3rd place (Sarah Hoolt)

This year's World Chess Championship for students took place from August 18th to August 26th, 2012. The German team (unfortunately) only consisted of 2 players, so only the individual results played a role for us - for the team competition at least 3 players from one country must take part.

The German delegation consisted of Judith Fuchs (University of Leipzig) and Sarah Hoolt (University of Duisburg-Essen).

On August 19th the World Cup began with an opening ceremony in the old town of Guimaraes. The arrival of the nations with their respective flags was accompanied by the drum group Bomboemia and cheered by the spectators. The first double round, which started victorious for the Germans, started the very next morning. Sarah Hoolt won against a Mongolian and Judith Fuchs won against a Portuguese woman. Unfortunately, the afternoon round turned out to be less successful, as Judith Fuchs lost to the future world champion, the Chinese Zhongyi Tan, and Sarah Hoolt was no longer able to defend her position with little remaining time to think about it. The next day there were again two games. After Judith Fuchs dropped half a point in the morning, the German team scored full points in the afternoon lap, so that at the end of the second day Judith and Sarah were well in the race with 2.5 and 3 points respectively from 4 laps.

In the following, the field was divided into two halves. In the upper half there were predominantly female players with a playing strength of 2200-2450 Elo, including the Germans, while in the rear half the slightly weaker female players fought for the points. This made the opponents stronger and scoring points turned out to be more difficult, as one had to expect strong opponents even after a losing game.

On the third day, Sarah Hoolt also had to give up after a long fight against the future world champion. While Judith Fuchs let Marta Przezdziecka from Poland get away with half a point in the morning, she outplayed another Polish woman in the afternoon round. Since Sarah Hoolt also scored points in the afternoon round, we were in 5th and 6th place after 6 of 9 rounds with 4 points each and were waiting for the medal places.

On the last three days only one round was played, so that despite the preparation of the following games, there was still some time to visit the beautiful old town of Guimaraes (European Capital of Culture 2012).

In the 7th round, the two German representatives had to play against China and Russia. While Sarah was able to win a theoretical victory against the Chinese, Judith could only offer the congratulatory hand to the later silver medal winner after a long struggle. In the penultimate lap, however, Judith Fuchs had no problems scoring the full point. Sarah played on board 1 against the Russian Alina Kashlinskaya, who at the time was half a point ahead and led together with the Chinese Tan. So at least a draw had to be made in order to preserve the chance for a medal - Sarah succeeded in doing this.

Before the last round, the Chinese Tan and the Russian Kashlinskaya were in the lead with 6 points. Behind them, Sarah Hoolt shared third place with the Chinese Xiaowen Zhang, and Judith Fuchs was right behind them.

Then first of all the shock. The draw for the last round stipulated that Judith and Sarah had to play against each other, as did the Russian Kashlinskaya against a national colleague. This was surprising, as there was a rule in the last two years in which players from the same country were not allowed to play against each other in the last two rounds in order to prevent possible collusion. Therefore, both the Chinese delegation and the German and Swiss delegations protested. After a long discussion until late at night, the protest was allowed, so the draw was changed and the two German players had to play against nominally stronger opponents, but both had a chance of a full point.

After Judith had already scored 1.5 out of 2 against the Poles, the Pole Kadziolka also had no chance in the last round. In the end, Judith Fuchs had 2.5 out of 3 points against Poland, a total of 6 points from 9 rounds and a great 5th place, equal on points with the fourth placed. Sarah won her last match after an exciting fight and could only keep her fingers crossed because the first boards were all still running. Since the Chinese Zhang couldn't get past a draw, third place was certain and the joy was enormous. The Russian Kashlinskaya was only able to draw in the end, so she was tied with Sarah in second place. However, her second ranking was better, so Sarah took an excellent third place.

The final result was: 1st place Zhongyi Tan 7 points, 2nd Alina Kashlinskaya 6.5 points, 3rd Sarah Hoolt 6.5 points, 4th Xiaowen Zhang 6 points, 5th Judith Fuchs 6 points.

1st place women doubles (Kim Buss and Inken Wienefeld)
1st place mixed (Kim Buss and Alexander Roovers)
3rd place men singles (Alexander Roovers)
2nd place team (Marián Ufermann, Kim Buss, Alexander Roovers, Timon Ufermann, Inken Wienefeld)

2nd place team (Alexander Duckscheer, Jan Fleckhaus, Felix Meyer, Martin Rieger, Martin Schalk, Malte Rieß, Timon Hesseln, Felix Degen)

2nd place men one (Fabian Weiler)