Congrats to Romania in the U18, Poland in the U18 female, Israel in the U12 and Germany in the U12 female! After 7 hard-fought days at the Landessportschule Bad Blankenburg the new, and in the U18 female old, European Champions have been announced. They all worked hard to win the title, were well prepared and rewarded for their efforts.
In the U18 Open Romania was the winner, as already mentioned in other reports, after defeating Germany 1 yesterday. Today it was no more than a 2-2 against Slovenia, but the winner has more than earned this little slip. Germany 1 against Austria became the expected exciting match. Vincent Keymer with the black stones, could once again quickly prove an advantage and put Felix Blohberger with his pair of bishops under great pressure until he collapsed under this pressure. A defeat by Julian Martin and a victory by Raphael Lagunow later, the mission was to secure the team victory at the German board 1 and thus possibly the silver medal. His opponent Dominik Horvath tried everything and actually managed to overcome Rosen's defense and got the full point, a strong fighting performance. So the eyes were pointed on Table 3, where Poland played against Belarus.
The Polish team had to play against Belarus. Olga Badelka gave the quality to Pawel Teclaf's Tarrash defense in the women's gambit and had to defend herself tenaciously afterwards. She managed that and so the game ended with the division of points. Board 4 was in for a surprise, because the Belarusian outsider was about to win the match with black against his superior opponent (Elo). He managed it, everyone else held draws and so Belarus won sensationally. read more...