Reminder: Rounds 8 + 9 of the Hivechess Tournament, tomorrow Friday, 19h GMT - 1h earlier!

Dear chess fans,

this Friday it is showndown time again. As usual, it will be tough and only the strongest will survive😄. Tomorrow there will be a double round (because next Friday is already the 24^th Dec - Holy Night in many countries). It starts with a Bullet arena round as a kind of fun warm-up and directly thereafter (with a break in between) the final 9^th round of S9 - a 5+1 Swiss tournament. So don´t miss out this event, or you will regret!

Starttime is Friday 17^th Dec., 19h GMT, one hour earlier than usual! This is a separate challenge for people if able to properly read the announcement!

The current standings after 7 rounds you can look up here.

As you may remember, initially I wanted again to split up the field into 2 skill classes, but that would be too complicated, given the double round! Better to do it in one the early rounds of season 10.

Schedule

• 19.00h GMT: 2+1 (2 minutes per game, 1 sec. increment!), 45 min. arena mode
• 30 min. break
• 20.15h: 5+1 (5 minutes per game, 1 sec. increment!), 7 rounds Swiss mode

Tournament Links:

Round 8: https://lichess.org/tournament/k9o3JvlE

Round 9: https://lichess.org/swiss/WU3Arhor

There are already app. 180 HBD and 136 Hive in the price pool!

RULES

• For Hivers, Steemians, Blurters, noise.cashers and all others!
• Players of all skill levels are welcome, from newbies to experts, you just need a free Lichess-account!
• Every Friday is one round
• Time mode is varying (5+0, 3+2,...), rated, berserking allowed (except in Swiss mode)
• 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.
• Occasionally a round may be divided into 2 skill classes
• 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: This season goes over 9 rounds and the tournament points are summed up. All Hivechess-related post rewards are pooled and 90% go to the price pool (PP). The tournament winner will get 25 Hive bonus, a unique NFT trophy and the rest of the PP is divided among all players according to the number of tournament points achieved, but only if a player has participated at least 3 times (if <3 games are played in a round it will be not counted)!
• If I don´t know your Hive username, I can´t consider you in the final rankings, so please let me know your Hive name in the comments or in the Lichess chat!
• If you have not yet joined our team in Lichess, please do it here, so that you can participate (required for the Swiss tournaments only).

Swiss Tournament Rules

There are several differences between the "normal" arena mode and the Swiss mode which needs to be considered:

	Arena tournaments	Swiss tournaments
Duration of the tournament	Predefined duration in minutes	Predefined max. rounds, but exact duration unknown
Number of games	As many as can be played in the allotted duration	Decided in advance, same for all players
Pairing system	Any available opponent with similar ranking	Best pairing based on points and tie breaks
Pairing wait time	Fast: doesn't wait for all players	Slow: waits for all players
Identical pairing	Possible	Forbidden
Streaks & Berserk	Yes	No
Points	Win:2, Draw 1, doubled if on fire	Win:1, Draw: 1/2, Not paired: 1
Late joiners	get no points	get 1/2 point gift
Requirement to be in our team	no	yes

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 tomorrow and good luck to all!

Potentiall of interest to:
@aakrist @abimbola753 @agreste @alberto0607 @almightymelon @ambarvegas @amirl @anli @anomadsoul @arsenal49 @b0s @behiver @bitsignal @burnoutawesome @cerati @chessbrotherspro @chesthetica @cryptoph0823 @darruiz @diegofitness92 @digitalis @dragon-ti @ebingo @eliaschess333 @elprofe62 @emic @eniolw @eenriquerivas @evgsk @fjcr @flaws @foxconnmars @franciscomarval @gabotask @gingerbyna @gravitcaper @heimindanger @hierro21 @hirohurl @iobates @jaki01 @jkms @juanmi96 @kharrazi @kintokris @kreur @lighteye @lucianosky @maciejficek @manncpt @marcusantoniu26 @masterswatch @maverieux000 @meedo @mstafford @orlanzavala @oshiokhenhoya @pamboy27 @parung76 @petreius @pravesh0 @primersion @rafaelaquino @rarej @renerondon @rexplanet @rodrook @ropavejero @rosmarly @sammy00 @samostically @sawko @schamangerbert @schmidi @soluce07 @spacetoon @steamloled @the01crow @therealflaws @tony1294 @tungphong @vasigo @vjap55 @walner @wildthougts @xoflox @yazp @zacherybinx @zincheck
(just let me know if you don´t want to get the mentions)

On another note, @pamboy27 and @kintokris were recently given the Hivechess valued player´s badge (viewable on your peakd-profile page). Is there anybody who has participated in at least 10 rounds of any of the Friday, Saturday (hosted by @schamangerbert) or the Sunday (hosted by @chessbrotherspro) tournaments which I have overlooked? Then please let me know and I assign the badge to you!

Finally, are you already wondering how the unique NFT will look like which the winner of this season will get as trophy? It will be revealed in the result post on Saturday!