Echesspedia

Black Forest spa town in Baden-Württemberg, southwestern Germany which organized two outstanding tournaments.

In 1870 (18.07-04.08) Baden-Baden was the first International tournament organized in Germany and the first to be interrupted by war (Franco-Prussian war). The first prize was 3,000 francs. This tournament was the first to introduce chess clocks, but the players had the option of using hour-glasses. All the great players were there except George Mackenzie. Adolf Anderssen was declared the winner with 11/16 followed by Wilheim Steinitz 10½, Joseph Blackburne and Gustav Neumann 10. There were 10 players in all.

In 1925 (16.04-13.05), the event was the first International tournament in Germany after World War I. Without Emanuel Lasker and Raoul Capablanca, Alexander Alekhine was the winner with 16 points ahead of Akiba Rubinstein 14½ and Friedrich Sämisch and Efim Bogoljubow 13½.
A minor tournament won by Spielmann was also organized in 1913.

Since 1980 there has been an annual organized Chess festival.
The main winners have included:
1981 Anthony Miles and Zoltan Ribli; 1982 Slobodan Martinovic; 1987 Lubomir Ftacnik; 1988 Vitaly Tsheskovsky; 1989 Nikolay Ninov; 1990 Alexander Goldin; 1991 Tamaz Georgadze; 1992 Anatoly Karpov; 1993 Philipp Schlosser & Stefan Kindermann; 1995 (Rapid Chess) Anatoly Karpov, 1997 Viktor Korchnoi.
More recently an Open Swiss tournament has been yearly organized.

In 2006, the  club of OSC Baden-Baden became the best team in Bundesliga winning the 2005/6, 2006/7, 2007/8, 2008/2009, 2009/2010 and 2010/2011 championships with Vishy Anand, Peter Svidler, Alexy Shirov, Etienne Barcrot, Magnus Carlsen and many other top players.

The team champion in 2006.