Chess

Jon Speelman
Tuesday 14 December 1999 00:02 GMT
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THE GERMAN Bundesliga held its third session of the season at the weekend, with the usual four groups of four teams at venues throughout the country.

Last year, I reported this as part of one of the league's two juggernauts, Solingen. Now I'm on the other side, with the newly promoted Lubeck, who started well on the first weekend but then lost four matches in a row, the final one, on Sunday, to Solingen themselves. (I lost rather miserably to Michael Adams, but John Nunn did at least score our only win, against Matthew Sadler.)

Solingen surprisingly only drew 4-all in the first match of the season against Passau. But arch rivals Porz drew with Delmenhorst on Sunday - and these three teams now lead jointly with 11/12 match points.

This interesting battle was from Solingen's match with Hamburg on Saturday.

Heavily outgraded, Wilhelmi rightly kept the queens on and eventually struck out with the excellent 25 ...Rxe3! Not 27 Kh1?? Bxd3 28 Bxd3 Nf2+ and wins. But it seems that Black missed a chance for glory with 29 ...Bxd3! 30 Bxd3 Qxh2 when if 31 Re1 Qf4+ 32 Ke2 Bf2! 33 Kd1 (or 33 Qe7 Bh4!!) Bxe1 34 Kxe1 Qg3+ 35 Kd2 Qxg2+ 36 Be2 Re8 37 Kd1 Qg1+ 38 Kd2 Rxe2+ 39 Kxe2 Qg2+ and wins. At the end it was perpetual check - 33 Kf1 Bd3+ 34 Kg1 Re1+ would have made no difference.

White: Robert Hubner

Black: Christian Wilhelmi

Grunfeld Defence

1 d4 Nf6

2 c4 g6

3 Nc3 d5

4 Nf3 Bg7

5 Bg5 Ne4

6 cxd5 Nxg5

7 Nxg5 e6

8 Nf3 exd5

9 e3 0-0

10 Be2 c6

11 0-0 Qd6

12 Na4 Nd7

13 Rc1 Re8

14 Qb3 Nf6

15 Nc5 Re7

16 Rfd1 Ng4

17 Nd3 Bf5

18 Qa3 Qd8!

19 Qc3 Qd6

20 Qc5 Qd8!

21 b4 a6

22 a4 Bh6!

23 Qc3 Qd6

24 Qc5 Qd8

25 Ra1 Rxe3!

26 fxe3 Bxe3+

27 Kf1 Nxh2+

28 Nxh2 Qh4 29 Ra2 Qxh2?!

30 Nf2! Re8

31 Bf3 Bxf2

32 Kxf2 Qh4+ 33 Kg1 Re1+

34 Rxe1 Qxe1+

35 Kh2 Qh4+

36 Kg1 Qe1+

1/2-1/2

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