The three-time winner of the International Dortmund Chess Days will return to the Westfalenhallen Dortmund in 2023 for the 50th anniversary! World Championship challenger Fabiano Caruana (photo: Dortmunder Schachtage 2016, by Gerhard Hund) won the Chess Days in 2012, 2014 and 2015. In June he will compete in No Castling Chess for the first time.
The NC World Masters celebrated its premiere in 2021 with the match Viswanathan Anand vs. Vladimir Kramnik (photo), which Anand narrowly won. In 2022 Dmitrij Kollars celebrated the biggest success of his career by winning the four-player tournament ahead of Anand.
This summer, the organisers will be able to raise the level in the NC World Masters once again: world-class player Fabiano Caruana completes the four-player field. Caruana won the Candidates Tournament in Berlin in 2018 and then played Magnus Carlsen for the World Championship title, only losing in rapid tiebreak. The World Championship challenger dominated the International Dortmund Chess Days in 2014 and 2015 in particular: he won both tournaments in outstanding fashion with 5.5 points from 7 games. Caruana's last participation in Dortmund so far was in 2016, when he finished third in the Grandmaster tournament.
The following 4 players will compete in a double round robin on the stage in the Goldsaal from 26 June in No Castling Chess:
Vladimir Kramnik, 10-time winner of Chess Days
Fabiano Caruana, 3-time winner of the Chess Days
Pavel Eljanov, 2-time winner of the Chess Days
Dmitrij Kollars, defending champion in the NC World Masters
The organising association Initiative pro Schach e.V. has thus not only put together a world-class field, but also invited outstanding players of the past tournament years to the 50th anniversary. This underlines the historical significance of the chess festival for the region and the chess world.
The exact pairings will be made well in advance of the tournament start. Spectators and participants in the open tournaments will again have the chance to get very close to the stars in Dortmund. The A-Open will be played in the same room, the Goldsaal of the Dortmund Westfalenhallen, as the NC World Masters.