The two highest-rated women players in Germany played a 6-game match at the 51st edition of the Dortmund Chess Festival. Elisabeth Paehtz managed to keep her small 3-point advantage in the ranking after drawing all six games with Dinara Wagner.
Suitably, the match ended with a completely symmetrical position.
Paehtz and Wagner will play on boards 1 and 2 for Germany at the upcoming Women's Chess Olympiad in Budapest. The German team will enter the event as the 9th seed.
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Three players entered the final round of the A-Open tied for first place with 6½ points each: Anton Korobov, Frederik Svane (the top two seeds in the event) and Nico Zwirs.
On the top board, Svane and Korobov signed a quick, 14-move draw, which was likely to get shared first place in the final standings. However, Zwirs on board 2 made the most of his chances to beat third seed Christopher Yoo and become the outright winner in the 9-round Swiss open.
Out of a Sicilian Najdorf, Yoo actually outplayed his opponent in the opening. Zwirs did not falter under pressure though, and got to place his pawn on h6 - creating problems for his young rival in the ensuing struggle.
The position was close to equal at this point, as Black needs to deal with back rank problems constantly - here, for example, 29...exd4 fails to 30.Qe8+ Rxe8 31.Rxe8#.
Later on, the players entered a pure rook endgame with six pawns per side.
This position is objectively equal, but Zwirs managed to showcase reamarkable technique to eventually outplay his opponent.
Six players finished a half point behind the outright winner, with David Gavrilescu, Yahli Sokolovsky, Evgeny Romanov and Andrey Sumets scoring wins in the final round to catch up with Korobov and Svane.
| Rk. | Name | RtgI | Pts. | TB1 | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | IM | Zwirs, Nico | 2467 | 7,5 | 48 | |
| 2 | GM | Korobov, Anton | 2648 | 7 | 51 | |
| 3 | GM | Svane, Frederik | 2636 | 7 | 49,5 | |
| 4 | GM | Gavrilescu, David | 2534 | 7 | 49 | |
| 5 | GM | Sokolovsky, Yahli | 2522 | 7 | 46,5 | |
| 6 | GM | Romanov, Evgeny | 2567 | 7 | 43 | |
| 7 | GM | Sumets, Andrey | 2507 | 7 | 41,5 | |
| 8 | GM | Quesada Perez, Luis Ernesto | 2576 | 6,5 | 48,5 | |
| 9 | FM | Zuferi, Enis | 2394 | 6,5 | 45,5 | |
| 10 | IM | Meins, Gerlef | 2384 | 6,5 | 44 | |
| 11 | FM | Waldhausen Gordon, Frederick | 2342 | 6,5 | 43,5 | |
| 12 | FM | Gallasch, Jonas | 2260 | 6,5 | 42 | |
| 13 | GM | Mainka, Romuald | 2370 | 6,5 | 38 | |
| 14 | IM | Petrovskyi, Vadim | 2440 | 6 | 50,5 | |
| 15 | GM | Yoo, Christopher Woojin | 2616 | 6 | 49 | |
| 16 | IM | Gkoumas, Georgios | 2450 | 6 | 47,5 | |
| 17 | GM | Vaganian, Rafael A | 2452 | 6 | 47 | |
| 18 | FM | Zemach, Nadav | 2384 | 6 | 46,5 | |
| 19 | IM | Peyrer, Konstantin | 2425 | 6 | 46,5 | |
| 20 | FM | Weishäutel, Moritz | 2400 | 6 | 46 |
