Dortmund: Kramnik beats Caruana, takes the lead

Mr Dortmund bounces back

After his defeat in a spectacular game in the second round, Vladimir Kramnik bounced back on Wednesday with a brilliant positional performance.

After the Mayor of Dortmund, Norbert Schilff, made the symbolic first move for him, Kramnik opted for a quieter approach with white and gained a small advantage in the No-Castling Chess format against current world number 3 Fabiano Caruana. Slowly but surely, he extended the advantage and won the endgame.

Master Class Vol.11: Vladimir Kramnik

This DVD allows you to learn from the example of one of the best players in the history of chess and from the explanations of the authors (Pelletier, Marin, Müller and Reeh) how to successfully organise your games strategically, consequently how to keep y

Afterwards, Kramnik was a guest of Artur Yusupov and Fiona Steil-Antoni in the commentators’ booth and analysed his victory in depth:

The big winner of the previous round, Dmitry Kollars, again got a promising position. But again the piece play was chaotic on the board and this time it was his opponent who grabbed the initiative. In the end, Pavel Eljanov won the game.

In total, there has only been one draw in the NC World Masters during the first three rounds, a very unusual occurrence in classical chess at the world-class level.

Standings - Round 3

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A-Open: Mendonca joins the lead

In the A-Open, Alexander Donchenko was able to surprise his opponent Aryan Chopra in the opening with Black: “I didn’t expect ...Bd7, then I switched the variations in my mind. I shouldn’t have exchanged on d7 so early”, the Indian grandmaster said afterwards. The game was thus quickly equalised and ended in a draw, with which Donchenko seemed very satisfied.

Another young Indian grandmaster, Leon Luke Mendonca, joined the leading group by beating his compatriot Pranav Anand.

Matthias Blübaum and Michael Adams fought for a long time for the full point, but both had to be content with splitting points. Young Ihor Samunenkov in particular thrilled the spectators with a wild game against Adams.

Aryan Chopra | Photo: Michelle Lassak

Standings - Round 5

Middlegame Secrets Vol.1 + Vol.2

Let us learn together how to find the best spot for the queen in the early middlegame, how to navigate this piece around the board, how to time the queen attack, how to decide whether to exchange it or not, and much more!

...328 players

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Sportland NRW Cup: Köllner wins again

Ruben Gideon Köllner continues to impress in the Sportland NRW Cup. Köllner defeated International Master and YouTuber Georgios Souleidis, which means he has accumulated 4 wins from 5 games, with one draw to his name.

Both players agreed that Black had good chances in the middlegame. However, Souleidis should not have captured the weak pawn on h6, and instead should have gone more consistently for the white king.

Köllner, aged 19, is thus one point ahead of the rest of the field and is on course to achieve a valuable grandmaster norm. To achieve it, 7 points from 9 games are necessary.

Dinara Wagner ultimately had to settle for half a point against GM Karthik Venkataraman from a position in which the German had a strategic advantage in the middlegame.

Ruben Gideon Köllner | Photo: Michelle Lassak

Standings - Round 5

Attack like a Super Grandmaster

In this Fritztrainer: “Attack like a Super GM” with Gukesh we touch upon all aspects of his play, with special emphasis on how you can become a better attacking player.

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Links

• Official site
• No-Castling Masters: Kramnik and Caruana will play in Dortmund