NATO Chess Championship: A special victory

A very special victory for the German team

The 30^th NATO Chess Championship was something special in several ways, especially from the German point of view. As with previous round number anniversaries, Germany hosted the tournament. The city of Berlin proved to be the ideal venue for the Championship, which took place from September 16^th to 20^th: Firstly, Vice-Admiral Rühle, Deputy Inspector-General and patron of the event reflected on the road to German unity in his opening speech considering the parallel that here, 30 years ago, the Berlin Wall fell.

On the other hand, it was certainly due to the attractiveness of the city that a total of 114 players from 17 NATO nations participated in the championship — a new record for the tournament.

But the tournament well attended this year not only in terms of quantity, but also in terms of playing ability. Some nations were much more represented than in the years before. Greece was nominally the favourite, ahead of the young, strong team from Poland, who had come as defending champions. Only behind them in third place in the starting list was the German team. But also other nations, especially Italy, the USA and Hungary could be regarded as co-favourites.

The German team (from left to right):
Marco Sauer, Ulrich Bohn, Christian Marquardt, Ewald Fichtner, Elijah Everett, FM Mark Helbig, Hans-Christoph Andersen, Guido Schott | Photo: Bundeswehr

The German team has often won the team competition in the past. In recent years, however, Poland in particular had twice taken home the trophy, the bronze statue of the Nordic King Knut.

The German team was especially hard hit by the loss of IM Lorenz Drabke, who tragically died in a traffic accident last year at the age of just 33. In the past, Lorenz — the team's strongest player — contributed significantly to the very good team positions. And not only in a sporting sense, but especially in terms for camaraderie, the absence of Lorenz hurt a lot. This is true not only for the German team, but for the entire "NATO chess community" as was clear in many conversations and many gestures. Part of the opening of the tournament included a minute's silence in his honour.

In addition, the team had to do without Oliver Nill, who had achieved an outstanding fifth place at the tournament in Lubbock, Texas USA last year and had to cancel for official reasons.

To the competition itself: The championship is held as a seven round-robin with team pairings. Eight players can be registered for each nation, six of them in the national team and two players on NATO teams. For each team, the best four players in the individual standings are considered for the team ranking.

The German team was in bad shape after four rounds: Greece were already two points ahead of Poland, Hungary and Germany in the team ranking. However, by the final round, Greece had fallen two points behind the leading team of Poland and one and a half points behind the German team, which put in a powerful "intermediate sprint" in rounds five and six.

In a thrilling final round, Germany ended up with a half-point lead over Poland in the very last match of the tournament thanks to a hard-fought draw by FM Mark Helbig, thus once again securing the title of NATO Chess Champion. Against the background of the circumstances described above, and given the course of the tournament, this victory was a little surprising. The German team was all the more pleased by the great result and dedicated this title to their departed teammate, Lorenz.

Team final standings

Decisive for the success of the German team was certainly the excellent result of Elijah Everett in the individual classification. With 6½ points from seven games he was able to win the championship title with a full point ahead of the competition. In the last round he defeated the number one on the starting list, the Greek IM Anastasios Pavlidis, who won the individual ranking last year, coincidentally via a last round draw against Everett.

In part, Everett was able to win his games in impressive fashion, as illustrated by his two victories in the sixth and seventh rounds.

With 5½ points followed the two young players, Eigen Wang (USA) and Damian Graczyk (Poland), as well as Hans-Christoph Andersen from the Bundeswehr team.

Individual standings

Cl	Title	Name	Country	Elo	Name Club	P.Tot.	Perf	Buch	B Med1
1		Everett, Elijah		2187	Germany	6.5	2488	28.50	21.00
2		Wang, Eigen		2193	United States of America	5.5	2320	32.00	23.00
3		Graczyk, Damian		2133	Poland	5.5	2384	30.00	22.00
4		Delfino, Luigi		2235	Italy	5.5	2241	29.50	21.50
5		Sypien, Mateusz		2243	Poland	5.5	2300	28.50	20.50
6		Andersen, Hans-Christoph		2201	Germany	5.5	2250	28.00	20.00
7	IM	Pavlidis, Anastasios		2338	Greece	5.0	2266	33.50	24.00
8		Papasimakopoulos, Alexandros		2218	Greece	5.0	2274	32.00	22.00
9		Kedzierski, Slawomir		2163	Poland	5.0	2277	31.50	22.50
10	FM	Wantiez, Fabrice		2225	Belgium	5.0	2233	29.50	21.00
11		Bohn, Ulrich		2157	Germany	5.0	2252	29.00	21.00
12		Casteleijn, Diederick		2079	The Netherlands	5.0	2256	29.00	21.00
13		Werksma, Arie		2197	The Netherlands	5.0	2212	28.50	21.50
14		Cichy, Kamil		2106	Poland	5.0	2170	28.50	20.00
15	WIM	Pavlidou, Ekaterini		2178	Greece	5.0	2194	27.00	20.00
16		Pietruszewski, Marcin		2215	Poland	5.0	2220	27.00	19.50
17		Sycz, Dariusz		2215	Poland	5.0	2140	25.00	17.50
18	FM	Pedersen, Finn		2305	Denmark	5.0	2184	24.50	18.50
19	FM	Binder, Tamas		2261	Hungary	4.5	2217	30.50	22.00
20		Kersic, Matej		2122	Slovenia	4.5	2211	30.50	22.00

114 Players

The placings of the German players in detail:

On the afternoon of the last competition day, the nations could once again compete in a blitz tournament. Four teams competed against each other in nine rounds under the Swiss system, with the board points being decisive for the ranking.

The Greek team lived up to its role as favourites and won in front of the teams Poland 1 and Germany 2.

All information on pairings and results of the 30^th NATO Chess Championship can be found on the website natochess.com.

The fact that this championship remains a memorable event for all participants has certainly ensured not only the exciting competitions and the supporting program, but also the excellent organization of the tournament. Responsible for this was the Catholic Working Group for Soldiers Support eV (KAS) and especially Karl Koopmeiners with his team. After he had already steered the destiny of the German team as team captain in the past decades, he said goodbye to the bravura orientation of this tournament from the official field of NATO chess. As part of the opening ceremony, he was honoured by Vice Admiral Rühle for his services to the German NATO chess.

Once again, this NATO chess championship has shown that this is not just a chess tournament, but a sporting competition among friends, a fair showdown within the NATO chess family; this is true to the motto of the World Chess Federation of FIDE "Gens una sumus" (Latin for "We are a family")!

So they said goodbye with the promise to see each other in 2020 in the context of the then 31^st championship in Belgium. Thanks to the support of the KAS, the German team will of course start again at this tournament.

All games

Links

• NATO chess page
• Tournament page
• Report at the US Chess Federation