Bravo, Bundesliga
As I've mentioned before, I don't care much (if at all) about the team aspect of the Bundesliga, which generally consists of OSG Baden-Baden's team of almost entirely non-German mercenaries beating everyone else. (They have won 13 of the last 14 years, only goofing up in 2015/16 to finish second behind SG Solingen.) But my dismissive attitude towards the team component should not be confused with a lack of interest in the games. Many of the world's best players compete, and a lot of great chess gets played in those matches, chess that often goes unnoticed by the broader chess world.
To rectify that a bit, I'll show you four fine games that were played this past March, three with fairly substantial comments. (Hat tip to Max Illingworth of ChessPublishing.com, who analyzed one of the games and mentioned the other three. All the notes to the games are my own.) Enjoy.
Reader Comments (4)
Somewhat puzzling to hint at too many foreign players in the Bundesliga, and then select and annotate four games where 7/8 players are non-German, including five rated 2700+ (not the case for any German player) and two more former world-top players (also not the case in Germany ever since Doc Huebner).
The Bundesliga probably wouldn't get international interest, from Dennis or anyone else, if it had only or mostly local players - same story for any other national league but the Russian one. Team competitions in several countries are also a source of stable income for many players - those from the featured games might not really need it (not so sure for Korobov and Kamsky, Meier now has a full-time job - for Grenke banking), many others do.
Is it coincidence that all four games include a Baden-Baden player? Is it coincidence that they scored a rather disappointing 1/4?
[DM: Did you read the post? I mean, after the initial comment that set you off. The games were chosen because they were singled out in something I had read. So yes, it is a coincidence that Baden-Baden scored poorly in those games. Is it a coincidence that they all involved Baden-Baden players? That's harder to say. They're the strongest team, so they're the ones most likely to attract eyeballs, and it's therefore likelier that their games will be noticed. But it is coincidental in the sense that I didn't set out to look for Baden-Baden games, whether they won or lost.
Please note that I didn't say that the Bundesliga isn't interesting. It is! What's *not* interesting, to *me*, is the team element. We all know that B-B is an almost overwhelming favorite every year, with one or two teams having a small shot at playing the spoiler (mainly SG Solingen, and apparently now SV Hockenheim as well).
Finally, I agree: the Bundesliga would draw less attention if it were just Germans. But how about something in between? In their critical match in the penultimate round, B-B and Solingen started a grand total of zero Germans, though it's possible that Naiditsch, playing for B-B, represented Germany when they set their teams at some point in 2018 - I don't remember exactly when he changed federations to Azerbaijan.
Anyway, I'm happy to see good chess, wherever it's played.]
When I follow the link "enjoy" I get a blank page.
[DM: I'm not sure what to tell you - I tried in two different browsers and it worked on both of them. It did seem to pause for a moment though, so maybe that page is slightly slow in loading?]
Larry - I also have an older computer and get a blank page. Thanks for your comment, it reminded me of a method I tried before years ago but had forgotten about! - just change the ".html" extension (of the view.chessbase.com URL showing in your browser after clicking Enjoy) to ".pgn" - that should either display the PGN text file or download it, then use your PGN software/website of choice.
Adam, thanks I used your advice to access the games. Note this is the first time I ever had trouble accessing Dennis' posted analysis.