament?

What if I close the payment page halfway through?

Nothing is charged and your seat is held as unpaid. Return to the tournament page and you’ll see a button to finish paying — you will not be charged twice.

During and after

How quickly do standings update?

What if Lichess goes down mid-tournament?

The page keeps showing the last confirmed standings and tells you they are paused, rather than presenting stale numbers as current. Syncing resumes automatically once the connection returns.

When do I get paid?

Can I get a refund?

Fair play

Do you detect cheating?

What do you actually check, and when?

Could I be flagged just for playing well?

What happens if Lichess is unreachable when you check me?

Who decides, if something is found?

Can I see what you hold about me?

Versions

How do I tell which version I am using?

Why do the versions have names?

Version history

What each version of Chess4prize changed. Updated when a new one ships.

ChessOS 2.2

23 September 2026

The landing page moves, and the opening steps aside.

Two animated sections built from real tournaments: a ring of cards that turns on its own and gathers into a deck as you scroll, and the next tournament resolving out of focus behind a countdown that is only shown when it is honest. The 2.1 opening is retired — an introduction everybody has already seen is a toll — and the Control Center moves behind sign-in, where an account's controls belong.

ChessOS 2.1

21 September 2026

A front door, and a way to see what you are running.

An opening sequence that moved from a close-up of the board to the hero in one shot, four soundtracks with a choice about sound before anything played, and a short guided tour of the tournaments board. The number of people on the site became a real measurement rather than a decoration, and the Control Center gained an About panel that tells you which build you are on and whether a newer one is deployed.

ChessOS 2.0

September 2026

Everything visible, rebuilt.

The interface was thrown away and built again on one design language. The signed-in Hub, the tournaments board you move through rather than scroll past, the tournament stage and the spectator room anyone can watch from, and the fair-play record that keeps the checks which found nothing as well as the ones that did. Live standings started being served from our own database instead of asking Lichess once per viewer, which is why the page stays fast with thousands watching.

ChessOS 1

August 2026

The machinery, working.

The first Chess4prize that actually ran end to end: an account, a Lichess connection, tournaments you could enter, and a prize that could be paid to a verified person. The pages around it were plain. Everything underneath them was real, which was the entire point of the version.