After a three-year break due to the pandemic, the Württemberg school chess championships took place again in 2023 in Uhingen near Göppingen. The chess club of the Johannes-Brenz-Gemeinschaftsschule, which had only been founded in September 2022, was determined to take part after its outstanding performance at the Schwäbisch Hall school chess cup.
At the Württemberg championships, however, they went in as underdogs, as over 60 teams from all kinds of school types had travelled in, from Friedrichshafen to Bad Mergentheim, from Ulm to Freudenstadt. In the first round, the team of the Johannes-Brenz-Gemeinschaftsschule was immediately drawn against the traditionally strong team from Pfullingen. After a hard-fought 2:2, however, they knew that they could compete with the favourites and thus stay at the top of the table. This gave them confidence and spurred them on. After six matches, the boys from Schwäbisch Hall had won four and lost only one. This put them in second place, just ahead of a tightly bunched group of pursuers. Before the last round, everything was still possible; with a defeat, they could even slip to fourth or fifth place and off the podium. But chess is a game of concentration, and usually the player who makes fewer mistakes wins. With a changeable draw against Schwäbisch Gmünd, the second place was held by a whisker. This meant the silver medal at the Württemberg championships and the greatest success in school chess in Schwäbisch Hall in the last 10 years. The deserved winner was the Leopoldschule Altshausen near Ravensburg, a team with a three-hour journey. The Johannes-Brenz-Gemeinschaftsschule team’s great strength was its consistency: Altin, Venis and Paul scored steadily and above average. And Julian, who stepped in at short notice as a replacement, also played convincingly. Now the Johannes-Brenz-Gemeinschaftsschule can put another trophy in its display cabinet.
