A tense calm hangs in the air during the final round of the Marburg Student Chess Championship. You can’t even hear the clocks ticking—electronics have made their way here, too. Full concentration on opponents and the board. A large group of students comes through the door and quietly gathers around the first table of the 5th/6th-grade group to watch their top players compete on the top boards. And they aren’t disappointed—the game is thrilling and ultimately ends with their classmate’s victory and his title win in this group. Applause!

The School Chess Individual Championship, organized by the Chess Club and Steinmühle, was well attended again this year. A total of 59 students from 13 schools in the Marburg district took part and competed in three categories (up to 4th grade, 5th and 6th grades, and 7th grade and above) to determine their champions. The event was sponsored by Sparkasse Marburg-Biedenkopf. City Councilwoman Kirsten Dinnebier served as the event’s patron and personally welcomed the participants.

Among the winners were some new faces and some familiar ones. The winner in the category for grades up to 4 was Mark Scherer from the Erich Kästner School, with 6 out of a possible 6 points. In the 5th and 6th grade category, Philipp Dubinker from the Steinmühle School took first place, also with 6 out of 6 points. Finally, in the “older” category, Jakob Wolf from the Elisabethschule won once again.

The organization, which is now well-established, ran smoothly. The next major chess event on the horizon is the schools’ team championship, which will take place this summer.

Text and photo: Helge Neidhardt, Schachklub Marburg e.V.

This is what winners look like: (from left) Jakob Wolf (Grades 7 and up, Elisabethschule), Mark Scherer (up to Grade 4, Erich-Kästner-Schule), Philipp Dubinker (Grades 5/6, Steinmühle, Class 5b)

With a mixed team, the students from Steinmühle competed in the Class IV basketball tournament. Coach Marc Bepperling reports:

We had some minor difficulties at the start of the course, but managed to improve slightly on last year’s time, finishing with a total time of 7:50:53. In the group stage, we now had to play four games. Our goal was to advance from the group stage in second place.

After a strong start against Philippinum II (23–11), we also won our second game against Waldorfschule II by a score of 23–10. As expected, we then lost to the Elisabethschule I team by a score of 6–45. In the final match against Amöneburg, it was a close one, but we managed to prevail as planned with a score of 23–15. We then faced the top team from the other group and lost 16–51.

Unfortunately, the 3rd/4th place game didn’t go ideally for us either. Despite trailing by 6 points, we were at least able to finish the competition with a score of 13–21 in the final game. Overall, this meant a solid 4th place finish among the 9 participating schools. Our goals for next year are ambitious, since we’ll be able to field the exact same team again. We’d like to thank all the participants and look forward to what’s next.

Players:
Merle Herwig
Zoe Closmann
Dejan Pavlovic
Dylan Caroll
Elias Eckardt
Jaron Häußermann
Jonas Nolte
Leonhard Rumpel

Coach:
Marc Bepperling

It was the expected hard-fought match between two evenly matched teams in Competition Class III (born 2006 through 2008) at “Youth Trains for the Olympics,” and in the end, the Martin Luther School came out on top thanks to a better goal differential. The team, coached by Dirk Konnertz and Paul Wolf, played a great tournament. The only downside: In their 1-0 win in the first game against the Emil-von-Behring School, they missed too many scoring opportunities. In the second game, Steinmühle managed to hold on to a 1–0 lead for a long time against the eventual champion, but in the second half of the match, the Martin Luther School was the stronger team and earned a well-deserved tie by equalizing two minutes before the end. As a result, goal differential became the deciding factor in the final two matches, and after the Martin-Luther School’s 10-0 victory over the Emil-von-Behring School, our team faced an almost impossible task. The Steinmühlen players’ spirit was impressive; they believed in themselves until the very last second and secured a decisive 5–0 victory over the Elisabeth School. The Martin Luther School was congratulated in good sportsmanship; not a single player let their heads hang low, and everyone is already looking forward to next year’s competition. This tournament actually deserved two winners.

In Competition Class II (born 2004 through 2006), the team led by Michael Neirich and Jakob Reinhard had not expected much even before the tournament began. It was very encouraging, however, that the team entered the tournament with great focus and courage, earning draws against the favorites, Gymnasium Philippinum (0–0) and the Emil-von-Behring-Schule (1–1). In the subsequent matches against the champion, Elisabethschule, and the runner-up, Martin-Luther-Schule, the Steinmühlen players ultimately stood no chance and lost both matches 0–4. In the end, they finished in 4th place out of five teams.