Review of the year 2020

At the end of a strange year, it's worth taking a look back.

January

Hemer once again wins the „Südwestfalen“ team championships U16 in Plettenberg.

Alessia Ciolacu, Timo Leonard, Alexander Poggemann, Linda Becker and Miriam Marinescu triumph. At this point, no one could have guessed that the team would not compete at the NRW level.

The first team struggles in the Verbandsliga to a 4.5-3.5 against Iserlohn 2 and defends the top of the table, which had been conquered with surprising wins against the favorites from Velmede Bestwig at the beginning of the 2019/20 season (so it was thought).

Hemer 2 wins withoutto play in the district league. Hemer 3 is defeated by Fröndenberg. The specter of relegation haunts ever more menacingly.

In the NRW Youth League, the first team almost stumbles in Bielefeld. As expected, the second team continues to pay its dues.

February

While a vacation home is booked in Kranenburg over Easter in view of the numerous club representatives at the NRW Youth Championships, the women's team achieves total triumph. The 5,5-0,5 in the match against the second in the table from Lübeck brings the promotion of the women's team to the Bundesliga in Kiel in February.

Suddenly we are Bundesliga players and start planning for the season in the top flight, which is scheduled to begin in September. In the process, an overlap with the Romanian league is already becoming apparent.

The first team loses its first match of the season in Schwerte and loses the league lead.

Hemer 2 plays only 4-4. Hemer 3 is close to relegation to the district class after another defeat.

 

Due to storms, both youth teams postpone their games to March.

March

Is it still allowed to shake hands in chess? Most players do it in the Verbandsliga match against Arnsberg. It goes well, but one point remains. Thanks to the support from Hagen, we return to the top of the table in the Verbandsliga.

The second youth team loses its catch-up match on 07.03..

The first team wants to play a week later.

And suddenly they don't play anymore.

 

For months it is now discussed whether to cancel the season, extend it or whatever. The three adult teams will not return to the boards in 2020.

 

April

 

The NRW Championships are cancelled. 

Instead, 16 Hemeran players play a club tournament on lichess. On Easter Saturday, Moritz Runte prevails over Alessia Ciolacu in a spectacular final.

And Hemer starts in the quarantine league. The online activities now also arouse the interest of the media. Otherwise there is no more competitive sport.


May-July

Apart from the Quarantine League, nothing happens. The Women's National League is scheduled to begin in October.

Luminita Cosma wins the Romanian Online Championships.


August

 

Magdeburg: At "Schachgipfel" the first players return to the boards. Carmen Voicu-Jagodzinsky becomes German Women's Champion. It is the first national title for SV Hemer in the adult field.

September

After the Youth Association of German Chess federation (DSJ) decided to make up for the German Youth Championships in October, rapid chess qualification tournaments are scheduled at short notice.

Linda Becker qualifies for the German Youth Championship (DJEM) as expected. Moritz Runte misses the qualification in the U18 due to the worse Buchholz.

Valerija Naumenko also misses it in the U18w, but later receives a free place.

Timo Leonard, Alexander Poggemann and Fabian Trinh do not qualify.

And Carmen Voicu-Jagodzinsky also wins the bronze medal at the German Women's Rapid Chess Championships in Plochingen.

October

Carmen Voicu-Jagodzinsky as coach and Moritz Runte on board three win the German State Championships with the NRW selection.

Linda Becker wins the bronze medal at the DJEM U14w in Willingen.

Valerija misses the same result in the U18w by a draw in the final round.

And the U20s make up for their match against Paderborn in the NRW Youth League and return to the top of the table.


November

Linda Becker wins the German online World Championship qualifier in the U14w.

And the youth team wins in Gelsenkirchen and makes the Bundesliga promotion perfect one round before the end.

The outstanding player in the league is Moritz Runte, who won all six games.


December

Linda Becker gains valuable international tournament experience at the Online World Championship. In the U16w, Alessia Ciolacu only just misses the knockout round in fifth place.

At the DSJ online tournament, the two girls win the silver medal in the U20w together with Katharina Ricken and Catriona Dartmann Aubanell.

The U16 (Timo Leonard, Alexander Poggemann, Linda Becker, Lukas Jagodzinsky) finish fifth. The U20 I is 16th, the U20 II is 36th.


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