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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