Round 8 of Hivechess Tournament S12: @sawko was the winner!

Dear chess fans,

yesterday already the 8^th round of S12 was played, as a 2+1 arena, with 25 players.

Our season leader @sawko ended up as winner with 5 points lead to runner-up @eniolw, closely followed by @franu (Tz995) as third - the same ranks as in the season itself so far. Shoutout to "newbie" @clixmoney who - with a Blitz rating of 1728 - made it into the Top 10! Congratulations to All!

Surprisingly (but also thanks to a more than lucky pairing) I was fourth, my best result in this season.

In this rook endgame between @sawko (White) and @vjap55, Black should be technically winning. The h-pawn can be given up - the f-pawn alone should bring the win. But after the final blunder Rb2?? White can easily hold a draw.

https://lichess.org/wj1r2Oav/black#170
With Rxc4+ White simply can chase the Black king as long as he wish. Any capture of the rook is an instant Stalemate, and this was indeed the outcome of the game after a few moves.

Blunder of the day:
In Bullet chess there are so many blunders, which game to pick? Maybe this game from myself (Black) against @emic. Instead of giving the check with my Queen (Qe6-h6+) which actually loses I could have played g3+ followed by perpetual check. The White king can´t escape from the corner.

https://lichess.org/piVDZHdE/black#100

But now by Kg1 I would run out of checks and now it is White´s turn to check and the a-pawn will eventually win. Instead White did the only losing move Kg3?? and was mated instantly: Qh4++. What a twist!

Link to the tournament: https://lichess.org/tournament/r1tDERYp

Season 12: 03 Jun to 05 Aug 2022 / Standings after 8 rounds:

^{All players with less than 3 participations so far have no chances anymore to make it into the final ranking (50% rule) and thus are not shown.}

The rules you can look up in the S12 announcement post.

Not entirely surprisingly there were no changes in the top 3 ranks this time. Due to the "only" 9^th place @jaki01 fell a bit in the ranking.
Two more players were kicked from the table due to the 50%-rule which is kind of merciless.

See you all next week - and keep practicing!

So Magnus won´t defend his title. I find it very sad. It gives also a stupid situation next year, when the by far best chess player and the "world champion" are not the same person. It hurts the value of the title a lot!