Silver medal for Bavaria: chess talents from Kelheim surprise!

Silver medal for Bavaria: chess talents from Kelheim surprise!

The 46th German Women's Team Championship of the State Associations (DFMM-LV) 2025 recently took place in Braunfels, Hesse, and the chess players from SK Kelheim showed once again that they have a good knack for the game at the highest level. With a strong team performance, they and their teammates from Bavaria won the silver medal and thus achieved a surprising success. How heimatsport.de reported that the Kelheim chess talents Laura Sophie Bauer and Valentina Neumeier did well on boards four and seven.

Bayern started the race as defending champions, but were not first in the seeding list at the start, but were only placed eighth out of 14 teams. This starting position presented the Bayern players with a big challenge. But they showed strength in the first round by knocking the top seeded team from Württemberg out of the tournament with a score of 4.5:3.5, while they could only compete with seven. This was the first bang that raised expectations of the team.

Under pressure and fully in the game

On the second day of the tournament, however, Bavaria only narrowly lost out to the Berlin chess players, who won 4.5:3.5. Despite this defeat, the team was able to fight back and pick up victories against Thuringia and Schleswig-Holstein, which put them back in the race for the medals. In the final round everything was at stake: the players shone against the team from Hesse, which was seeded fourth, and won 5.5:2.5.

In the end, Bavaria, Württemberg and North Rhine-Westphalia were tied at the top, which increased the tension immeasurably. The decision was ultimately made about the second ranking. With a narrow Buchholz point lead, Württemberg was ultimately able to claim the championship title. Bayern ended up in an excellent second place and thus secured the German runner-up title, as did the chess-results.com holds on.

A strong team

Three players from the Bavarian team remained undefeated in the tournament: WFM Margarita Khrapko, Elisabeth Reich and Valentina Neumeier. This excellent result shows that the chess beginners from Kelheim and the experienced members of the Bavarian team were able to achieve an impressive result together. All players deserve this success – they have established themselves as a fixture in German chess.

Overall, an exciting tournament with a lot of drama and great games. The future clearly looks bright for the chess players from Bavaria, and we can look forward to more exciting competitions!