On the second board of the A-Open at the 50th International Dortmund Chess Festival, Germany’s number 2 and number 3 were faced against each other: Alexander Donchenko had white against 2022 European champion Matthias Blübaum.
With deep opening preparation and great positional skill, Donchenko won the game after three hours. “I’m very happy that I finally won a tournament game against Matthias”, Donchenko said afterwards. He then explained the game to press officer Patrick Zelbel.
Check out the post-game interview (in German) on the festival’s YouTube channel | Photo: Michelle Lassak
Since Indian grandmasters Aryan Chopra and Leon Luke Mendonca drew their game on the top board, Donchenko is now the sole leader and the favourite to win the A-Open of the 2023 Dortmund Festival. Mendonca, who has been touring chess tournaments in Europe for around four months, praised his opponent’s idea of placing the queen on a8. Chopra thus equalised with black.
Michael Adams played at his regular spot, the third board, and had to settle for a draw in his game with the black pieces against Indian GM Raja Rithvik.
A particularly rare occurrence was seen on the board-12 encounter between Dennis Wagner and Enis Zuferi. The German grandmaster moved his rook to a4 and back on moves 11 and 12 before castling long on move 21. Neither of the players noticed this rule violation, and White won the game despite having castled illegally.
| Rk. | Name | Rtg | Pts. | TB1 | ||
| 1 | GM | Donchenko,Alexander, | 2667 | 5,5 | 21,5 | |
| 2 | GM | Aryan Chopra, | 2626 | 5 | 23 | |
| 3 | GM | Svane,Frederik, | 2622 | 5 | 22 | |
| 4 | GM | Mendonca,Leon Luke, | 2623 | 5 | 21 | |
| 5 | GM | Raja Harshit, | 2510 | 5 | 19 | |
| 6 | FM | Seemann,Jakub, | 2446 | 5 | 18,5 | |
| 7 | IM | Samunenkov,Ihor, | 2499 | 5 | 18,5 | |
| 8 | GM | Adams,Michael, | 2666 | 4,5 | 22,5 | |
| 9 | GM | Kobo,Ori, | 2556 | 4,5 | 21 | |
| 10 | GM | Ponomariov,Ruslan, | 2664 | 4,5 | 21 | |
| 11 | IM | Vogel,Roven, | 2461 | 4,5 | 20,5 | |
| 12 | IM | Guo,Arthur, | 2445 | 4,5 | 20,5 | |
| 13 | IM | Dudin,Gleb, | 2486 | 4,5 | 20,5 | |
| 14 | GM | Svane,Rasmus, | 2625 | 4,5 | 19,5 | |
| 15 | IM | Souhardo Basak, | 2400 | 4,5 | 19,5 | |
| 16 | GM | Pranav Anand, | 2510 | 4,5 | 19,5 | |
| 17 | GM | Safarli,Eltaj, | 2609 | 4,5 | 19,5 | |
| 18 | GM | Raja Rithvik R, | 2488 | 4,5 | 19 | |
| 19 | GM | Bailet,Pierre, | 2513 | 4,5 | 19 | |
| 20 | IM | Wadsworth,Matthew J, | 2431 | 4,5 | 19 |
Replay games from all rounds at Live.ChessBase.com
All eyes were on the game facing 11-year-old Hussain Besou aginst Dinara Wagner in the Sportland NRW Cup. Besou, playing white, blitzed out his moves in the opening, as he went for a piece sacrifice in the Najdorf Sicilian. But then he confused move orders and quickly had no compensation at all for the piece. Wagner easily converted her advantage to win the game, and thus caught Ruben Köllner atop the standings.
Köllner faced Dutch FM Artur de Winter. De Winter’s tournament start didn’t go according to plan, but today he played a nice game and checkmated Köllner in style.
Karthik Venkataraman is a half point behind the leading duo after his win over Jana Schneider, who is in the cellar of the standings. Meanwhile, Georgios Souleidis failed to gain an advantage in the opening against GM Mihail Saltaev, and the game quickly ended in a draw.
Tomorrow morning, the cancelled game between Besou and Vadim Petrovskiy (from round 6) will be played.
Dinara Wagner is sharing the lead | Photo: Michelle Lassak
| Rk. | Name | Rtg | Pts. | TB1 | ||
| 1 | IM | Köllner,Ruben Gideon, | 2429 | 4,5 | 4 | |
| 2 | WGM | Wagner,Dinara, | 2447 | 4,5 | 3 | |
| 3 | GM | Karthik Venkataraman, | 2548 | 4 | 3 | |
| 4 | IM | Souleidis,Georgios, | 2419 | 3,5 | 2 | |
| 5 | FM | De Winter,Arthur, | 2378 | 3 | 2 | |
| 6 | FM | Besou,Hussain, | 2325 | 2,5 | 1 | |
| 7 | GM | Saltaev,Mihail, | 2462 | 2,5 | 1 | |
| 8 | IM | Petrovskiy,Vadim, | 2423 | 2 | 1 | |
| 9 | GM | Bagrationi,Alexander, | 2454 | 2 | 1 | |
| 10 | FM | Schneider,Jana, | 2326 | 0,5 | 0 |
