🐼 LiChessTourneyBots

Weak bots for kids' Lichess tournaments

How it works

This app puts weak, friendly bots into your Lichess Arena tournaments so kids get winnable, confidence-building games. Each bot is a dedicated Lichess account you create once and reuse every tournament.

  1. Set up each bot below — create an account, get a token, paste it in.
  2. Upgrade the accounts to BOT status (one time, permanent, takes 10 seconds).
  3. Pick your tournament and click Deploy. Keep this tab open while it runs.
Lichess rules to follow: Only use dedicated BOT accounts (never a human account). Only join tournaments with "Allow bots" turned on. Keep games Casual (unrated).
Terms of Service · Fair Play

Your bots — set up each one

Add another bot:

When your bots are ready — upgrade and run

1
Upgrade all accounts to BOT

Lichess requires each account to be marked as a BOT before it can play through an app. This is permanent and cannot be undone. Only do it on fresh accounts that have never played a game.

2
Pick your tournament
Or paste the tournament ID or URL directly:
How to create a bot-friendly tournament on Lichess
  1. Go to lichess.org/tournament/new and log in as yourself.
  2. Choose Arena (not Swiss). Set it to Casual (unrated). Use a slower time control like 10+0 or 5+3.
  3. In the Advanced settings, turn on Allow bots. (This toggle only appears on Arena, not Swiss.)
  4. Add a Password to keep it private and share it with your group. Enter that same password in the field above.
  5. Create it. Find it with the search above, or copy the 8-letter ID from the URL: lichess.org/tournament/abcd1234

Avoid team-only tournaments — your bots would need to be team members. A password-protected public Arena is easiest.

Advanced: change API base (only if you get CORS errors)

Run node proxy.js and set this to http://localhost:8080 if any endpoint is CORS-blocked.

3
Deploy

Keep this tab open while the tournament runs. The bots will join the tournament, wait for pairings, and play automatically. Close the tab to stop them.

Cloud backup — optional, saves to your PandaDex

Back up your whole squad (usernames and tokens) so you can restore it on any computer. Only your Google account can access it.

Not signed in.

Activity log

Tokens are stored in this browser only (localStorage). 🐼 part of the AppPanda family.