Friedrich Baumbach

Fritz Baumbach ( born September 8, 1935 in Weimar ) is a German correspondence chess players. In 1988 he was correspondence chess world champion.

Correspondence Chess

Baumbach came at the 4th Correspondence Chess World Championship Candidates Tournament to the 1958/61. After that he took for the GDR participated in the 5th and 6th Chess Olympiad, where he achieved in each case an IM norm. 1967 awarded him for the World Correspondence Chess Federation ICCF the title International Champion in correspondence chess.

The title of Grand Master he received in 1973, after he reached the second place in the Lenin Memorial Tournament ( 1970-1973 ). Because of this success, the ICCF saved him the way over the normal qualification and told him a free place for the final of the 9th World Championship. Here he was in 1983 without defeat runner-up behind Tõnu OIM, 1988 at the 11th World Cup even world champions. For this item, he received the award in the GDR Honored Master of Sports.

Strange was the course of the 10th Correspondence Chess Olympiad took part in the Baumbach with the East German team. The finale began in 1987 and ended in 1995, that is, several years after the reunification played a DDR team, even though it no longer existed the GDR. The same was true by the way for the participants from the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia. The East German team won the bronze medal.

When 11.Olympiade which began in 1992, Baumbach again participated with a German team. 1999, this team was Olympic champion.

When anniversary tournament of the world champion 50 years ICCF he finished fourth.

Tournament chess

Also on board Baumbach is a strong player. In 1951, he was with Lichtenberg Youth team champion of the GDR. In 1961, he finished third at the World Student Championship. It was founded in 1968 in the East German Championship runner yet, so he won the title in 1970 in Freiberg GDR Champion.

In the same year he also participated with the team in the GDR at the Chess Olympiad in Siegen. It was reported on the second reserve board in the first round and won his three matches in the final round he remisierte three times, including against former world champion Smyslov with the black pieces.

For his tournament successes on the board, he received the title of FIDE Master. Currently, he plays in the team of SC Friesen Lichtenberg, until the 2011/12 season in the Oberliga Nord. His current Elo rating is 2258 (as of April 2012).

The official

Baumbach was 1993-2010 President of the German Correspondence Chess Federation ( BdF ). From 1995 to 1999 he was Secretary General of the ICCF.

During his tenure as President of the German Chess Federation this remote about two-thirds of its members lost (of 8000 after German reunification to below 3000 in 2005). At the end of 2010, Baumbach resigned amid his recent election time.

From 1970 he trained for nearly twenty years deaf chess players in the GDR and led the national team as a coach, among others, to a second place finish at the World Team Championship of the Deaf - World Chess Federation in Denmark in 1974.

Private

Baumbach is a professional chemist. He received his doctorate in 1966 with the theme of the action of hydrazine hydrate on substituted pyrimidines. After graduation, he studied at the Academy of Sciences of the GDR in Berlin still a three-year study for a patent engineer and then there was the patent system for biochemistry and genetic engineering works. Since 2000 he has worked freelance as a patent attorney.

Baumbach has five children - a son and four daughters.

Awards

Fritz Baumbach in 2011 was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit.

Controversies

• Its made ​​for the award of the Order of Merit statement that deaf people remained in their spiritual development and this becomes apparent 'm also playing chess, was criticized in March 2012 by the German Association of the Deaf as " discriminatory and offensive ." The German Chess Federation distanced itself from the statement Baumbach's.
• In an article in the magazine KARL Baumbach also wrote about his coming from the GDR predecessor as correspondence chess world champion Horst Rittner, this was "not too good Nahschachspieler " and had " so far ... damaged the reputation of correspondence chess. " In the same article he threw Rittner indirectly before, the training group, which also includes Baumbach was a student, to have been used for the analysis of its remote parts. His remarks about Rittner were criticized in correspondence chess circles, which is why Uwe Bekemann by the Executive Board of the German Remote Chess Federation in the following KARL booklet issued a relativistic opinion.

Works

• The chess clock is running, your train please. (together with Wolfgang Thormann ). Sports Verlag Berlin 1993, ISBN 3-328-00598-6.
• Gladiators ante Portas: Massow Memorial. (together with Volker -Michael Anton ). Magdeburg 2003, ISBN 3-00-012366-0.
• Who is the champion of the champions? (along with Robin Smith and Rolf Knobel ). Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-935800-04-4.