Stars Gather In Berlin For Bundesliga Chess
Superstars like Fabiano Caruana, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Vishy Anand and Levon Aronian were among the players in Berlin this weekend, where the Bundesliga teams gathered for three joint-rounds, organized once again by the Berlin chess club.
This year's Schachbundesliga (the German team championship) is a close affair, especially after the end of this weekend! A star-studded Baden-Baden team was held to 4-4 twice, and now shares the lead with Solingen.
The long weekend started on Friday, when Baden-Baden defeated Schachfreunde Deizisau despite losses for both Caruana and MVL on top boards. Playing his first classical game since the London Chess Classic, Caruana went down against the former world championship contender Peter Leko:
Leko explains the game for a video on the Grenke YouTube channel.
MVL was brought by another former world championship candidate. Gata Kamsky showed his class in a Taimanov Sicilian where White's opening play didn't look particular challenging. However, the big mistake came later.
The two aces Anand and Aronian were among the players who won, and avoided real damage for the team. The latter went 1.e4, didn't mind battling it out against Georg Meier's French defense and won quickly:
Sergei Movsesian explains the game for a video on the Grenke YouTube channel.
Baden-Baden continued with a tie against SV 1930 Hockenheim consisting of eight draws, and on Sunday it played 4-4 once again vs SC Viernheim, led by Shakhriyar Mamedyarov. However, it was Anton Korobov who scored the biggest scalp as he brought down Anand in just 27 moves:
Solingen reached the same number of match points by winning two matches against Düsseldorfer SK and SV 1920 Hofheim—they had a free day on Saturday as the team DJK Aufwärts Aachen wasn't present in Berlin.
Solingen's GM Jan Smeets, who retired from tournament play a few years ago and now works at the Amsterdam Stock Exchange, scored 2/2 this weekend. He outplayed his compatriot IM David Miedema (playing for Düsseldorf) nicely in a Sveshnikov:
With four or five more rounds to play for the teams, nothing has been decided yet.
Bundesliga | Round 11 Standings
| # | Team | Played | + | = | - | MP | BP |
| 1 | OSG Baden-Baden | 10 | 8 | 2 | 0 | 18 | 55 |
| 2 | SG Solingen | 10 | 9 | 0 | 1 | 18 | 51 |
| 3 | SV 1930 Hockenheim | 10 | 8 | 1 | 1 | 17 | 54 |
| 4 | Hamburger SK | 10 | 6 | 3 | 1 | 15 | 45 |
| 5 | SV Werder Bremen | 11 | 6 | 2 | 3 | 14 | 50.5 |
| 6 | Schachfreunde Deizisau | 10 | 6 | 1 | 3 | 13 | 49.5 |
| 7 | SC Viernheim | 10 | 4 | 4 | 2 | 12 | 42 |
| 8 | USV TU Dresden | 10 | 5 | 1 | 4 | 11 | 39 |
| 9 | SV Mülheim Nord | 11 | 3 | 2 | 6 | 8 | 41 |
| 10 | SF Berlin 1903 | 10 | 4 | 0 | 6 | 8 | 38 |
| 11 | BCA Augsburg (N) | 11 | 3 | 2 | 6 | 8 | 35 |
| 12 | SG Turm Kiel (N) | 10 | 2 | 3 | 5 | 7 | 32.5 |
| 13 | Düsseldorfer SK 1914/1925 | 10 | 2 | 0 | 8 | 4 | 29 |
| 14 | SV 1920 Hofheim | 10 | 0 | 1 | 9 | 1 | 29 |
| 15 | MSA Zugzwang 82 | 11 | 0 | 0 | 11 | 0 | 25.5 |
| 16 | DJK Aufwärts Aachen | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Meanwhile, the women's Bundesliga finished this weekend as it only has 12 teams in the competition and thus 11 rounds (and six boards per team, instead of eight).
Also here the favorite was Baden-Baden, who brought GMs Alexandra Kosteniuk and Antoaneta Stefanova to Berlin. However, the team had dropped some points earlier in the season and lost to SK Schwäbisch Hall this weekend, who finished in second place behind champion SC 1957 Bad Königshofen.
Kosteniuk found a nice mating combination in her game on Friday:
A top performer this year was Iranian IM Sarasadat Khademalsharieh, the double silver winner at the World Rapid and Blitz. She scored a perfect 7/7 for her team, Hamburger SK.
Her biggest win this season was against... Kosteniuk! That was back in January:
Women Bundesliga | Final Standings
| # | Team | Played | + | = | - | MP | BP |
| 1 | SC 1957 Bad Königshofen | 11 | 9 | 2 | 0 | 20 | 48 |
| 2 | SK Schwäbisch Hall | 11 | 9 | 0 | 2 | 18 | 48.5 |
| 3 | Hamburger SK | 11 | 8 | 2 | 1 | 18 | 44.5 |
| 4 | OSG Baden-Baden | 11 | 7 | 2 | 2 | 16 | 45 |
| 5 | Rodewischer Schachmiezen | 11 | 7 | 1 | 3 | 15 | 39.5 |
| 6 | Schachfreunde Deizisau | 11 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 11 | 31.5 |
| 7 | SK Lehrte 1919 | 11 | 3 | 3 | 5 | 9 | 25.5 |
| 8 | SV 1920 Hofheim | 11 | 4 | 0 | 7 | 8 | 28.5 |
| 9 | TuRa Harksheide | 11 | 3 | 0 | 8 | 6 | 26.5 |
| 10 | Karlsruher SF 1853 | 11 | 2 | 2 | 7 | 6 | 22.5 |
| 11 | Rotation Pankow | 11 | 1 | 2 | 8 | 4 | 22 |
| 12 | FC Bayern München | 11 | 0 | 1 | 10 | 1 | 14 |
For the second time, the strong Emanuel Lasker Blitz Tournament was held as well this weekend. The winner was Caruana, who seems to be improving his speed chess skills more and more with a crushing win vs Harikrishna in St. Louis, and now this. The American GM scored 14/16.
Gerhard Grundhammer contributed to this report.
Peter Doggers joined a chess club a month before turning 15 and still plays for it. He used to be an active tournament player and holds two IM norms. Peter has a Master of Arts degree in Dutch Language & Literature. He briefly worked at New in Chess, then as a Dutch teacher and then in a project for improving safety and security in Amsterdam schools. Between 2007 and 2013 Peter was running ChessVibes, a major source for chess news and videos acquired by Chess.com in October 2013. As our Director News & Events, Peter writes many of our news reports. In the summer of 2022, The Guardian’s Leonard Barden described him as “widely regarded as the world’s best chess journalist.”
Peter's first book The Chess Revolution is out now!
Company Contact and News Accreditation:
Email: peter@chess.com FOR SUPPORT PLEASE USE chess.com/support!
Phone: 1 (800) 318-2827
Address: 877 E 1200 S #970397, Orem, UT 84097
