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In the No Castling World Masters, Vladimir Kramnik convincingly defeated Dmitrij Kollars in the final round. He took revenge for his defeat in the first game against the German grandmaster. “I don’t know Dmitrij’s rating at all, but he has potential for 2700”, Kramnik said, as he spoke highly of Kollars afterwards.
This result put Fabiano Caruana under pressure to defend his lead in the standings. The opening phase went better for Pavel Eljanov, but before the time control on move 40, the Ukrainian squandered his advantage. In the end, Caruana was able to settle into a rook ending with an extra pawn and converted his advantage.
He thus ended the NC World Masters of the 50th Dortmund Chess Festival as the winner with a half-point lead over Kramnik. Kramnik was nevertheless satisfied: “I played entertaining and — as runner-up — successful chess. It was a very nice tournament.”
The A-Open of the Sparkassen Chess Trophy was a complete success for the German players. Frederik Svane played a very strong tournament, taking 7½ points from 9 games after drawing with black in the final round against Gleb Dudin. Dudin was one of the surprises of the tournament as he earned his second GM norm thanks to his performance.
But then Alexander Donchenko fought his way to victory with an insane display of energy in the final game. Donchenko previaled in an endgame after 5½ hours against Ori Kobo, caught Svane in the lead and won the tournament thanks to his tiebreak score.
Alexander Donchenko
| Rk. | Name | RtgI | Pts. | TB1 | ||
| 1 | GM | Donchenko,Alexander, | 2667 | 7,5 | 52 | |
| 2 | GM | Svane,Frederik, | 2603 | 7,5 | 52 | |
| 3 | GM | Mendonca,Leon Luke, | 2623 | 7 | 51 | |
| 4 | GM | Svane,Rasmus, | 2616 | 7 | 50 | |
| 5 | IM | Dudin,Gleb, | 2486 | 7 | 47 | |
| 6 | GM | Prohaszka,Peter, | 2585 | 7 | 45,5 | |
| 7 | GM | Pranav Anand, | 2510 | 7 | 44,5 | |
| 8 | GM | Aryan Chopra, | 2626 | 6,5 | 52 | |
| 9 | GM | Blübaum,Matthias, | 2672 | 6,5 | 50 | |
| 10 | IM | Rathanvel,V S, | 2463 | 6,5 | 49 | |
| 11 | GM | Raja Rithvik R, | 2488 | 6,5 | 48 | |
| 12 | IM | Guo,Arthur, | 2445 | 6,5 | 47 | |
| 13 | IM | Muthaiah AL, | 2439 | 6,5 | 47 | |
| 14 | IM | Vogel,Roven, | 2458 | 6,5 | 46 | |
| 15 | IM | Samunenkov,Ihor, | 2499 | 6,5 | 44,5 |
The only competition decided eather early was the Sportland NRW Cup 2023: Dinara Wagner was excellently prepared and gained an early advantage against her pursuer Ruben Gideon Köllner. “In a better position, I offered a draw and secured the tournament win”, Wagner said after the game.
She thus earned her second GM norm.
Dinara Wagner
| Rk. | Name | Rtg | Pts. | TB1 | ||
| 1 | WGM | Wagner,Dinara, | 2447 | 7 | 5 | |
| 2 | GM | Karthik Venkataraman, | 2548 | 6,5 | 5 | |
| 3 | IM | Köllner,Ruben Gideon, | 2429 | 6,5 | 5 | |
| 4 | IM | Souleidis,Georgios, | 2419 | 4,5 | 3 | |
| 5 | FM | De Winter,Arthur, | 2378 | 4,5 | 3 | |
| 6 | IM | Petrovskyi,Vadym, | 2423 | 4,5 | 3 | |
| 7 | FM | Besou,Hussain, | 2325 | 4 | 1 | |
| 8 | GM | Bagrationi,Alexander, | 2454 | 3,5 | 2 | |
| 9 | GM | Saltaev,Mihail, | 2462 | 3 | 1 | |
| 10 | FM | Schneider,Jana, | 2326 | 1 | 0 |
