Teams, Simuls, and More gbtami 2026-08-26 68 views en A big community update We have just deployed a large batch of new features to PyChess. Many of them will already feel familiar to Lichess users: they are not new inventions, but PyChess adaptations that are now available across our many chess variants. ## Teams You can now [create or join teams](https://www.pychess.org/team), share team updates, use team forums, and organize team events. Team leaders can run team-restricted Arenas, Round-Robin tournaments, Swiss tournaments, and simuls. ## Simuls [Simultaneous exhibitions](https://www.pychess.org/simul) are now available on PyChess. Signed-in players can host many opponents at once or join as an opponent. Hosts can use one or several variants, start from custom positions, and optionally restrict a simul to a team. Public simuls can be featured, and hosts now have a simul history on their profiles. ## A new timeline The old lobby chat has been replaced by an activity timeline. Follow players to see their public activity, find mutual follows on the new Friends pages, and keep up with tournaments, simuls, teams, blogs, and forum discussions. For everyday chat, please join the [PyChess Discord](https://discord.gg/aPs8RKr); the invite is also available at the bottom of the main page. ## Community tournaments Signed-in players can now create their own Arena tournaments within reasonable limits. Team leaders with the tournament permission can also create team Arenas, Round-Robin tournaments, and Swiss tournaments. The tournament form has a searchable variant picker, including public community variants, and tournament reminders and scheduling have also been improved. ## More ways to play Several useful playing tools arrived with this update: * takeback offers in casual games, * [advanced game search](https://www.pychess.org/games/search), * an in-game keyboard shortcuts help dialog, * an optional split-board view for Alice Chess, * premoves for many user-defined variants, * and an option to claim available draws automatically. ## More variants and new looks Several more Fairy-Stockfish built-in games are now available through Community Variants. Shogun also received a beautiful new board and piece set by [@illionas](https://www.pychess.org/@/illionas). You may also notice patron wings around the site, a new [Friendly sites](https://www.pychess.org/friendly-sites) page, and many layout, mobile, notification, performance, and reliability improvements. Thank you to the Lichess project for the inspiration, and to everyone who contributed code, artwork, testing, translations, bug reports, and ideas. Have fun exploring the update! -gbtami Discuss this blog post in the forum 8 Likes You may also like Create Your Own Variants New variant moratorium is over. Forever. After Xiangfu: Big Update New variants, community tools, and quality-of-life upgrades The bugs are in the house! Bughouse chess has arrived
