Viernheim Lead Baden-Baden on Board Points After Three Bundesliga Rounds

Two clubs won everything on the opening weekend of the German Bundesliga. SC Viernheim and OSG Baden-Baden each took 6 match points from three rounds, played from 9 to 11 October, and the board-point count separates them: Viernheim have 17½, four more than Baden-Baden.

That gap is the story of the weekend. Viernheim win big, while Baden-Baden keep winning narrowly. With a 16-team league decided on match points first, the margin only matters if the two finish level, but it is a useful early measure of how comfortable each side looks.

Viernheim’s steady margins

The defending champions opened with a 7-1 win over newly promoted SV Erkenschwick. They then beat SC Heimbach-Weis-Neuwied 5-3 and Werder Bremen 5½-2½.

Against Bremen the upper boards did the work. Aravindh Chithambaram beat Velimir Ivic, Aydin Suleymanli beat Luke McShane, and David Anton beat Ihor Samunenkov.

Suleymanli, Aravindh and Georg Meier each scored 2½ points over the three rounds. Neither of the two leaders used its strongest possible lineup, which is notable given what is on their rosters: Abdusattorov, Duda and van Foreest for Viernheim; Caruana, Sindarov, Keymer and Anand for Baden-Baden.

Baden-Baden win three 4½-3½ matches

Baden-Baden’s three wins were all by a single point. The first, against SG Solingen, was the most hard-fought. On top board, Solingen’s David Navara beat Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, one of the weekend’s more significant individual results. Wins by Maxime Lagarde and Etienne Bacrot still gave Baden-Baden the match.

Against newly promoted SC Remagen Sinzig, Matthias Bluebaum and Alexander Donchenko supplied the decisive wins. In round three, Deggendorf’s Martin Petrov beat former FIDE world champion Rustam Kasimdzhanov, yet Baden-Baden found enough points elsewhere.

Three one-point escapes from a club with 16 league titles suggest either rotation or a field that is tighter than the rating sheets imply. Probably some of both, though a weekend is a small sample.

Bayern third, newcomers in the mix

FC Bayern Munich are alone in third with 5 match points, after beating Hamburger SK and MSA Zugzwang and drawing with FC St. Pauli. In that draw, Richard Rapport beat Kirill Alekseenko and Pranav Venkatesh beat Pouya Idani for St. Pauli. Alvar Alonso and Matic Lavrencic won lower down to rescue the half point.

Lavrencic had the best weekend of anyone. The 18-year-old Slovenian IM, rated 2476, scored 3/3 on board eight. He beat grandmasters Thies Heinemann and Stefan Kindermann, then St. Pauli’s Benedict Krause.

St. Pauli finished on 4 points. Their derby with Hamburger SK was unusual: all eight games were drawn. Kirchweyhe, Heimbach-Weis-Neuwied, SF Berlin and promoted Bad Mergentheim are also on 4.

Bad Mergentheim beat Düsseldorfer SK 5-3, then drew with Berlin and Kirchweyhe. Remagen Sinzig, led by Vasyl Ivanchuk, beat Deggendorf 5½-2½ in round one through Andrei Volokitin, Peter Prohaszka, Shreyas Royal and Pawel Jaracz. They lost narrowly to Baden-Baden, drew Solingen, and sit on 3. Erkenschwick, the third promoted side, lost all three.

Young faces and the new calendar

The weekend also featured 12-year-old Argentine grandmaster Faustino Oro, who scored 1/3 for Werder Bremen. Sixteen-year-old Czech GM Vaclav Finek made 2/3 for Heimbach-Weis-Neuwied.

The season has a new shape, with five three-round weekends instead of seven. The final rounds will all be played at one venue, Neuwied, from 2 to 4 April 2027.