The 2013 German Championship was played in two stages. The first was a six-round Swiss system among sixteen players, held in mid-June in Kassel. The final stage was a round robin among eight players, played July 4-7 in Darmstadt. Both stages featured a 6-point compensation, which produced two draws in the Swiss system and one in the round robin, and helped sort out the standings with less need to use tie-breaking points.

The stars of the first stage were Lukas Krämer, Bernd Radmacher, and Marlon Welter. They beat each other (Lukas beat Bernd, who beat Marlon, who beat Lukas) and won all their other games to take the top three places and proceed to the final stage. Joining them was Mathias Terwey, who won four games and finished fourth.

The round robin began on the morning of July 4 at Darmstadt’s Gastspielhaus, a mecca for players of games ranging from Abenteuer Menschheit to Zug um Zug. Franz-Joseph Dickhut, the oldest contestant at age 44, was now the player to beat: he had won eleven previous German championships, including the last three in a row. His first-round opponent was Lukas, the youngest contestant at age 20. Lukas has compiled an impressive record over the past five years, starting with the German youth championship in 2008, and he now added another victory to it. Bernd Radmacher also made a good start, by beating 2006 German youth champion Johannes Obenaus.

The tournament then moved to the Bertolt-Brecht School. There Lukas beat Johannes on the afternoon of the 4th, took an undisputed lead by downing Jun Tarumi and Benjamin Teuber on the 5th while Bernd lost to Franz-Josef, and clinched the championship with wins over Marlon and Matthias on the 6th, while Bernd lost to Marlon in a dramatic ko fight. Lukas finally dropped a game, to Bernd, in the last round on the 7th, which gave Bernd second place (five wins). Johannes finished third; after losing his first two games, he had scored four wins and a draw.

Full results, pictures, and further information (in German) can be found here.