
From Thursday July 13 to Sunday July 22, 2012 the 41st edition annual Sparkassen
Chess-Meeting is taking place in Dortmund, Germany. It is a ten-player round
robin played. Draw offers are not allowed – a game
can only be declared a draw, by the arbiter, if there is no possible win for
one side, or if a position is repeated three times. The winner of the tournament
will be determined after nine rounds.
Games start at 15:00h = 3 p.m. local time (CEST, = 17:00 Moscow, 14:00 p.m.
London, 9:00 a.m. New York). All games will be broadcast by the official web
site's "Live
Games" page and on the Playchess.com
server. As in the previous year the moves of the Sparkassen Chess-Meeting
will be transmitted on the Internet with a delay of 15 minutes – which
means that the moves stay in the playing hall for that period, before they are
broadcast to the rest of the world. This is an important anti-cheating measure
that has been proposed to FIDE since October 2005 and has the support of most
of the top players. We commend the Dortmund organisers for taking the initiative.
Round three
Round 3: Sunday, July 15, 15:00h |
Peter Leko |
1-0 |
Jan Gustafsson |
Georg Meier |
0-1 |
Ruslan Ponomariov |
Sergey Karjakin |
½-½ |
Arkadij Naiditsch |
Vladimir Kramnik |
1-0 |
Mateusz Bartel |
Fabiano Caruana |
1-0 |
Daniel Fridman |
It was a bloody round, especially for the German representatives as three out of the four lost their games today. The only one to come out unscathed was Arkadij Naiditsch who held Sergey Karjakin to a draw with black. Whether or not Jan Gustafsson was unrecovered from his game the day before, he never seemed comfortable in his game against Peter Leko, and lost.

Naiditsch was the only home player to survive
Georg Meier somehow managed to find his queen stranded on his kingside under the fire of Ruslan Ponomariov's pieces, and as a result, not only did he find her kicked all the way from g4 to a7, but the Ukrainian used all these tempi to bust open the German's kingside as well.

Meier found his queen chased to the other side of the board by Ponomariov
Fabiano Caruana once again showed his strong nerves as he bounced back from his loss against Ponomariov with fine technique against Daniel Fridman as he outplayed him in the endgame and brought home the bacon. One wonders whether he can keep it up as he has played 92 classical games this year so far. And people thought Ivanchuk played a lot...

It has been a rough test of fire for Bartel as he plays his first elite round-robin
Mateusz Bartel has had as rough a start as can get, losing his first three games, but to be fair, he also played the two top rated players, Karjakin and Kramnik, which has not made it any easier.

A promising start for Kramnik
After three rounds, Vladimir Kramnik and Ruslan Ponomariov have taken the early lead with 2.5/3.
Standings after three rounds

Schedule and results
Round 1: Friday, July 13, 15:00h |
Daniel Fridman |
½-½ |
Jan Gustafsson |
Peter Leko |
½-½ |
Ruslan Ponomariov |
Fabiano Caruana |
½-½ |
Arkadij Naiditsch |
Georg Meier |
1-0 |
Mateusz Bartel |
Sergey Karjakin |
½-½ |
Vladimir Kramnik |
|
Round 2: Saturday, July 14, 15:00h |
Jan Gustafsson |
0-1 |
Vladimir Kramnik |
Ruslan Ponomariov |
1-0 |
Fabiano Caruana |
Arkadij Naiditsch |
½-½ |
Georg Meier |
Mateusz Bartel |
0-1 |
Sergey Karjakin |
Daniel Fridman |
½-½ |
Peter Leko |
|
Round 3: Sunday, July 15, 15:00h |
Peter Leko |
1-0 |
Jan Gustafsson |
Georg Meier |
0-1 |
Ruslan Ponomariov |
Sergey Karjakin |
½-½ |
Arkadij Naiditsch |
Vladimir Kramnik |
1-0 |
Mateusz Bartel |
Fabiano Caruana |
1-0 |
Daniel Fridman |
|
Round 4: Monday, July 16, 15:00h |
Jan Gustafsson |
|
Mateusz Bartel |
Ruslan Ponomariov |
|
Sergey Karjakin |
Arkadij Naiditsch |
|
Vladimir Kramnik |
Daniel Fridman |
|
Georg Meier |
Peter Leko |
|
Fabiano Caruana |
|
Round 5: Tuesday, July 17, 15:00h |
Fabiano Caruana |
|
Jan Gustafsson |
Vladimir Kramnik |
|
Ruslan Ponomariov |
Mateusz Bartel |
|
Arkadij Naiditsch |
Sergey Karjakin |
|
Daniel Fridman |
Georg Meier |
|
Peter Leko |
|
Round 6: Thursday, July 19, 15:00h |
Jan Gustafsson |
|
Arkadij Naiditsch |
Ruslan Ponomariov |
|
Mateusz Bartel |
Peter Leko |
|
Vladimir Kramnik |
Georg Meier |
|
Sergey Karjakin |
Fabiano Caruana |
|
Georg Meier |
|
Round 7: Friday, July 20, 15:00h |
Georg Meier |
|
Jan Gustafsson |
Arkadij Naiditsch |
|
Ruslan Ponomariov |
Mateusz Bartel |
|
Daniel Fridman |
Vladimir Kramnik |
|
Peter Leko |
Sergey Karjakin |
|
Fabiano Caruana |
|
Round 8: Saturday, July 21, 15:00h |
Jan Gustafsson |
|
Ruslan Ponomariov |
Daniel Fridman |
|
Arkadij Naiditsch |
Peter Leko |
|
Mateusz Bartel |
Fabiano Caruana |
|
Vladimir Kramnik |
Georg Meier |
|
Sergey Karjakin |
|
Round 9: Sunday, July 22, 13:00h |
Sergey Karjakin |
|
Jan Gustafsson |
Ruslan Ponomariov |
|
Daniel Fridman |
Arkadij Naiditsch |
|
Peter Leko |
Mateusz Bartel |
|
Fabiano Caruana |
Vladimir Kramnik |
|
Georg Meier |
|
Previous reports
Copyright
ChessBase