The Bundesliga promotion of the youth team

(A report by Andreas Jagodzinsky, 02.11.2020)

The 2019/20 season in the Youth NRW League has not yet officially ended. The last matchday next Sunday has to be cancelled due to the current legal situation. And theoretically Hemer could also miss the promotion, because at least the team has to play.

But neither a complete non-appearance nor a cancellation of the season without promotion seems particularly realistic.

And that's why our U20 team has made it into the NRW League after three seasons and has been promoted to the Youth Bundesliga.

It also took three years to remain in the Verbandsjugendliga. And before that they played one season in the youth district league.

From the current promotion team, Moritz Runte and Artur Mai were already in the district league during their time in the league. In addition, Timon Ketteler was in the squad at the time, who was not playing this season due to his studies.

In the first year in the NRW league, relegation could only be averted because another team withdrew, but the team played for promotion with the main relegation rival from the first season, SK Münster, just one season later - unsuccessfully.

In both years, the team had fallen behind Münster because away defeats in Gelsenkirchen against the hosts of Horst-Emscher, who were by no means nominally favored, cost them important points.

This season it was Hemer and Horst-Emscher who played against each other for promotion. The third team in the promotion battle was Paderborn, who, however, fell behind due to their defeat on the fifth matchday.

 

Due to the DLM participation of Moritz Runte, the penultimate round against Horst-Emscher had to be postponed. When a new lockdown became apparent on the weekend before last, we slowly became restless. What if the lockdown was to apply directly from the meeting last Wednesday?

After all, it was clear that the 31.10.2020 was not yet affected, so we could play.

In the end the decision about the last place was a close one for Artur.

For the first time I travelled with the team to Gelsenkirchen. The host had also got his regular players on the board, so a close fight was to be expected.

The duel on the top board promised to be particularly exciting. With Moritz Runte and Tom Rebentisch, the two DWZ strongest players in the league, who had also won all the matches, met.

Moritz was very well prepared. For the first 19 moves he hardly needed any time to think about it.

On board six, however, things looked critical early on. Felix had hired a pawn at the opening and was in a very bad position.

The situation was better on Alex. His opponent had turned a lost position last year against him to win. But this time Alex was warned.

Artur and Fabian had solid positions which I both thought were a bit better for us. Timo had a nice position and quickly had a clear advantage on the clock.

Since even a draw would be enough to defend the top of the table, I was relaxed despite the expected defeat on board six.

After almost two hours, Alex approached me and said that the score was 1-0. When I wanted to congratulate him, he said to my surprise that he was still playing, but Felix had won.

Somehow, Felix had managed to counter his opponent and to checkmate him.

Since Alex was still into winning and only a few minutes later we were clearly ahead.

Since the other boards hadn't changed to our disadvantage, the first thoughts came up that the promotion was now within reach.

But too much could still happen. The time dragged on longer and longer now. The most exciting thing was on board one. Somehow Moritz Spiel seemed to be very convincing, but his opponent was clearly stronger than all previous players he had faced in the NRW League this season. Nevertheless, this game seemed to be the key to promotion. If Moritz wouldn't lose, we would always get at least half a point for a team draw. If he won, the battle would be decided for us.

It was an untypical game for Moritz, who had early exchanged the queens and a rook. Nevertheless the position offered many tactical motives.

Every time we walked through the game room of the opponent's clubhouse, we inevitably got stuck on board one and tried to understand the position.

But suddenly we broke in on boards three and four. Fabian had missed. Here we were threatened with a loss of the game. And Artur had set something. Here, too, things became critical. A fast 2-2 would make the whole fight exciting again. Timo had one more pawn. But his position was very complicated.

But suddenly Fabian's opponent sacrificed a rook. It became clear that this would not be enough for more than one perpetual check, unless Fabian suddenly wanted more.

Moritz did not leave his board now. His opponent was short of time, and our player calmly calculated how he could break through the opponent's defense.

As so often in team fights, the probably strongest youth player in club history took over the responsibility in this decisive game.

And then the time had come: Tom Rebentisch resigned and it was 3-0 for Hemer.

At this moment Fabian's opponent offered a draw with another chess bid.

Fabian accepted, so that we had won. Artur's opponent now also offered to split the points.

A few minutes later Timo and his opponent also agreed on a draw.

An ultimately unchallenged victory gave Hemer an uncatchable lead in the table.

And this success was the result of a great team performance. All the players were convincing in their fighting spirit. And with Felix Trinh we had a nominal substitute who always had to play and won every game. Timo, Fabian and Alex remained unbeaten. And also Valerija and Artur lost games as the only players, but also won important victories.

Whenever the next season starts, the U20 team will play in the Bundesliga just like the women's team.

 

Two months before the end of a strange year 2020, it is already clear that it will be the most successful year in the club's history.    

International youth match on International Chess Day Hemer against Iasi

(A review by Andreas Jagodzinsky, 18.07.2020)

 

On Friday there was a match between the youth team of the chess club and the Cotnari Chess Academy from Iasi (https://www.facebook.com/academiadesahcotnari/).

The occasion was on the one hand the celebrations for the 96th birthday of the world chess federation FIDE, the so-called International Chess Day on July 20th (https://fide.com/news/630), but also the fact that our youth players, after several months of absence from the boards, were looking for a possibility to simulate competition practice, although the friendly character was clearly in the foreground.

Hemer's youth trainer Carmen Voicu-Jagodzinsky had put together a strong team that was to compete on a total of six boards in the age groups U18, U16 and U14 (each m/f). However, some of the players were significantly younger than permitted, which was also the case for the opponents.

 

The following pairings took place:

U18	Moritz Runte	Robert Barbulescu
U18w	Alessia Ciolacu	Diana Lupascu
U16	Timo Leonard	Luca Dumitru
U16w	Catriona Dartmann Aubanell	Alexia Andries
U14	Lukas Jagodzinsky	Andrei Ciomaga
U14w	Linda Becker	Sofia Cretu

 

 

Two rapid chess games (15+10) and two blitz games (3+2) were played.

Actually, the next games should only be started when the whole round was finished. But here Carmen still has to optimize the coordination with her players.

Marcus Schmücker broadcast the entire fight from 17.00-19.00 on his twitch channel. Whoever missed it can watch it again here: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/682401116. Or here:

 Although the Hemeraner players were favoured after ELO, contested games developed. In the first round, the game of Timo was especially interesting. He tried to win in a rather fast final game put on the board, but got into trouble himself.

After Linda had equalized the loss on Lukas board at the U14 boards, Moritz won. Neither Marcus, nor I, had noticed that he had won a piece early. Moritz, who was then also available for analysis in word and picture, explained that it was a known opening mistake made by his opponent.

Meanwhile, we noticed that Linda had simply continued playing and after a draw in rapid chess game no. 1, she had achieved a draw as well as two wins in the blitz games.

Meanwhile Timo was getting more and more under pressure. Unfortunately, Catriona also missed some good opportunities and suddenly stood on a loss.

Luckily Alessia won her well played game and replaced Moritz as interview partner, while Timo meanwhile had little hope for the party rescue.

Finally, he had to give up and the first round 3-3 had run out.

 

In the second leg, which was already 0.5-0.5 due to Linda's quick games, Lukas achieved a draw. In the other games our players now dominated their opponents quite clearly. Only Moritz's game gave cause for concern in the meantime. But when his opponent Moritz König wanted to checkmate in the final game under pawn sacrifice, Moritz calmly collected all the pawns and finally won. A clear 5-1 ended the rapid chess match.

Meanwhile, Catriona had already started to play her blitz games, which she unfortunately both lost.

When Moritz had finished his rapid chess match, the score was 8-4 in rapid chess and 1-2 in blitz.

For the broadcast, the blitzgames now became the touchstone, because it was difficult to switch between the games.

Timo and Lukas lost their first blitzgames. And Alessia suddenly had one piece less and was objectively lost. But in mutual time pressure she saved a draw, so that the first blitzgame was won by our Romanian opponents with 3.5-2.5, because at least Moritz could still win.

In the last round it remained with the defeat of Catriona. Lukas offered a draw with better position and worse time, which was accepted.

Timo and Alessia won their games. And Moritz was lucky in the end, when his opponent exceeded the time in draw position.

 

So the last round went to Hemer with 4.5-1.5. Altogether, the match ended with a score of 15-9 for us.

 

Here the general overview:

 

	Hemer	Iasi	S1	S2	B1	B2	Total
U18	Runte	Barbulescu	1-0	1-0	1-0	1-0	4-0
U18w	Ciolacu	Lupascu	1-0	1-0	0,5-0,5	1-0	3,5-0,5
U16	Leonard	Dumitru	0-1	1-0	0-1	1-0	2-2
U16w	Dartmann	Andries	0-1	1-0	0-1	0-1	1-3
U14	Jagodzinsky	Ciomaga	0-1	0,5-0,5	0-1	0,5-0,5	1-3
U14w	Becker	Cretu	1-0	0,5-0,5	1-0	1-0	3,5-0,5
Total			3-3	5-1	2,5-3,5	4,5-0,5	15-9