Anand helps Baden-Baden to clinch 4th title in a row

Saturday OSC Baden-Baden clinched their 4th German title in a row by beating Aljechin Solingen 6-2. With a 4-point margin the club was sure of retaining its title and another 6-2 victory on Sunday against SV Wattenscheid was only for the statistics, but a nice celebration. World Champion Viswanathan Anand played his only two games of the season for Baden-Baden this last weekend, and won them both.

Peter Heine Nielsen, Viswanathan Anand, Peter Svidler, Michael Adams and Pentala Harikrishna | Photo: Christian Bossert

This weekend the last two rounds of the Schachbundesliga took place. The Ooser Schachgesellschaft Baden-Baden, playing on home ground, needed only two points to win their 4th German club title in a row, but dully won both of their matches against Solingen and Wattenscheid 6-2.

Right after the Amber tournament World Champion Anand had flown from Nice to Germany and in Saturday's match he beat Dutchman Daniel Stellwagen with Black in the Poisened Pawn Variation of the Sicilian Najdorf. Stellwagen had visited the Amber tournament during the first weekend to kibitz on the many games, including Anand's (who never played this line in Nice though).

To continue the Amber memories (sorry, can't help it, it's unexpectedly sunny back in Amsterdam!), another kibitzer there, John Nunn, wrote a whole book on the 6.Bg5 Najdorf (The Complete Najdorf: 6.Bg5, Batsford, 1996) and the only thing the World Champion was doing in the opening phase was follow the Doctor's recommended line; a German correspondence game from '87 (which, by the way, can be improved for White somewhere). The following notes are based on grabbing that book (still a gem after all those years) and some good spacebar hitting, keeping an eye on Dennis Monokroussos doing a similar job.



Werder Bremen and TV Tegernsee finished third and second, and they were they other two clubs that qualified for the next European Club Cup. SG Trier, FC Bayern M?ºnchen and USV TU Dresden have relegated together with Tegernsee who have announced withdrawal of their team for next season.

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Baden-Baden games rounds 14 and 15

Baden-Baden vs Solingen		Baden-Baden vs Wattenscheid

Links:

• Official website Schachbundesliga
• Website Baden-Baden
• Games in PGN: round 14 | round 15