The Grandmaster Tournament of the Chess Days remains a top-class event also after the 2002 Candidates Tournament. Summer after summer, several world-class players are now drawn to Dortmund. First and foremost the current World Champion Vladimir Kramnik, who will play in Dortmund every year until the end of his career in 2018. Kramnik is enough as a drawing card and advertising medium, but in sporting terms a superstar is not enough for a top tournament. The tournament, which is top-class on paper, is held in 2010 with an average of 2734 Elo points.

The organisers around tournament director Jürgen Grastat, who was to lead his last chess days this year, wanted to make the 2002 Dortmund Sparkassen Chess Meeting an outstanding sporting event. They succeeded in doing so not only with the support of the title sponsor Stadtsparkasse Dortmund, but also with the additional sponsor "Einstein Gruppe". Thus the World Championship Candidates Tournament was brought to Dortmund in 2002.

After perhaps the biggest event in 50 years of the International Dortmund Chess Days in 1992 with the winner Gary Kasparov, the organisers around Kolbe, Grastat, Hensel and co. have to change their approach: The 21st Chess Days in 1993 are threatened with cancellation due to a budget shortfall. But the city council and the Stadtsparkasse Dortmund grant subsidies so that the 1993 tournament can take place: The winner was the 12th world champion in chess history, Anatoly Karpov.

After the successful start of the Chess Days and growing events in the 1980s, the 19th International Dortmund Chess Days are the last under the direction of Eugen Schackmann. He hands over to Gerd Kolbe as event director and he brings Carsten Hensel into the event team. Together with Jürgen Grastat, they want to turn the Chess Days into something great. 1992 marks the high point. The Dortmund press ran the headline "Kasparov can come".