Lichess is very proud to announce the Lichess Bundesliga. Formerly known as the “Quarantäne Bundesliga,” it's a massive league with hundreds of teams and thousands of players, including many titled players participating every week. 

League organizer FM Jens Hirneise was inspired by events like the Lichess Streamers Battle that brought together thousands of players that wanted to find a way to continue playing chess while over-the-board chess was put on hold. The first Quarantäne Bundesliga was played on March 15th of this year, it had 157 players. Since then, the event has absolutely exploded in popularity. There are now an average of more than 4,000 players in the bi-weekly events representing hundreds of teams. The top league is incredibly strong, with dozens of GMs playing, including big names like GM Alexander Morozevich, GM Baadur Jobava, GM Georg Meier and too many others to name here. 

The structure of the league is very much inline with Lichess’ philosophy, it is open to all and there is no fee to enter. No ads, no trackers, no paywalls, ever - just like Lichess itself. 

The league competes every Thursday and Sunday at 18:01-19:41 UTC. The time control rotates between 3+0, 3+2, and 5+0. It is built around Lichess Team Battles, a type of arena tournament where teams compete together instead of as individuals. The pairings are done exactly as in a regular arena tournament except teammates may not play each other. At the end, the scores of each team are added up to determine the winner. Critically, only the top 12 individual scores from each team count in the Bundesliga. This means that lower rated players will worry less about hurting their team and a team cannot win by simply having more players (although this may give some advantage). The number of scores that count gets progressively lower in lower tiers. For Bundesliga 2 it is 10, Liga 3 has 8, Liga 4-6 have 7 leaders. The 13th tier, for brand new teams only has 4. 

Similar to leagues in many sports, there are many tiers from which you can be relegated or promoted. Each league has 10 teams. For the top 2 leagues and at tier 4 and below, the 3 highest finishers are promoted and the 3 lowest are relegated. At tier 3 the league splits into 3 equal co-leagues, labeled “A”, “B”, and “C” where only one team is promoted and one is relegated. At the moment there are 13 tiers in total. 

League structure for Bundesliga, Bundesliga 2, Liga 3A/3B/3C and Liga 4A/4B/4C:

League structure for Liga 5A/5B/5C, Liga 6A/6B/6C and Liga 7A/7B/7C:

League structure for Liga 8A/8B/8C, Liga 9A/9B/9C and Liga 10A/10B/10C:

League structure for Liga 11A/11B/11C, Liga 12A/12B/12C and Liga 13A/13B/13C:

If you are interested in forming a team, and can guarantee the participation of at least 4 players, or if you have any questions about the League, please send a PM to League organizer FM Jens Hirneise

Further Info:

All time- League table of the highest league (Quarantine Bundesliga): https://rochadeeuropa.de/ewige-q-bundesliga-tabelle/

FAQ English: https://lichess.org/forum/team-rochade-europa-schachzeitung/quarantine-leagues-faq-english-frequently-asked-questions

FAQ German: https://lichess.org/forum/team-rochade-europa-schachzeitung/quarantane-liga-faq-deutsch-haufige-fragen

FAQ Español: https://lichess.org/forum/team-rochade-europa-schachzeitung/liga-de-cuarentena-faq-espanol-preguntas-frecuentes

History of all Quarantine Bundesliga tournaments: https://rochadeeuropa.de/lichess-turniere-beendet/

Link announcements of future Lichess leagues: https://lichess.org/forum/team-rochade-europa-schachzeitung