In the meantime (almost) all federations have arrived in the beautiful town Bad Blankenburg. The teams showed up with much anticipation and strong coaches from all over Europe to fight for the title “European champion”. Before the competition even started, however, there was a lot to discuss this evening on 07/11/2018. Therefore tournament director Bernd Vökler and chief arbiter Klaus Deventer invited to the "Captains Meeting", where all questions got answered.

During the ECU Youth Championship in the Romanian town Mamaia, in September 2017, the idea arose to conduct a national youth match against Romania in preparation for the EYTCC 2018. The two national teams sample the “practical emergency” at the Landessportschule Bad Blankenburg. National coach Dorian Rogozenco was thankfully available for the preparation of the German junior team. At the same time he evaluates the games in the evening together with the Romanian and German players. This allows a perfect preparation for the “real” championship.

After a short welcoming speech by tournament director Bernd Vökler and arbiter Daniel Wanzek, both teams started immediately. A quick victory was scored by Konstantin Urban on board 4, with the Sicilian bishop's sacrifice on b5 followed by the cavalry's intervention to take the lead. After both girls won their games and Luis Engel had played draws in the meantime, the Romanians won on the first board. Alexander Riess contributed half a point to the Germans' 4:2 victory in the first match.

The Romanian guests had ambitious plans for the rematch. It was a 2-point gap that had to be made up. However, Roven Vogel thwart their goal. He mercilessly exploited a miscalculation by his opponent. By wining he could balance his personal match record and bring the German team into the lead. After the equalizer on the third boy`s board, it was left to the girls to put the game to bed. At first Antonia held a very difficult position with a row of single moves and Annmarie set the positive conclusion in the tower final. 3. 5 to 2. 5; two individual round triumphs and a won match overall, the national coach Dorian Rogozenco was satisfied.

The small town of Bad Blankenburg with about 7000 residents will be the chess-capitol of europe from the 11th of July to the 19th of July, when the european youth team chess championchip (eytcc) under 18 and the new section under 12 will take place in the heart of the free state of thuringia in germany.
Our invitation was published a short time ago on our webpage. The tournament is played in teams of 4 in the boys competition and in teams of 2 in the girls section. It will be decided in 7 rounds of swiss system. The place where the magic will happen is the so called „Landessportschule Bad Blankenburg“, not only well equiped to host a high level chess tournament, but ready to meet the needs for physical activities during a tough chess tournament.
Tournament director IM Vökler and his organising team are looking forward to welcome guests from all around europe in Bad Blankenburg. We are excited to see the ever green hard fought chess battles with our friends from Poland, Czech republic, Hungary and Slovenia, not without hopefully welcoming new teams from France, the Netherlands, Russia and Norway. With this countries being named, a lot of europe is not yet covered and of course we are happy to have as many teams from as many countries as possible fighting for the european youth team chess championchip in Bad Blankenburg.
That being said, german under 18 boys team is the current titleholder of the eytcc, besides being good hosts german players have another challenge to face – defending the title! No pressure ;-)

German chess federation is celebrating „the year of Lasker“ in 2018. Emanual Lasker, born on 24th of december in 1868 is still the only german chess world champion. It´s time to celebrate his 150th birthday. The birthday of a man who not only saw the bright side of life, facing as a jewish german citizen in the 30s the darkest time in german history. We will do everything in our power to make it a tournament worth honoring Lasker, celebrating friendship and tolerance in europe.

Warm welcome and see you soon in Bad Blankenburg!