Vladimir Kramnik is the 14th World Chess Champion in history from 2000 to 2007 and the undisputed record winner of the International Dortmund Chess Days. Kramnik has celebrated 10 tournament victories in his "living room". His very first participation was in Dortmund in 1992 in the A-Open, before he won the grandmaster tournament for the first time in 1995.

Kramnik officially ended his chess career in 2018. In 2021 he returned to the stage of the Westfalenhallen for his match against Viswanathan Anand due to the venue and the special chess variant "No Castling Chess" in Dortmund. Kramnik is a big proponent of the chess variant and researched it together with DeepMind at the beginning.

Fabiano Caruana is the 2018 World Championship challenger and three-time winner of the International Dortmund Chess Days. He won the grandmaster tournaments in Dortmund in 2012, 2014 and 2015. After being ahead by fine rating in 2012, Caruana dominated the tournaments in 2014 and 2015, scoring 5.5 points from 7 games in both years.

His highest Elo rating was 2844, having played a historic Elo performance of 3103 in the 2014 Sinquefield Cup. In 2018 he won the Candidates Tournament in Berlin, qualifying for his World Championship match against Carlsen, which he lost in a tiebreak. Caruana has been in the top ten of the world rankings for many years. (Foto source: Wikipedia)

Pavel Eljanov was the outstanding player of the last two International Dortmund Chess Days: in 2021 and 2022 he won the grandmaster tournament of the Sparkassen Chess Trophy.

His current Elo rating is 2704, with a maximum of 2765 in 2016, when he was ranked in the top 20 in the world. An outstanding result was his entry into the semi-finals of the World Cup in 2015. Eljanov has participated for Ukraine in all the Chess Olympiads since 2004. He was part of the team in Ukraine's victories in 2004 and 2010. In addition to the Dortmund Chess Days, he won numerous other individual tournaments. He is no longer only active as a player, but also as a chess coach worldwide.

Dmitrij Kollars is the defending champion: in 2022 he won the NC World Masters on fine rating ahead of Viswanathan Anand after his final round victory over Daniel Fridman. He had moved up into the tournament, quickly adapted to the new rules of play without castling and showed the most successful and combative chess. In 2021 he narrowly missed winning the grandmaster tournament, finishing second behind Pavel Eljanov.

Kollars is 23 years young and already a German national player. His highest Elo rating to date was 2648. He is a regular player in the Schachbundesliga for SF Deizisau.