Competitive growth during directional solidification experiments of 〈1 1 1〉 Dendrites

•First known test to investigate competitive growth with 〈111〉 columnar dendrites.•〈111〉 dendrites can obey and regularly disobey the Walton-Chalmers rule.•Unfavourably oriented crystals in 〈111〉 can compete for the divergent scenario.•〈111〉 secondary arms are more competitive due to their 19.5⁰ advantage.