@samostically takes the lead after the first 4 rounds of the Hivechess "Candidates Tournament"

Dear chessfans!

Yesterday the very first rounds in a round robin tournament on Hive were played, and overall it was a huge success. All 24 games were played, not a single one was missed out! Thanks to All for reading the new and somewhat complicated rules that carefully - and adhering to them 😀!

@vjap55 streamed his games and analyzed while playing here, also @schamangerbert did a live stream of the event on Twitch.

Some games started a little late, or had to be started a second time because a player started in a different format. I hope next time the games will start more on time, and please no experiments with changing the 5+1 standard mode without having obtained consent from the opponent upfront! As mentioned, if both agree, this is fine, but if it comes as a surprise to the Black players, this would be not fair and delayes things.

Here are the results of the first 4 (of 26) rounds:

Results

The cross-table:

Please note that due to the odd number of players some had played 3 games and some 4.

Standings

After 4 rounds @samostically is the sole leader with a perfect score of 4 out of 4! Also @eniolw has scored 100% so far with 3 out of 3, but is third because @jaki01 had 4 games and made 3,5 points. @sawko is ranked 4^th with 3 out of 4, followed by @vjap55 with 2,5 out of 4.

I was quite happy with the initial outcome due to my draw against @jaki01 (there was even more in the position but in timescramble I gave away too many pawns for free). In total I scored 50% against 3 stronger players, not a bad start.
But for me the surprise of the day was @vjap55´s win against our multi-champion @sawko!

In this position @sawko (with Black) had played f7-f5, threatening f4. How did @vjap55 punish this move?

https://lichess.org/KpNyOtNP#54

See you next Friday for the next 4 rounds! There will be some interesting pairings already...