9th Round Livestream: Ultimate Challenge Tour /InfinityChess

[Steamhammer]

9th Round Livestream on Ultimate Challenge Tour / InfinityChess:
https://www.screenleap.com/infinitychess
3 top games displayed.
Zor (VAE) in the lead +3 ahead of Katzenmaier (GER) +2 and 19 other players at +1.
80 participants.
Prizes 20'000 Dollar
21 Rounds
90min + 30sec increment
Each evening at 20:00 CEST (22:00 Server time) until 2ßth May, except from Monday & Thursday
Reports here

[Ozymandias]

I don't want to diminish the achievement, that the level of attendance to this event ,actually represents. Let's not forget that it hasn't been on Chessbase's News (makes you wonder how good they're, about reporting chess events). BUT, the number isn't correct.

We had 80 participants for Round 0, but one disappeared from the rooster, already by Round 1 (I'm not talking about Matt, who arrived very late to find himself without a pairing). Round 2 saw we losing deepkrack11 (I don't know him at all). Round 3 and David Evans made a no show (first time ever?), so for Round 4 you had to introduce a bot to avoid odd numbers. After Round seven, the bot was (momentarily) retired to keep even numbers, after the latest disappearing act.

So now, in the present tense, we have 76 participants. Those are the ones who have stuck for more than a third of the tour, let's hope we don't loose more player on the road.

[Ozymandias]

After Alvin and Matt's absence from round 13, I guess we're now down to 74.

[Ozymandias]

Those two were kept, but another three players dropped between rounds 14 and 16, so we've been down to 72 since then, the bot retired again.

If no else disappears in the final round (that could be suspicious), a 10% drop ratio isn't particularly high.