It was another day of hard work for the German team. Chess fans could not complain about a lack of excitement against the only team from Poland that had not lost a single point. Our neighbor competed without their chess star "Janek" Duda, who had not even traveled to Montenegro. Nevertheless, the Poles are traditionally a strong and talented chess nation, which the first three rounds once again underline.
National coach Jan Gustafsson, who yesterday passed the captain's armband to sports director Kevin Högy due to illness, relied on Vincent Keymer, Rasmus Svane, Matthias Blübaum and Dmitrij Kollars against the Poles. The previously very successful Alexander Donchenko sat out.
Keymer suffered one of his rare defeats yesterday. The only German player over 2700 who travelled to Montenegro in good form has a score of 2 out of 4, which is a good result for his own standards. It is certainly good for him to know that he has a team behind him that can also score points in critical situations.
So Rasmus Svane's task on board 2 is mainly to hold a draw. Numbers 2 to 5 of the German squad are all roughly equally strong and so the second board, which naturally has the strongest opponents, has to hold a draw. While the points should be scored on the other boards. Svane also fulfilled this task in round 4, in which he reached a point split without any danger. It was a similar story for Blübaum; although he could have been credited with the initiative from the opening, it did not come to fruition and the game ended in a draw without much spectacle.
So it was up to Kollars and Keymer to decide the match one way or the other. Things were looking particularly good for Vincent. He had a winning position on the board, but exploiting it would have required a complicated process given the time constraints. He didn't find one and so he moved towards a draw.
Only Kollars' game was still going, and he had black twice in both of his games. Again he had to defend a worse endgame and again he was successful. Kollars is not in the form of his life at the moment, but he fights for every half point for the German national team and he does so successfully.
The question is who will the national coach trust in round 5. Armenia is waiting, a team full of chess culture and eager to celebrate success even without Levon Aronian, who is now eligible to play for the USA. Keymer is set. Svane, unless he signals that he needs a break, actually does his job as a safe half point too well to let him sit out. Since he has not sat out so far, unlike Kollars, Donchenko and Blübaum, a break for the older Svane brother is one of the more likely scenarios.
Just like the possibility that Kollars will get another break. A European Championship is not an event where you can take individual players' wishes into account. Kollars is incredibly important for the team, currently as a fighter and certainly also in preparation as a strong theoretician. He is also the only player who has not had a winning position on the board and has had to fight for a draw twice. At the same time, Dmitrij has had black twice so far, and his serve with white is much harder. That is why my tip is that Svane will sit out, as the national coach knows how strong Dmitrij is with white.
While the German men were happy with the 2:2 in the end, the women were able to win the match against Hungary. Yuri Yakovich caused a surprise before the round when he gave the German number 2 a break after a less than optimal performance. A sign to the rest of the team that there is trust in the players behind Wagner. And this trust was repaid. Because alongside Elisabeth Pähtz, Josefine Heinemann was also able to win her game on board 2. Heinemann is very dependent on her own form, and the fact that she should have been a 2400 player by now has long been an open secret in German chess. Up to now, she has always been a bit of a hindrance to herself. But the European Championships may have broken the deadlock. She has already scored 3.5 points from the first 4 games. A fantastic result for Heinemann and a great help for the whole team.
It didn't matter that Jana Schneider, who will probably miss the next round, lost, because Hanna Marie Klek collected the missing half point for the team victory.
After the opening draw, the German women are back in the tournament with three wins in a row and currently share first place with tomorrow's opponents from Azerbaijan and France.
According to the starting rankings, Azerbaijan is only 7 Elo points better on average. So nothing stands in the way of an exciting afternoon of chess!
Photo: Chess Federation
