German Bundesliga – grudge match on Sunday

Tiebreak match on Sunday

The most exciting title race in the 25-year history of the German Team Championship ("Schachbundesliga" or simply "Bundesliga") came to a head in the very last rounds and ends on Sunday, May 8th with a tiebreak match for the title. Before we come to the details here is the genesis of the drama that has been going on in the Bundesliga.

The final rounds took place on the weekend of April 9/10, with the situation was as follows: Porz, Baden-Baden and Werder Bremen all had 24:2 points and two rounds to play. On Saturday (April 9) all three teams won their matches against weaker teams (Bremen somewhat narrowly), and advanced to 26:2 points. Then came the "bloody Sunday". Bremen won their match against Solingen (again narrowly with 4.5:3.5) while the rivals Baden-Baden and Porz faced each other. The winner of this match would catch Bremen and force a tiebreak.

There was additional tension in the encounter: a year earlier there had been a tiebreak between the same two teams for the title, and Porz had edged Baden-Baden out. So the latter were spoiling for revenge. And things were looking good on the top three boards, with Anand, Svidler and Shirov leading against Adams, Lutz and van Wely (Shirov won his game, the other two were drawn). But further down Baden-Baden was in trouble, and through losses by Vallejo Pons and Krasenkow against Ivan Sokolov and Beliavsky the match was decided 4.5:3.5 in favour of Porz, which thus caught the leading Bremen.

The final table of the regular Bundesliga season 2004/2005 is given above. As you can see it ended in a tie for the two teams, both of whom had scored 28:2 match points. These are decisive for the overall victory, not the board points, where Porz had a clear edge (and in fact the third-placed Baden-Baden had the best overall score).

Chess Bundesliga poster of Werder Bremen inviting people to the showdown on Sunday. That's what's-her-face, the WGM from Moldova, kicking around chess pieces in the picture.

The tiebreak match will be held on Sunday, May 8th, when the teams of the SG Porz and the SV Werder Bremen will clash. The venue is the V.I.P. lounge of the football club Werder Bremen, which is the German soccer champion. The Bundesliga website will transmit the games of Baden-Baden, Porz and Bremen live (look for live coverage here). The match (classical seven hour-games) and the transmission will begin at 12:00 noon German time (GMT+1) and may last until 7 p.m.

The Chess Bundesliga advertised in the giant screen of a soccer stadium

Porz is the favourite as it can field Michael Adams, Loek van Wely, Ivan Sokolov, Mikhail Gurevich, Alexander Beliavsky, Curt Hansen, Rafael Vaganian, Alexander Graf and Christopher Lutz. Werder Bremen's best line-up includes Luke McShane, Zahar Efimenko, Yannick Pelletier, Zbynek Hracek, Vlastimil Babula, Tomi Nyback, Gennadi Fisch and Lars Schandorff. When both teams met for the regular match on March 12th Werder scored an upset 6-2 victory. So this one too is going to be a grudge match.

All German Bundesliga teams