After District Mayor Peter Spineux opened the round, Dinara Wagner in particular got off to an uncompromising start. Dinara Wagner celebrated her first victory in the International Women's Tournament – and did so with a convincing performance.
Against Deimantė Daulytė-Cornette (France), Wagner played an attacking game with black from the Najdorf variation in the Sicilian and checkmated her opponent in the middle game. Her relief was evident:
‘Yesterday's victory in the blitz tournament definitely gave me a boost – I gained confidence there,’ said Wagner after the game.
The 15-year-old Lu Miaoyi from China continues to excel in the closed tournament. She finally fended off all of Elisabeth Pähtz's attacks after 5 hours of play and has thus won all three tournament games so far. At the halfway point of the tournament, it looks like the world's best U18 junior player will emerge victorious. Elisabeth Pähtz remains in second place, but is now 1.5 points behind. Round 4 will follow in the afternoon at 3 p.m., before a rest day on Friday and the two decisive final rounds on the weekend.
In the A-Open, the field remains tightly packed at the top, as no player has a clean slate after five rounds. The number of leaders rose from three to five, as two International Masters joined the group after the three leaders from the preliminary round could only manage draws. The top matches of the day all ended in draws: European Champion Matthias Blübaum and Kazakh Grandmaster Rinat Jumabayev shared the point, as did Dmitrij Kollars and Luis Engel (photo) on board 2.
The game between Kollars and Engel was particularly competitive, with both players trying to win. Engel was already German Individual Champion and German Masters winner, but recently completed his law degree. Now he wants to concentrate on his chess career for a year. He has made a very successful start in Dortmund.
Nitish Belurkar (India) and Ashot Parvanyan (Germany), who have played very strongly so far, seized the opportunity, with Parvanyan defeating German youth star Marius Deuer after a complicated game. Both IMs are now not only in contention for the main prizes, but also on course for GM norms.
Nahornyi and Makoveienko lead with 5 out of 5
In the B Open of the International Dortmund Chess Days, the decision for the tournament victory is as open as it is exciting: after five rounds, two players are leading with a perfect score. Ihor Nahornyi won the top match against the number one seed Tim Geist, thus consolidating his clean slate. Mykhaylo Makoveienko (photo) also remains undefeated and is playing an outstanding tournament: he has already defeated three nominally stronger opponents – and in round 5 he also managed to score a full point. The two undefeated players will face each other directly in the next round on Thursday.
Close behind is last year's winner Oleksandr Kasapchuk, who is lying in wait with 4.5 points.
There was a curious pairing on board 53, where eleven-year-old twin brothers Maxim and Milan faced each other – a special duel that Maxim won. The B Open is entering its final three rounds, with eight games to be played and the winners to be decided on Saturday.