Lübeck wins German team title 2002
The German Bundesliga remains one of the strongest national team championship in the world. 16 eight-man teams play an entire competition against each other within a time span of eight months. Two teams from the same region are paired off and in each round play two other paired-off teams, with a different team hosting the event each time. Halfway the competition the paired-off teams play each other.
The 2001-2002 season finshed three weeks ago and saw the team of Lübeck defending its last year title. Members of the team champion that is sponsored by an Internet company are Alexej
Shirov, Michael Adams or Evgeny Bareev, but its most successful players during the season were Dr. John Nunn (9.5/12) and the swedish grandmaster Johnny Hector who achieved a fantastic 2735- Eloperformance with 9/10. Lübeck won 13 of his matches and drew only once (this year one team had to withdraw before the season- therefore only 15 teams participated). The basis for the defence of the title was already built up in round 1 of the championship when Lübeck was able to beat the dominating team in Germany during the recent years, 9-time champion SG Porz (Christopher Lutz, Alexander
Khalifman, Loek van Wely, Rafael Waganjan etc.), with 4.5 - 3.5.
After this defeat Porz only drew one match in the last round and had a lot of more board points than Lübeck, however only match points are counting. The huge gap between Lübeck, Porz and the rest of the league is clearly shown by the fact that Bronze medalist SG Solingen
(Jeroen Piket, Artur Jussupow, Predrag Nikolic), 4-time champion in the 1980ies, achieved only 20-8 points and never had realistic chances to compete for the title.
Final results
1. Lübeck 27 - 01
2. SG Porz 25 - 03
3. SG Solingen 20 - 08
4. Werder Bremen 19 - 09
5. Hamburger SK 17 - 11
6. TV Tegernsee 17 - 11
7. Godesberger SK 16-12
8. SFR Neukölln 15-13
9. Stuttgarter Sfr 14-14
10. Castrop Rauxel 11-17
11. SV Wattenscheid 9-19
12. Erfurter SK 8-20
13. SK König Plauen 8-20
14. Ksp Hamburg SC 2-26
15. SG Heiligenhaus 2-26
In the following season Lübeck and Porz will have to face a new rival for the title. The team of Baden- Oos dominated the second division this season with players like Peter
Svidler, Michail Krasenkov or Dr. Robert Hübner and therefore qualified for
Bundesliga.
Last week they announced the signing on Rustem Dautov and
Viswanathan Anand !!!
Vishy should play 6 to 8 matches, in particular in the clashes with Lübeck and
Porz. According to elo-ratings he will become the strongest player who has ever played in German
Bundesliga.
But Anand will not be the only Indian player who will give his debut in the top German league! Double-GM-norm-holder Sandipan Chanda will be a member of the team of SG Solingen that- due to lacking financial power - want to make a fresh start with only three top players
(Piket, Jussupow, Nikolic) and a lot of young talents. Sandipan already participated in a tournament in Solingen last year and played one match for the second team of the club.
Of course Chathurangam will inform you regularly about the results of the Indian
players!
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