In the NC World Masters of the 50th International Dortmund Chess Days, German participant Dmitrij Kollars faced world no. 3 Fabiano Caruana. Kollars played a fantastic game with Black, and had a dangerous passed pawn on c2.
But after almost 4 hours of play, he didn't find the possible winning way after the time control and allowed a move repetition to draw. "I was even luckier than I thought at the board," Caruana said after analysing the game: Analysis with Fabiano Caruana
The opening move of the round was made by Stefan Koth, Managing Director of the organising club Initiative Pro Schach e.V.. Vladimir Kramnik then played an extremely complicated game against Pavel Eljanov. The format of chess without castling contributes noticeably to the entertaining nature of the duels. In time trouble on both sides before move 40, Kramnik kept the better overview. But he could not make use of his advantage and Eljanov drew after 5.5 hours. Kramnik now leads the field by a narrow margin with 2.5 points from 4 games. Kramnik already ended his active tournament career in 2019. In the special format and due to his attachment to Dortmund, he is now playing at the Schachtage for the second time after the end of his career. On Saturday, the highlight will be Caruana against Kramnik at 3 pm.
The A-Open of the Sparkassen Chess Trophy continues to be led by Alexander Donchenko, who drew with Black against the young Indian Leon Luke Mendonca (photo of the game analysis). This allowed Frederik Svane to catch up on points with a win. But Aryen Chopra is also tied on points with the two at the top after he converted his extra pawn after a long fight against his compatriot Raja Harshit.
On Saturday the match between Frederik Svane and Aryan Chopra will take place on the top board, while Alexander Donchenko will play against Frederik's brother Rasmus Svane on the second board in the duel of the national players. The penultimate round will then be about the best starting position for the tournament victory.
Hussain Besou fought for a long time for the full point against Jana Schneider. But she defended tenaciously and the 11-year-old had to be satisfied with half a point. Dinara Wagner was able to score a full point in the long-distance duel for the top of the table with Ruben Köllner: impressively she outplayed the youngster Vadym Petrovskyi from after a Catalan opening. Köllner, meanwhile, played an even game against GM Venkataraman.
So Wagner has the best chances of winning the tournament and a GM norm, which is an ambitious 7 points from 9 games. For that she now needs 1.5 points from the final two rounds.