MeterThis is how he succeeded in sports.Who is the best can talk about rise Looking forward to higher leagues, there will be more fierce competition. Like Rudolf Benninger. The chairman of the Hesenstam Chess Club led the first team to success. With a half-point lead, she won first place in the southern part of the second division. Heusenstamm is the only Hessian club that will participate in the First Division next season. Or, more cautiously, it can be played. Because Benninger said: “I have two questions.”
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In fact, everything can be fine. The rise is the result of outstanding performance. Hesenstam played in the Hessen League seven years ago. He was then promoted to the top division, and then promoted to the southern division. Before the pandemic broke out, Heusenstammers finished third in the 2018/2019 season. In the fall of 2019, the team started the new season with the goal of promotion. “The players are motivated to their hair,” Benninger said.
But in the spring of 2020, due to the pandemic, the season was interrupted for one and a half years. It was not until August 2021, nearly two years after the start of the season, that the Hessen Stammers team was able to hold the final three rounds. And now after the climb? Benninger sighed. He is in Heusenstamm’s game room this afternoon. Six young people are very active now, and no one has pushed numbers on the board for a year and a half. Stefan Solona, who holds the title of “International Master”, trains them twice a week to help the first team advance from the bench.
It won’t work without a new sponsor
“The team now consists of six or seven people, and they have told me that they may not be able to participate in all Bundesliga games,” Benninger said. Chess is an international sport, and many players come from Poland or the Czech Republic. “Because the competition will be more intense, I have to recruit real top talent.” For the season starting next year, he still needs two regular players. He is looking forward to something, but: “Everything is related to whether I can integrate finances.”
Finance is Benninger’s second problem. Promotion to the top league means traveling to games all over Germany. Arrival, hotel and entrance fees must be paid. “Some of the people who come are completely professional. They live on chess, and of course I have to pay them some money,” he said. Without new and larger sponsors, the club would not be able to participate in the First Division. And he hasn’t made any firm promises yet.
In any case, the pandemic has made Benninger’s business difficult. In the past three rounds of last season, all the corona tests of the team must be provided and printed in German-for an international team, this is not always easy. In addition, during the long break of the game, proper training cannot be carried out. “There is no real real-time chess.” Players can only switch to the Internet.
Hope for a good corona number
Future league matches cannot be held in their own game room, because of the pandemic, they must move to a larger room. Hans-Dieter Post also brought a young player over in the game room that day. The organizer of various chess tournaments in the area is not a member of the club. He describes himself as a fan of the club: “I never thought Heusenstamm would participate in the first Bundesliga,” he said. In this alliance, you need to “have a certain degree of difficulty with yourself” and no one can miss a date.
It remains to be seen whether the Bundesliga matches will work. Together, Post and Benninger hope to hold the Hesenstam Open at least this fall, which will be the first major event to be held since the beginning of the pandemic. It had to be cancelled last year, and before that, about 500 international participants participated in the competition.
It may be 200 this year. “Middle age is a bit missing, because everyone is committed to professionalism,” Post said. In fact, risk groups, namely young and older players, are more represented, making chess games a kind of lottery game. The corona of the incident may once again hinder the bill. “We depend on how the numbers develop,” he said.
