Lübeck chess club from 1873

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The Lübeck Chess Club from 1873 e. V. is one of the oldest chess clubs in Germany.

Beginnings of the association

In the opening year of the forerunner of the Deutsche Schachzeitung in 1846, there is, among other reports, also forgotten today, the notation of a long-distance game between Lübeck and Leipzig, which the Hanseatic townspeople won with the black pieces in 42 moves - not a high-class game, but the first sign of a chess life in Lübeck. It stayed that way until 1873. In the course of the founding of the empire , the first and thus oldest chess club in Schleswig-Holstein was created - the Lübeck chess club. The driving force was the editor of the railroad newspaper Ed. Father of the writer Ida Boy-Ed and, it is said, a close friend of Emanuel Geibel. In the early years, one can hardly say that the chess club cultivated an atmosphere of sporting competition. It was more like a collection of serious, bourgeois notables. And so it is not surprising that the chronicle from those days did not report the sporting strength, but considered it more important whether the respective player was a consul, senior teacher or pharmacist. Chess as a worthwhile leisure activity was clearly ahead of chess as a sport, and that was not to change much in the first few decades. Competitions with clubs from the surrounding area were only held sporadically. In 1886 they met with “the Kiel Association” for what contemporaries called a “mass competition” in Plön (ie in Prussian “foreign countries”), which the Lübeckers won 9: 7. For the time being, this remained the last success of the newly founded Kiel Chess Society , which was preparing to assert its dominance unchallenged for many decades. For the 50th anniversary in 1923, the association had one member for every year of life. Little had changed in its social structure, however.

The association showed its sure instinct in financial matters when, in 1922, it did not invest a significant donation in a property, but bought treasury bonds. In the anniversary year the membership fee was 300,000 Reichsmarks, but the club was still bankrupt due to inflation. On the night of the Palmarum in 1942, the hotel in which the gambling hall was located also burned the entire rich archive of the club, its library and its game material.

New beginning after 1945

After the membership of the LSV had melted to a good dozen in 1945, Dr. Hans Steen an energetic new chairman of the management of the club and soon also that of the Schleswig-Holstein state chess association. New players could be won, some returnees, some of the New Hanseatic Towns lost in the chaos of war like the Baltic German Fricis Cinovskis, who was successful in the first team until well into the 1970s. Some of the young people at the time, such as honorary member Fritz Longwitz, are still active and successful today - for example as club champions from 1954 and 1992.

In the 1950s, the slow change began in a modern sports club. The club rejuvenated and success was inevitable. In Lübeck they secured the position of priority and in the country they soon belonged to the leading clubs. In the 1960s, the company looked beyond national borders. The national championship title has been won several times, the club has repeatedly taken part in German championships and international successes have also been recorded, such as the victories at the Copenhagen team tournaments in 1969 and 1971. The youth work led to the first results when Andreas Longwitz and Lutz Klibor on German and rose to top players at European level.

Crisis in the early 1970s

Due to internal quarrels, it was not possible to build on these successes in the early 1970s, and the first team fell apart. It was not until the new management of the club that they consistently focused on youth work, which should bear fruit after a few years. In 1976 the club hosted the German Youth Championship, at which the then 16-year-old Ulrich Sieg - still a fixture of the club today - impressed with a middle place.

Promotion to the 2nd Bundesliga

The success of the newly formed men's team began in 1980: promotion to what was then the undivided Regionalliga Nord, followed in the following season by another to the 2nd Bundesliga . Since then, the club has been able to maintain its leading position in Schleswig-Holstein, to which numerous state championship titles in the various branches have contributed. LSV players won a total of ten individual championship titles as well as numerous blitz chess and cup championships.

German champion 2001-2003

In 1999 he was promoted to the highest German chess league, the 1st Bundesliga, with over 100 grandmasters one of the strongest team championships in the world. Since with the exception of the Russians Garri Kasparow and Wladimir Kramnik the top of the world was almost completely represented in the Bundesliga teams, this goal could only be achieved with sponsor support. The first Bundesliga season led the LSV to 11th place out of 16 teams. In order to be able to keep up, the circle of grandmasters was expanded in the following season. About Alexei Schirow (ESP), Jewgeni Barejew (RUS), Jonathan Speelman (ENG), Nick de Firmian (USA), Dr. John Nunn (ENG), Lars Bo Hansen (DEN) and Jonny Hector (SWE) joined the world class players Michael Adams (ENG), Wladimir Jepischin (RUS), Julian Hodgson (ENG) and Simen Agdestein (NOR).

In the 2000/2001 season, Lübecker SV was then German team champion and also won the trophy of the German team cup. These successes were repeated in the 2001/02 season. The successful team was joined by the Brit Stuart Conquest and the Spaniard Francisco Vallejo Pons .

Another redesign took place for the 2002/03 season. Evgeni Bareev ended his engagement in the Bundesliga due to time constraints and Francisco Vallejo Pons also left the team. With the Russian Alexander Grishchuk and the French Joël Lautier and Laurent Fressinet reinforcements were committed who belonged to the absolute or extended world elite. In the 2002/2003 season the title of German team champion was won again - but this time the cup ended in the quarter-finals.

Withdrawal of the 1st team

For the 2003/2004 season, the Lübeck chess club decided to withdraw its first team from the first division. The reasons for this lay mainly in the financial area, for example due to the high ancillary costs and the lack of marketing opportunities for the home fights, as only two home games per season were possible due to the way the Bundesliga was played.

Since 2006 the LSV teams have been playing from the 2nd Bundesliga down to the district class. Incidentally, the LSV also has a real world champion in its ranks. In 1998 IM Sergej Salov moved from Russia to Lübeck, who won the World Cup title of the World Chess Federation of the Deaf several times .

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