Hivechess Tournament S20 Round 9: @maestroask won in a lucky finish

Dear chess fans,

yesterday the 9^th round of S20 was played! For the rules please refer to the announcement post. It was a 5+1 Chess960 / Fischerrandom arena with 26 players. Welcome to Hivechess, @anli!

What appears to be another easy victory for our IM serial winner was in fact not, at a closer look. This time - believe it or not - for the most time I was leading the tournament and only in the last 10 min. or so I was overtaken by the usual winner and the runner-up @kintokris. I am still happy with the third place, given the much tougher pairing I had and a performance of 2021 in chess960 is I think a record for me😄! Ranks 4 and 5 went to @maverieux000 (Keylix) and @rosmarly. Like in the previous round, the ranks 2 to 5 were only separated by 2 points, so again an intensely combated round! Congratulations to All!

Result table of round 9:

Link to the tournament: https://lichess.org/tournament/5y42pWHc

Season 20: 31 Jan to 25 Apr 2025 / Ranking after 9 (of 12) rounds:

Tournament 1 (<1500)

Tournament 2 (1500-1899)

Tournament 3 (1900+)

^{Players can switch between the tournament tiers in case their rating changes!}

This time a lot changed in the top positions! In tournament 1 @rodrook regained rank 2, in tournament 2 @justfavour - thanks to his excellent place 6 yesterday - overtook @lighteye and is now leading, and in tournament 3 @dhilan04 missed out. So he lost 4 ranks and fell back to the 6^th rank. New runner-up is @franu, but I am very close with the same number of points. Also @kintokris is only 5 points behind and has still good chances to reach a place on the podium.
Top gainer in R9 was @roswelborges who managed to jump up 7 places and is now 8^th! Well done!

Three rounds to go!

See you next week - and keep practicing!