Andreas Heimann gets his chance in the Deutschland Grand Prix

Luke McShane was very much looking forward to the Grandmaster Tournament as part of the Sparkassen Chess Trophy - 48th International Dortmund Chess Days - which starts next Tuesday. Although the entry regulations between England and Germany were somewhat simplified yesterday - England has been downgraded from a risk variant area to a high incidence area as of today - participation is no longer feasible. The required quarantine of five full days, the PCR tests to be carried out in advance and the travel preparations now make McShane's participation practically impossible. Tournament director Andreas Jagodzinsky had been trying to get a special permit for McShane in order to avoid the quarantine.

In the end, there was a positive decision from the Ministry of the Interior yesterday, but there were hardly any practical possibilities for the English top player to fulfil all time and organisational conditions to come to Dortmund. McShane regrets this very much, as he is in top shape, wanted to play at all costs and thought he had a good chance in the tournament.

AlphaZero to analyse “no-castling” match of the champions

For the first time, the internationally-renowned chess tournament Dortmund Chess Days will host a special match between legends Vladimir Kramnik and Viswanathan Anand playing the "No-Castling" chess format. The rich, creative possibilities of this chess variant were recently explored by the ground-breaking artificial intelligence system AlphaZero, created by world-leading AI company DeepMind. Online audiences will now get to experience novel AlphaZero insights first hand in the post match-commentary of the no-castling tournament, as part of DeepMind’s support for Dortmund Chess Days. Demis Hassabis, DeepMind Founder and CEO, says: "It’s been incredibly exciting to see world-class players like Vladimir Kramnik use AlphaZero to explore new possibilities for the game of chess. I’m looking forward to seeing two former world champions play the no castling variant in Dortmund and hope the games - and AlphaZero’s insights - inspire chess players everywhere”.

Chess world looks forward to exciting games in Dortmund 2021

The fields of participants for the three events of the Sparkassen Chess Trophy 2021 are fixed and we reported. The draw of the lots has now taken place, this year only as an online draw due to the pandemic. This has the advantage that the draw was completely recorded and can be found here: 

YouTube

In the first No Castling Match, Vishy Anand will start the first game with White and it is of particular suspense how both sides will open this match on 14 July. 
Furthermore, the complete pairings for the NC World Masters, the Deutschland Grand Prix and the Sportland NRW Cup can now be found on the respective tournament page.

German grandmaster completes the field of 10 participants

He is 21 years old, already has a number of successes to his name and has passed the magic 2600 mark with his FIDE rating: Dmitrij Kollars, who is looking forward to his first appearance at the Sparkassen Chess Trophy in July. He was already awarded the grandmaster title in 2017 and has also been active in the German Bundesliga for several years. Last year, the professional chess player was able to play only few tournaments at the board, but won the strong Claus Dieter Meyer Memorial Tournament in Bremen in October. His last appearance at the "DSB-Kader-Challenge" was also successful, so Kollars will go into the Dortmund tournament quite optimistic. 

So the ten participants are fixed: Deutschland Grand Prix - Sparkassen Chess Trophy 2021 (sparkassen-chess-trophy.de)

The draw of the lots for the rounds will also take place shortly so that the players can prepare specifically for the tournament.