TournaChess

Why Import from Lichess?

TournaChess can import results from completed Lichess Swiss tournaments. This is useful when you want to:

  • Keep all your club results in one place. Whether your club runs over-the-board tournaments, online tournaments on Lichess, or both, TournaChess gives you a single home for standings, history, and player records.

  • Submit online results to the USCF. Many clubs run USCF-rated online events on Lichess. Importing the results into TournaChess makes it easy to generate the report needed to submit results to the USCF for official rating.

  • Accept registration and payment on TournaChess, then play on Lichess. Create your tournament on TournaChess, collect registrations (with optional payment), run the actual games on Lichess, then import the results back. TournaChess automatically matches Lichess players to their registrations.

Prerequisites

Before you import:

  • You need the Tournament Director role (or higher) in your club.
  • You need the Lichess Swiss tournament URL. Find it on Lichess by navigating to the tournament page — the URL looks like https://lichess.org/swiss/ynfJ5LK4.

Option 1: Import as a New Tournament

Use this when you want to bring a completed Lichess tournament into TournaChess as a new tournament. This is the simplest option — you paste a URL and TournaChess creates the tournament, section, rounds, games, and player registrations automatically.

Steps

  1. Go to your club's Tournaments page.
  2. Click the Import dropdown and select Import from Lichess.

Import dropdown on the club tournaments page

  1. Paste the Lichess tournament URL and click Import Tournament.

Import dialog with Lichess URL

  1. When the import completes, you'll see a summary showing the tournament name, number of sections, and number of players. If any Lichess players could not be matched to existing club members, they are imported using their Lichess usernames. Click View Tournament to see the results.

Successful import showing tournament details

  1. The imported tournament includes full standings with scores, round-by-round results, and BYEs.

Standings tab of the imported tournament

Option 2: Import into an Existing Tournament

Use this when you want to accept registrations (and optionally collect payment) on TournaChess before the tournament is played on Lichess. This workflow lets TournaChess match Lichess results to the players who registered.

Setting Up

  1. Create your tournament on TournaChess as usual — set the name, date, sections, and time control.

  2. Enable the Lichess username field on each section. Go to Sections → edit the section → under Registration Fields, set the Lichess Username field to Optional or Required. If the Chess.com Username field is also enabled, set it to Off since registrations will be matched by Lichess username for this tournament.

  3. Activate the tournament and share the registration link. Players register on TournaChess (and pay, if configured) and enter their Lichess username.

  4. Run the tournament on Lichess. Players play their games on Lichess as usual.

Importing the Results

Once the Lichess tournament is finished:

  1. Open your tournament on TournaChess and go to the Pairings tab.

  2. Click Tournament Actions (the ... menu) and select Import results from Lichess.

Tournament Actions menu showing Import results from Lichess

  1. Paste the Lichess tournament URL and click Import Results.

Import results dialog with URL input

  1. TournaChess matches Lichess players to your existing registrations by Lichess username. The summary shows:
    • Matched players — Lichess players matched to existing registrations.
    • New registrations — Lichess players with no matching registration. These are created automatically.
    • Rounds and games — How many rounds and games were imported.

Successful import showing match summary

  1. The imported results now appear in the standings with real player names from the registrations.

Standings after importing results into existing tournament

How Player Matching Works

When importing into an existing tournament, TournaChess matches players by comparing each Lichess player's username against:

  1. The Lichess username entered during registration.
  2. The Lichess username on the club member's account profile.

If a Lichess player can't be matched, TournaChess creates a new guest registration using their Lichess username. You can link these to club members later from the Registrations tab.

After Import

Once imported, the tournament works like any other TournaChess tournament:

  • Standings are computed from the actual game results, including scores, wins/losses/draws, and BYEs.
  • Re-import is supported — if results change on Lichess (corrections, late games), you can import again and TournaChess will update the results.
  • USCF submission — if the tournament is USCF-rated, you can generate and submit the results report from TournaChess.