GM Frederik Svane wins after a long battle against GM Quesada Perez (Cuba).
Dinara Wagner showed herself to be perfectly prepared in her opening at the Sparkassen Chess Trophy on Thursday. She knew the Tarrasch opening well and equalised completely early on. Elisabeth Pähtz was left with an Isolani and said afterwards that she had to be careful not to be worse off. But she didn't let anything go wrong and the game ended in a draw. The battle for the German number 1 spot is therefore still on a knife-edge. The final two rounds will be played on Saturday and Sunday with the score at 2-2.
In the A-Open, Frederik Svane fought his way back into the battle for the top spot. After a long period of stalling, he broke through and won against GM Luis Ernesto Quesada Perez, who had been in a super strong performance so far.
‘I already wanted to offer a draw’,
said Frederik Svane after the game. But then his opponent made a tactical error and Svane seized the opportunity immediately and won the endgame after all.
As there was no winner on the top board between GM Anton Korobov and GM David Gavrilescu, Svane was able to close the gap with 5 out of 6. The young grandmaster Christopher Wojin Yoo from the USA also managed this. He uncompromisingly punished Klaudia Kulon's opening treatment:
Oleksandr Kasapchuk from Schachfreunde Brackel is the sole leader of the B-Open of the Sparkassen Chess Trophy after 5 rounds following his victory over Dario Adam. Last year, he missed out on winning the tournament by just half a point, finishing second with a strong 7.5 points from 9 games. This year, he is the only player not to have lost any points and is in the lead before the last two games.