Hivechess Season 21 Final Results: The Champions and The Numbers (and some questions)

Dear chess fans,

yesterday the final round of S21 was played! It was a 5+0 Swiss tournament over 8 rounds with 17 players of an average rating of 1731.

This time Hive account@rosmarly was in great form and managed to get the second rank after IM Hive account@maestroask with 7 out of 9(!) in front of Hive account@justola1. For both it was the best result in this season! Congratulations to All!

Result table of round 12:

Tournament link: https://lichess.org/swiss/VkCejQtt

Season 21: 26 Sep to 12 Dec 2025 / Final Rankings:

Tournament 1 (0-1499)

Rank	Hive name	Lichess name	Country	Rating	Rounds played	Points	Performance
1	Hive account@salomijale	summisineon1	IND	1461	11	94	1687
2	Hive account@lailawrites	Ohieku	NGA	1436	10	68	1480
3	Hive account@fiona777	fiona777	UKR	1377	11	54	1441
4	Hive account@spartano	humbertoortega	VEN	1494	6	36	1630
5	Hive account@elcholitosanto	RicardoFox	PER	1349	5	23	1449
6	Hive account@vasigo	vasigo	SRB	1110	9	19	1211
7	Hive account@yonnathang	Yonnathang	VEN	1276	1	7	1717
8	Hive account@teooo	teoooForHive		1467	1	7	1470
9(+4)	Hive account@inuke	inuke_2025	IND	1365	2	6	1420
10(-1)	Hive account@duskobgd	duskobgd	SRB	1326	1	5	1779
11(-1)	Hive account@dadapizza	knighthammer7		997	1	5	1153
12(-1)	Hive account@ismeris	ismeris	VEN		1	1

Tournament 2 (1500-1799)

Rank	Hive name	Lichess name	Country	Rating	Rounds played	Points	Performance
1	Hive account@giuatt07	guisep73	ITA	1635	12	148	1743
2	Hive account@justola1	just_ola	NGA	1795	12	136	1764
3	Hive account@sammy00	migmag	BIH	1545	12	127	1608
4	Hive account@lighteye	lighteye	SRB	1640	12	117	1765
5(+1)	Hive account@ezemhugo	MixzyRagnal	NGA	1806	10	99	1711
6(-1)	Hive account@stranger27	stranger27	UKR	1656	10	98	1650
7	Hive account@odic3o1	odic3o	ECU	1766	7	71	1723
8	Hive account@darruiz	darruiz	VEN	1523	9	55	1631
9	Hive account@rodrook	RDcast	USA	1517	4	36	1575
10	Hive account@schamangerbert	HerbyW	GER	1601	2	28	1948
11	Hive account@rafaelaquino	ajedrezclub2t	VEN	1644	2	12	1821
12	Hive account@draco2	Draco2	NGA	1771	1	10	1741

Tournament 3 (1800-2099)

Rank	Hive name	Lichess name	Country	Rating	Rounds played	Points	Performance
1	Hive account@stayoutoftherz	stayoutoftherz	AUT	2054	11	192	2036
2	Hive account@rosmarly	rosmarly	VEN	1975	11	166	1898
3	Hive account@southgamer	SouthGamer		2032	11	157	1921
4	Hive account@justfavour	justfavour	NGA	1764	8	107	1794
5	Hive account@dhilan04	tortyllan		1963	4	83	1870
6	@madChess64	MadChess64	NGA	1998	2	45	1908
7	Hive account@fcastro177	FCastro17	VEN	1998	2	36	2074
8	Hive account@mendelito	TheMadman4rmDaSouth	NGA	1983	1	22	1900
9	Hive account@tobijob	tobilobajob	NGA	1998	1	20	2074
10	Hive account@maverieux000	Keylix		2066	1	19	2154

Tournament 4 (2100+)

Rank	Hive name	Lichess name	Country	Rating	Rounds played	Points	Performance
1	Hive account@maestroask	IM Odnoobraz	RUS	2585	12	232	2364
2	Hive account@samostically	ZGM_Samostically	NGA	2170	8	161	1936
3	Hive account@tangibleay	Tangible_ay	NGA	2147	6	121	2139
4	Hive account@jaki01	jaki01	GER	2291	6	111	2208
5	Hive account@stuffings	stuffings	NGA	2262	5	91	2096
6	Hive account@eniolw	eniolw	VEN	2442	3	69	2354
7	Hive account@dalods	Gmdalods-16	NGA	2304	2	55	2045
8	Hive account@dakods	Dakods-16	NGA	2259	2	38	2103
9	Hive account@lucianosky	Pavarotty	NGA	2337	2	24	2303
10	Hive account@africanchess	othims	NGA		2	23
11	Hive account@tony1294	tony1294	VEN		1	21

^{Of note, Hive account@inuke due to his rating was moved from tier 2 to tier 1. Also Hive account@ezemhugo is slightly above his tier with his current rating, but over the majority of the season he was in range, so I kept him in tournament 2.}

All the results of this season you can look up here (the different tiers are labelled with different colors):

Congratulations to the champions but also to all participants for playing, engaging and upvoting!

Season stats

In season 21 in total 45 players were participating (4 less than in the previous season), also the average participation per round was with 21 players per round much lower than in the previous one (24,2). Quite disappointing given the fact that several new players were onboarded (and supported) recently.

The average rating of players was much higher in this season (1782 compared to 1678 in S20).

The number of players who participated regularly (which is the whole point of a seasonal event over 12 rounds) was even worse this season (>42% of players played only one or two rounds (35% in S20). The number of rounds played on average by the players went down from 6,8 in S19 to 5,9 in S20 and now 5,6 in S21.
Because of this and the minimum participation threshold of 6/12 rounds, only 21 players (47%) qualify for rewards! Only 5 players had played all 12 rounds - half as much as in S20, and in the 2 tournaments above 1800 only one player (<5%) had played all rounds!

The prizepool from the post rewards and the second half of the generous gift from Hive account@yabapmatt will be more than 2280 Hive (last season it was 1450 and the season before that it was 960 Hive)! As always, all prizes will be transferred in a week, after the payout of this post (and any other posts using Hive account@chesspricepool as beneficiary).

Thank you all for your participation! Without you we could not run this tournament!

There will be now a longer break to wait for the Hive price to recover and to rethink the format, but watch out for some fun tournaments and the monthly Chess960 tournaments from Hive account@sammy00!!

! [Mention List]
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