Hivechess Season 19 is starting this Friday!

Dear chess fans!

Finally S19 has arrived! Just 3 days to go!
But as always first let´s talk a little about the past season.

The prizes from Season 18 were payed out in the meantime. Final snaphot of the prize fund:

In total 647 Hive, currently worth app. 110$ (last season it was 616 Hive, worth app. 193$ back then) have accumulated at @badge-646464. To account for the low Hive price and to beef up the sum a little, I had sold some HBD (37.275, at 4,024 Hive/HBD) from the @chesspricepool account. A (relatively) good deal, after S17 I had converted some Hive to HBD at a rate of 2,43, the HBD increased a lot since then, compared to Hive. So by this the prizefund increased to 799 Hive and was distributed among the 17 qualified participants, this time for the first time as HP (which caught some with surprise)!

Since then the Hive price dropped further, so good that we still have app. 37 HBD remaining which are kept (for now) in the savings, in order to generate a regular, automatically increasing add-on to the prizes of the upcoming seasons!

Thanks a lot to all the upvoters and supporters!

As always, @badge-646464 is now under a power down to cover the expenses (as I have paid out the prizes already out of my pocket) and @chesspricepool will be used to accrue the prizes for S19. It is preloaded already with app. 53 Hive due to the 3 fun tournaments!

🏆 Payout table of Season 18 🏆

Tournament 1 (0-1449)

Rank	Hive name	Lichess name	Rating	Rounds played	Points	Prize (HP)
Winner	@ram9612	romeo9612	1397	6	49	60
Second	@vasigo	vasigo	1237	10	43	50
Third	@fiona777	fiona777	1366	8	35	40

Tournament 2 (1450-1749)

Rank	Hive name	Lichess name	Rating	Rounds played	Points	Prize
Winner	@masterswatch	Masterswatch	1724	9	127	70
Second	@sammy00	migmag	1489	10	108	60
Third	@lighteye	lighteye	1646	10	100	55
4	@b0s	Da_k1ng	1671	9	88	43,3
5	@stranger27	stranger27	1652	8	84	40,7
6	@rodrook	RDcast	1512	10	76	39,7
7	@giuatt07	guisep73	1599	8	74	36,8
8	@rafaelaquino	ajedrezclub2t	1640	8	57	30,3
9	@darruiz	darruiz	1474	10	54	31,2

Tournament 3 (1750-2099)

Rank	Hive name	Lichess name	Rating	Rounds played	Points	Prize
Winner	@stayoutoftherz	stayoutoftherz	2005	10	160	60
Second	@rosmarly	rosmarly	1917	9	142	50
Third	@agreste	agreste	1759	8	101	40

Tournament 4 (>2099)

Rank	Hive name	Lichess name	Rating	Rounds played	Points	Prize
Winner	@lucianosky	Pavarotty	2428	7	128	50
Second	@eniolw	eniolw	2422	7	125	40

The more competition within a tournament, the higher the prizes.

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In addition, 50 LEO each were sent to the players as an incentive for having participated in all 10 rounds, 30 to those who were present 9 times and still 22 LEO to those with 8 rounds played. Thanks a lot, @leofinance for the sponsoring!!

Here I plotted the participation of players over the previous 18 seasons, in blue the total number of players played per season and in orange the maximum no. of players in a single round of that season. The dates reflect the month the season had started with.

The drop in S14 is due to the registration fee of 1 Hive I had requested (with the record of 88 players in S13 the amount of work to administrate and calculate the tables was increasing a lot). S11 is missing as it was a round robin tournament.

Back then in summer 2022 when S13 and 14 were played, the Hive price was 60-80c, the fourfold of what it is today.
Will we see an uptrend again towards the end of 2024? What do you think?

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The Hivechess Hall of Fame

is located here as a post collection (and includes ALL chess tournaments on Hive):
https://peakd.com/ccc/badge-646464/the-hivechess-hall-of-fame
Select "View as post" in order to see it in a better way!

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About Season 19

After the break and the fun tournaments Season 19 will start this Friday, the 06^th Sept. 2024, 19h GMT at the usual time! It will go over 12 rounds (2 more than in the last seasons!), again grouped in skill groups based on Blitz rating.

Of note, if I don´t know the Hive user name belonging to your lichess name (let me know in the comments here), you can play but your result won´t be counted!

The percentage of post rewards feeding the prize pool is again 65% and as mentioned the @chesspricepool account will be used to accrue the rewards.

After the very low participation in the tournament tier 4 in S18, this time we will have only 3 skill groups based on the average rating (Blitz) over the whole season (players can change tiers if their rating changes): <1500, 1500 - 1899 and >1899.

So in effect, we have 3 separate tournaments with 3 winners of these rating tiers:
Tournament 1: 0-1499
Tournament 2: 1500-1899
Tournament 3: 1900 and above

Players who try to manipulate their rating to join a more favorable tier (called "sandbagging") will be disqualified.

The size of the prize pools will again depend on how many players will end up in those groups. To be more exact, how many will be qualifying for prizes, because it doesn´t matter if e.g. 10 players are in a table who played only once. In this season you need to play 6 out of 12 rounds to earn a prize, to incentivize regular players over occasional ones (but somewhat less strict than last season).

Again I encourage any tournament or streaming report to set @chesspricepool as 5 or 10% beneficiary to beef up the season rewards! Also reposting of the reminder and result posts is welcomed, or any advertisement for the tournament! Maybe we will once get a whale vote, too!

Round 1

Time Mode: 5+0 (5 minutes per game, no increment), 70 min. arena

Tournament Link: https://lichess.org/tournament/STeBmP6O

Rules

• All players are welcome, also newbies, you just need a free Lichess-account and join our team in Lichess here (password is "Hive")!
• Every Friday is one round.
• Time mode is varying (5+0, 3+2, 2+1,...), sometimes Swiss, sometimes maybe Chess960 (Fischer Random).
• The winner of each round gets the number of points equaling the number of players in that round, the second ranked one point less and so forth until the one on the bottom of the table who gets one point (i.e. the Lighteye-scoring). In order to be counted, at least 3 games must have been played.
• In case two players have the same number of points, the one who played less rounds is first. If that is equal too, then the average tournament performance decides.
• PAYOUT: The tournament points of the 12 rounds are summed up. 65% of all Hivechess-related post rewards go to the prize pool (PP). Each of the 3 rating-tiered tournament winners will get "x" Hive (at least 50), the runner-up "y" and the third "z" Hive (depending on the no. of players in each group). The rest of the PP is divided among all other players according to the number of tournament points achieved (50%) and the number of rounds played (50%). In order to qualify for a prize you have to participate in at least six of the 12 rounds!
• If I don´t know your Hive username, you won´t be considered for prizes, so please let me know your Hive name in the comments!

Please share this announcement among your (chess) friends and colleagues!
The more participate, the more fun! And maybe some are even interested to join Hive and it´s Chess Community?

See you all on Friday and good luck!

! [Mention List]
Potentially of interest to:
@aakrist @abimbola753 @acidtiger @agreste @aiuna @amit.pangeni @artsbreezy01 @ajumaa @alberto0607 @alexmag1988 @almightymelon @ambarvegas @anadello @andzhi @anli @anomadsoul @apy @arsenal49 @artistparthoroy @astrolabio @awesomeintrigue @b0s @behiver @beyondhorizonmm @bitsignal @bostonadventures @brijwhiz @burnoutawesome @camiloferrua @castm2 @cerati @chessbrotherspro @chesthetica @clixmoney @cryptogee @cryptoniusraptor @cryptoph0823 @ctrpch @dhilan04 @darruiz @diegofitness92 @digitalis @djbravo @doctorfate @dovycola @ebingo @eliaschess333 @elprofe62 @emeka4 @emerald09551 @eenriquerivas @elcholitosanto @engilhramn @eniolw @evgsk @fcastro177 @fiona777 @flaws @foxconnmars @franciscomarval @franu @gabotask @giacomone @gingerbyna @good-karma @grafo07 @hannes-stoffel @hierro21 @hirohurl @hivetrader @iamchessguy @iammanythings1 @ibizaki @idksamad78699 @iobates @ironshield @jaki01 @jesusmgl1995 @jesustiano @jkms @johannfrare @josesmoke @juanmi96 @justfavour @kaungsett8388 @kintokris @kreur @levitant @lighteye @lofone @lucianosky @maciejficek @maestroask @marcusantoniu26 @mario89 @masterswatch @maverieux000 @mdasein @meedo @memess @mrsarri @mstafford @mundharmonika @mundocuriosidad @mypathtofire @nftland1989 @nikoszzz @oadissin @odic3o1 @officialrosh1 @og-gamershub @olujay @omonomo @onthewayout @orlanzavala @oshiokhenhoya @pamboy27 @parung76 @perpz @petreius @philipp87 @phoennix09 @pokerarema @pokermaria @pravesh0 @precab @purapapita @rafaelaquino @ram9612 @razzor @reiseamateur @renerondon @rexplanet @rheda @rodrook @ropavejero @rosmarly @salomijale @samostically @sanjamkapoors @sawko @schamangerbert @schnitte @seki1 @soluce07 @solymi @spacetoon @spartano @stranger27 @syndmitrij @the01crow @thedoc07 @therealflaws @timix648 @timofey @tomasguitar @tony1294 @tungphong @uliseshb @vaipraonde @vasigo @victorbch2 @vjap55 @volkiceper @walner @wegflexor @xoflox @yazp @yf95 @yonnathang @zacherybinx @ziabutt3836
(just let me know if you don´t want to get the mentions)

If you like what I am doing, please vote for me as a witness ❤️