Lichess and Take Take Take Forge Open-Source Chess Partnership

A notable development has emerged in the online chess world: Lichess has announced a cooperation agreement with the new-generation chess venture Take Take Take. At the heart of the deal is Take Take Take’s decision to use the open, accessible, community-driven infrastructure that Lichess has spent years building, rather than creating a closed, company-controlled play zone from scratch. Unlike the “walled garden” model so common across the chess ecosystem, this approach suggests that a more shared digital order is possible for both players and developers.

Lichess says it initially approached the proposal with understandable caution. The reason is clear: in the past, many companies have shown interest in the platform without truly understanding its values or its volunteer-driven community spirit, focusing instead on access to its user base, visibility, or commercial leverage. But after careful review and direct contact with the team behind Take Take Take, Lichess concluded that this partnership could produce a positive outcome for chess as a whole. The key point is that this is not merely a technical integration; it is also a broader alignment around open source, accessibility, and the long-term growth of chess culture.

For players, the implications are significant. More healthy competition in online chess means more choice. Instead of a market dominated by a handful of closed platforms, competition can push services to innovate through genuinely useful features, better user experience, stronger broadcasting tools, and more ambitious tournament organization. In other words, competition is not just a commercial contest; it is a pressure mechanism that can return value to players in the form of faster pairing systems, more capable analysis boards, improved anti-cheating measures, richer streaming tools, and higher-quality events. For chess fans, that means better services and a broader set of options.

From Lichess’s perspective, the agreement is not only an institutional success but also an important victory for free/libre open-source software. Instead of spending millions to build yet another closed system, Take Take Take recognized that a functioning digital commons already exists and chose to build on it. That decision shows that technological infrastructure in modern chess does not have to be based solely on ownership and investor logic; it can also grow through sharing and common production. If this model proves successful, it would not be surprising to see other chess ventures follow a similar path. That would reduce wasted resources and leave more room for investment in what matters most: tournaments, content creation, educational projects, and the player experience itself.