@vjap55 wins the Hivechess Candidates Tournament!

Hi chessfans,

yesterday the final, deciding rounds of the HCT were played, only Hive account@anomadsoul was again absent. Let´s go straight to the - partly surprising - results:

Results

Round 22
White		Black
Hive account@deadleaf	0:1	Hive account@eniolw
Hive account@vjap55	1:0	Hive account@pereu4ivatel
Hive account@samostically	1:0	Hive account@stayoutoftherz
Hive account@jaki01	1:0	Hive account@rodrook
Hive account@sawko	1:0	Hive account@falcout
Hive account@vasigo	0:1	Hive account@b0s
Round 23
Hive account@eniolw	1:0	Hive account@pereu4ivatel
Hive account@deadleaf	0:1	Hive account@samostically
Hive account@vjap55	1:0	Hive account@jaki01
Hive account@stayoutoftherz	0:1	Hive account@sawko
Hive account@falcout	1:0	Hive account@vasigo
Hive account@anomadsoul	0*:1	Hive account@b0s
Round 24
Hive account@samostically	1:0	Hive account@eniolw
Hive account@pereu4ivatel	0*:1	Hive account@jaki01
Hive account@sawko	1:0	Hive account@deadleaf
Hive account@vasigo	0:1	Hive account@stayoutoftherz
Hive account@b0s	1:0	Hive account@rodrook
Hive account@anomadsoul	0*:1	Hive account@falcout
Round 25
Hive account@eniolw	1:0	Hive account@jaki01
Hive account@samostically	½:½	Hive account@sawko
Hive account@deadleaf	1:0	Hive account@vasigo
Hive account@vjap55	1:0	Hive account@b0s
Hive account@stayoutoftherz	1:0*	Hive account@anomadsoul
Hive account@rodrook	0:1	Hive account@falcout
Round 26
Hive account@sawko	1:0	Hive account@eniolw
Hive account@vasigo	0:1	Hive account@samostically
Hive account@pereu4ivatel	1:0	Hive account@b0s
Hive account@anomadsoul	0*:1	Hive account@deadleaf
Hive account@falcout	0:1	Hive account@vjap55
Hive account@rodrook	0:1	Hive account@stayoutoftherz

*indicates a missed game

Hive account@vjap55 scored 4 out of 4 while both his main competitors Hive account@eniolw and Hive account@sawko couldn´t score 100%.
Also Hive account@samostically played very strong with 4,5/5 (beating Hive account@eniolw and almost Hive account@sawko as well) - you can find an analysis of his games here.

The presumably deciding game (but in fact it´s outcome didn´t decide on the first place!) in the last round between Hive account@eniolw and Hive account@sawko (with White) was pretty crazy. Black made some dubious decisions right in the opening and allowed White in the 9^th move already to make a new Queen. This is the end position after move 10 from White in which Black resigned! Identical material, but completely winning for White as Black can´t prevent mate or loss of the Queen.

https://lichess.org/ikipNXF3/black#19

Final Standings

We have a new champion! Hive account@vjap55 could very deservedly win the HCT thanks to a very strong second half, with 12/13 and ending up with 20,5 points, followed by Hive account@sawko as runner-up with 20 points. The previous leading Hive account@eniolw ended up only as 3^rd due to losing 2 games yesterday. Hive account@samostically got the fourth rank, very closely behind Hive account@eniolw (same points, equal match results, but Hive account@eniolw had a higher number of wins), and Hive account@jaki01 was placed fifth.

Overall, this tournament was very close until the last day, not like in previous seasons, where one player always had a huge lead already.
Of note: If Hive account@samostically would not have had the forfeit loss against Hive account@b0s, he would have been the champion with same points as Hive account@vjap55 but a win in the direct match!

Congratulations to the new champion!!

As always, the prices (and the registration fee) will be distributed after the payout of this post, in a week.

Thank you all for your participation & engagement (and the upvotes)!

And thanks to the other posters for streaming (shoutout to Hive account@schamangerbert for the 2 livestreams on Twitch!), tournament reports, putting Hive account@chesspricepool as beneficiary and advertising this event in your blogs!

Stats

In total 156 games were played (13x24/2). Only 19 games (8%) were missed, not a bad relation. The vast majority (app. 70%) of players played all games on schedule, so thanks for the compliance!

The average rating of the participants was app. 1870, but unfortunately strongly divided in a group of players >2000 and another one of ratings <1500 with nobody in between! This unfortunately resulted in an unusally high number of games with very high rating differences. This was not foreseen nor intended and can be only partially blamed to the mode of the tournament.
On a positive side, this kind of tournament is the most fair one, completely lacking the somewhat erratically pairing of the arena tournaments, where the opponent rating average can easily differ 200 rating points despite similarly placed in the tournament. Here at least the opponent rating average was 100% identical for all players.

Our previous Champions:

Winner of Season 10 was Hive account@sawko
Winner of Season 9 was Hive account@tungphong
Winner of Season 8 was Hive account@sawko
Winner of Season 7 was Hive account@jaki01
Winner of Season 6 was Hive account@sawko
Winner of Season 5 was Hive account@sawko
Winner of Season 4 was Hive account@sawko
Winner of Season 3 was Hive account@jaki01
Winner of Season 2 was Hive account@jaki01
Winner of Season 1 was Hive account@jaki01

Potentially of interest to:
Hive account@aakrist Hive account@abimbola753 Hive account@agreste Hive account@alberto0607 Hive account@alexmag1988 Hive account@almightymelon Hive account@alpha Hive account@ambarvegas Hive account@amirl Hive account@anadello Hive account@anli Hive account@anomadsoul Hive account@apy Hive account@arsenal49 Hive account@astrolabio Hive account@b0s Hive account@behiver Hive account@bitsignal Hive account@burnoutawesome Hive account@camiloferrua Hive account@cerati Hive account@chessbrotherspro Hive account@chesthetica Hive account@cocacolaron Hive account@cryptoph0823 Hive account@darruiz Hive account@diegofitness92 Hive account@digitalis Hive account@ebingo Hive account@eliaschess333 Hive account@elprofe62 Hive account@eniolw Hive account@eenriquerivas Hive account@evgsk Hive account@fairy-of-comfort Hive account@fiona777 Hive account@fjcr Hive account@flaws Hive account@foxconnmars Hive account@franciscomarval Hive account@franu Hive account@gabotask Hive account@giacomone Hive account@gingerbyna Hive account@gravitcaper Hive account@heimindanger Hive account@hierro21 Hive account@hirohurl Hive account@iceblue Hive account@iobates Hive account@ibizaki Hive account@jaki01 Hive account@jesusmgl1995 Hive account@jkms Hive account@johannfrare Hive account@josesmoke Hive account@juanmi96 Hive account@kintokris Hive account@kreur Hive account@levitant Hive account@lighteye Hive account@lofone Hive account@lucianosky Hive account@maciejficek Hive account@marcusantoniu26 Hive account@masterswatch Hive account@maverieux000 Hive account@meedo Hive account@mrsarri Hive account@mstafford Hive account@nftland1989 Hive account@orlanzavala Hive account@oshiokhenhoya Hive account@pamboy27 Hive account@parung76 Hive account@perpz Hive account@petreius Hive account@pravesh0 Hive account@primersion Hive account@rafaelaquino Hive account@renerondon Hive account@rexplanet Hive account@rodrook Hive account@ropavejero Hive account@rosmarly Hive account@salomijale Hive account@samostically Hive account@sawko Hive account@schamangerbert Hive account@schnitte Hive account@soluce07 Hive account@spacetoon Hive account@steamloled Hive account@stranger27 Hive account@syndmitrij Hive account@the01crow Hive account@thedoc07 Hive account@therealflaws Hive account@tony1294 Hive account@tungphong Hive account@uliseshb Hive account@vaipraonde Hive account@vasigo Hive account@victorbch2 Hive account@vjap55 Hive account@walner Hive account@wegflexor Hive account@xoflox Hive account@yazp Hive account@zacherybinx
(just let me know if you don´t want to get the mentions)

There will be a break in the next weeks, but somewhere in June 2022 S12 will start, this time again with a more classical series of weekly arena (or Swiss) tournaments, unless someone convinces me to make another round robin tournament.