Dortmunder Sparkassen Online Open 2021

"We are pleased to give the international chess community an opportunity to try out the chess variant No Castling Chess within the framework of the Dortmunder Sparkassen Online Open. Just like the NC World Masters between Vladimir Kramnik and Viswanathan Anand, the Open will take place in this format, so we expect trend-setting insights for the chess world and give everyone the chance to try it out here. Attractive prizes await the winners of the tournaments," says tournament director Andreas Jagodzinsky. 

Pre-registration is easy by entering your name, nationality, club and year of birth in the team on lichess: https://lichess.org/team/sparkassen-chess-trophy-dortmund-2021.

You can find the complete announcement here: Sparkassen Online Open - Sparkassen Chess Trophy 2021 (sparkassen-chess-trophy.de)

National player Georg Meier confirmed as fourth German participant

The field of participants for the "Deutschland Grand Prix" continues to take shape: The next long-standing German national player has been confirmed in Georg Meier and will be sitting at the board in Dortmund in July! He has already proven himself in the grandmaster tournaments of the Dortmund Chess Days in his six participations between 2011 and 2018 and is now looking forward to the new format.

He was part of the victorious German team at the 2011 European Championship, playing on the second board and winning the decisive game in the last round against Sergej Movsesjan. He has also been a regular player in the Schachbundesliga for years, since 2017 for SF Deizisau. We are looking forward to his games in the strong Germany Grand Prix and spoke to him briefly in the run-up to it:

GM Daniel Fridman back on the chessboard in Dortmund

He has been one of the strongest chess players in Germany for many years. He has lived in neighbouring Bochum since 1999 and is without question the strongest chess player in the Ruhr region and will thus be the local hero at the Sparkassen Chess Trophy 2021. Fridman will be the third confirmed German participant in the "Deutschland Grand Prix" to compete with the featured top international players. He expects an "exhausting tournament, but one that I'm really looking forward to, because it's going to be very strong and interesting."

Daniel Fridman at the Sparkassen Chess Meeting 2019 | Picture: Georgios Souleidis

Ruslan Ponomariov goes into the "Deutschland Grand Prix" with good memories

In 2010, the Dortmund Super Tournament consisted of 6 grandmasters competing in double rounds. It had reached category 20 and Ruslan Ponomariov caught Peter Leko and Vladimir Kramnik of all people in the first two rounds. But he started with two victories, with the game against Kramnik in particular attracting a lot of attention worldwide and later being named the best game of volume 109 in the Chess Informant. Ponomariov thus played the tournament from the top and in the end won by a full point! 

Of course, this was not his first great success, as he became World Youth Champion U18 at a very young age and as a 19-year-old he won the title of FIDE World Champion in 2002. Since then he has been a fixture in international chess and thus fits perfectly into the field of participants of the Deutschland Grand Prix. "I have very good memories of Dortmund," he says. 

Ruslan Ponomariov in Dortmund 2010 | Picture: Christian Lünig, Arbeitsblende