8/11/2024 – The 51st edition of the Dortmund Chess Festival kicked off on Saturday, with the start of the A-Open and the B-Open tournaments. Most favourites prevailed, though a few of them only managed a draw. Sunday will see the start of the 6-game match between Elisabeth Paehtz and Dinara Wagner, the two highest-rated women players in Germany. | Pictured: Luc Zimmermann from the Netherlands | Photos: Official website
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By opting for a fianchetto setup, you embrace unbalanced and strategically rich positions, steering away from predictable theory battles.
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A good atmosphere
The first day of the 51st International Dortmund Chess Days Festival saw the first round of the B-Open and A-Open. For the most part, the favourites prevailed, but there were also some initial surprises.
In the A-Open, GM Anton Korobov and GM Frederik Svane played the games on the stage in the Alte Schmiede cultural centre. Korobov had problems making it to Dortmund due to a cancelled flight, but was completely convincing despite the stressful journey. He clearly outplayed his opponent, Levi Malinowsky, and won his game with white convincingly.
In a total of 6 chapters, we look at the following aspects: the right decision based on tactical factors, decisions in exchanges and moves, complex and psychological decisions in longer games and in defence.
Svane, on his part, had already been in Dortmund since the previous evening. He had a much tougher time against Luk Zimmermann in the first round. Zimmerman had a promising middlegame position, but spent too much time - from move 28, he lost the thread with little time left to think and went on to lose the game.
On board 3, rising star Christopher Woojin Yoo (17 years young) played against the even younger Jan Morawski (13). Although the 2600 grandmaster from the USA, Yoo, had an extra pawn, Morawski's queen and knight tandem was very solid. After 5 hours, Yoo was able to break through the defence and win the game.
The tournament favourites thus got through the first round unscathed. However, Fabian Schaller, among others, was able to achieve a success against a higher-rated opponent by securing a draw against GM Yahli Sokolovsky.
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
There was a wild game on the top board in the B-Open, in which the first seed Bernhard Zoremba from Dortmund club SV Eichlinghofen prevailed in the end.
The first surprise came from Helge Prause on board 6, as he outplayed his opponent, who has a rating 250 TWZ points higher than Prause's. The first 20 boards of the two open tournaments will be broadcast live this year.
Bernhard Zoremba
All available games - B-Open
The good atmosphere at the Chess Festival was particularly positive: bright sunshine, a punctual start to the tournament, a large foyer to analyse and relax, and a barbecue in the outdoor area awaited visitors.
Spectators are also welcome over the coming days. Tomorrow, the match between the German grandmasters Elisabeth Paehtz and Dinara Wagner will start on the main stage. From the second day of the tournament, GM Artur Yusupov will commentate the top games live in the upper tier of the foyer from 4 pm.
In this video course experts examine the games of Bent Larsen. Let them show you which openings Larsen chose, where his strength in middlegames were, how he outplayed his opponents in the endgame & you’ll get a glimpse of his tactical abilities!
From the 2026 Candidates Tournament, featuring a video review by Dorian Rogozenco, to Jan Werle’s opening video on the French Tarrasch Defence, and Oliver Reeh’s tactical column ‘Top Grandmasters at Work’. Analyses by Giri, So, Wei Yi and many others.
You will learn how Black's dynamic piece activity and structural counterplay more than compensate for White's extra tempo in the colour-reversed setups.
In this course, you’ll learn how to take the initiative against the London and prevent White from comfortably playing their usual system by playing 1.d4 Nf6 2.Bf4 Nh5.
London System Powerbase 2026 is a database and contains in all 11 285 games from Mega 2026 and the Correspondence Database 2026, of which 282 are annotated.
The London System Powerbook 2026 is based on more than 410 000 games or game fragments from different opening moves and ECO codes; what they all have in common is that White plays d4 and Bf4 but does not play c4.
In this course, Grandmaster Elisabeth Pähtz presents the London System, a structured and ambitious approach based on the immediate Bf4, leading to rich and dynamic positions.
€59.90
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