Streamer Arena - Rules and Info

The Streamer Arena is a tournament played on Lichess for live streamers from YouTube and Twitch.

Registration

• Only reasonably active or established streamers may apply to play.
• If you'd like to apply to enter your team, please write to events@lichess.org from the email address associated with your Lichess account with "Streamers Arena" in the subject. Do so no later than 24 hours prior to the arena; while we accept late applications, we cannot guarantee that we will reply on short notice.

Rules

• Every streamer who registered with their team is expected to live stream the event on YouTube or Twitch — otherwise they may not be allowed to participate in future Streamer Arenas with their team.
• The streamer is allowed to either play in the arena or spectate players of their team. However, when spectating players of their team, streamers must provide commentary to allow for a reasonable viewer experience.
• The streamer must live stream the entirety of the event to be eligible for prizes, including commentary and a camera to provide a reasonable viewer experience.
• The streamer must stream this event with a camera; however, we do accommodate streamers who do not wish to use a camera as long as it does not detract from the viewer experience. If you want to not use a camera for your streams, please email us beforehand so that we can grant you approval to do so.
• The stream's title must include "Streamer Arena" (or the equivalent in your stream's language) and the lichess.org key phrase in the title, and the streamer must also have the VOD enabled on Twitch or YouTube.

Prizes

• Prizes are paid out to the streamer whose team finishes at the top, NOT to individual players.
• Prizes are paid via PayPal.
• Prize winners will be contacted by a Lichess team member on their Lichess account.
• We try to pay out all prizes within two weeks after the arena.
• Standings for prize payouts are finalized 72 hours after the end of the arena - unless decided otherwise by Lichess at its sole discretion. Any changes to the arena standings (for example due to players being removed for fair play violations) after this point won't affect the prize distribution.

Team Arena Format

Arena tournaments do not have rounds like more traditional chess tournaments. Players who finish a game are re-paired again as quickly as possible to people with similar scores. Players should not expect to play the same number of games as all other players. A team arena like the Streamer Arena works the same way except players cannot be paired against their teammates and the scoring is calculated by team. Only the top 20 scores from each team will count towards the team's final score. The idea is to lessen the fear that lower-rated players will hurt their team by participating.