Teams

Our excursion to Schwalbach ended with a drawn match. The 4:4 was hard-fought, with our problems already emerging during our journey.

Because the match day was also the day of the Frankfurt Marathon, the resulting road blocks called for well organized logistics in order to get all players from their home to the venue - a challenge that was negotiated successfully. After our clear victory in the first round, expectations were high, especially as the second team was a slight favourite according the rating averages. However, the opponents absolutely proved to be on par.

The match started with two draws on boards 1 and 8, courtesy of Peter and Dražen. Following this, Franzi downright steamrolled her opponent with a mating attack and made it 2-1. Georg also contributed half a point. In the meantime, Michael and Walter tried to live up to their being the favourites, but both were encountering stubborn resistence and eventually had to settle for draws when their position had already become slighly worse. Helmut then had the chance to seal the win, but blundered a rook in a winning position and subsequently had to save himself by perpetual check.

This, at least, had secured the fourth point. At the end, Adam eventually had to resign his endgame of same-coloured bishops with two pawns down when his tenacious resistence had eventually proved futile. Result: a 4:4 draw that appears fair with regard to the perfomances of both teams. The second team now occupies the 3rd rank of the table, and the league remains open.

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