The German Chess Federation (DSB) have just published the teams and players for the Bundesliga (BL) 2000-2001 season. The usual favourites are there, Porz and Solingen, but there are some surprises ... with some 'missing' teams, for example Delmenhorst and Passau (what happened to them?) and some unexpected new ones, Baiertal and Gelsenkirchen. This requires some explanation, for which please see Bundesliga 2000-2001 Promotions and Relegations.

The 16 teams taking part are listed below where 'Details' give more information on the registered players including country, title and ELO. In addition, 'Website' links to the club web site and 'Sponsor' to the teams sponsor.

Bundesliga Teams 2000-2001¹

The BL is now effectively split into three groups with big ELO jumps between each tier:

• there is a triumvirate of top teams
• a middle order made up of teams who remained in the BL from last season but played no real part in the title chase
• and a final bottom group of promoted teams

Due to strong teams withdrawing there are 'only' 86 GM's and 44 IM's playing this year and the average ELO of all the teams is 2448. There are 140 Germans and 84 foreign players registered, the top countries apart from Germany are: England 12, Sweden 9, Netherlands 8 and Russia/Denmark 6.

An important change at the top is the strengthening of the Luebeck team. Last season they had a very strong squad and were even tipped for the title by some people but as it happened they performed below par and finished in 11th place. Not to be discouraged Luebeck have recruited more strong players this year ... including England number one Adams² and newly crowned British Champion Hodgson³. So with Speelman and Nunn already in the squad they almost have the England team at their disposal! If this was not enough, Adgestein and Epishin have also joined resulting in an incredibly strong group of players with an average ELO of nearly 2650 for the top 8 players!

However, players such as Shirov and Adams are in high demand so it will be interesting to see how often the 'stars' play. This is where Porz excels, in always producing a very strong team due to their strength in depth. Comparing the average ELO of all the players in Luebeck and Porz shows that Luebeck have an average of 2573 compared to 2606 for Porz and this is why Porz are so difficult to beat.

Let us hope that Luebeck will put up a good fight since the fact that the BL has effectively become a two horse race in recent years is a contributing factor to the DSB putting in place a BL Reform Commission. An article about the reform process and its status will be reported on at a later date.

Solingen replaced Adams with none other than Morozevich ⁴ and they have finally pushed Kasimdzhanov onto a higher board after he topped the BL ELO averages for the last two years! Again there is a strong English contingent (as well as the top Scottish player Rowson) joining the squad, albeit rather the England second team(!).

After these three there is a drop to the middle tier of teams and the chances of any of these winning the title are somewhat remote, however the teams are fairly safe from relegation (assuming there is no change to the number of teams in the BL ...) since the new crop of teams are not strong.

Castrop Rauxel have recruited the top Austrailian Rogers from Delmenhorst which means they just pip Hamburg who have added Dorfman to their squad. Also Tegernsee have boosted their club with three new GM's including two from Passau - Ribli and Strangl - to lift them up significantly. Whereas Neukoelln have managed just one extra GM with the Turkish number one Atalik (now playing under the Bosnian flag).

Godesberg have an interesting team with 5 GM's which falls off very quickly with no IM's and just 3 FM's. Next are Bremen who also have added an extra GM with Schandorff, they can also include McShane⁵ as a GM since he recently achieved the required norms. Magdeburg are strong over the top boards but their average is brought down by weaker lower boards, they also have Nisipeanu as top board who will be looking to show that his WC run was no fluke.

Finally, Koenig Plauen have picked up the German coach Boensch from Dresden and Wattenscheid have added the young Armenian Aronian as their top board.

The four new teams: Baiertal, Gelsenkirchen, Schott Mainz and Koenig Tegel will find it extremely tough in the BL ... between them they have only 2 GM's and 8 IM's.

Good luck to all teams!

¹ Source: German Chess Federation (DSB)
² Source: Barnet Chess Club
³ Source: British Chess Federation (BCF)
⁴ Source: The Hindu
⁵ Source: Mind Sports Worldwide