Dortmund Rd5 – Karjakin joins Kramnik and Ponomariov for lead

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 four

Karjakin might have hoped to take the lead by beating Ponomariov, but it was not to be

The fourth round was at best lukewarm, and while no criticism is being leveled at the players, the fact is that all the games ended in draws, and nearly all resulted in an exercise in symmetry. The upside of all this was that it meant a break in the losing streak by both Bartel and Gustafsson, who faced off against each other.

Neither player came very inspired and who could blame them?

Round five

The fifth round was another story altogether. The joint leaders Vladimir Kramnik and Ruslan Ponomariov clashed, but neither was able to gain anything significant, and while they certainly prodded each other’s position, the draw was no surprise. Georg Meier and Peter Leko also drew, but that is where the peaceful results ended.

Sergey Karjakin took advantage of Daniel Fridman's first mistake and joined the leaders

Daniel Fridman suffered a loss after a decisive mistake allowed Sergey Karjakin to penetrate the 7th with his rooks. He had few chances and was forced to capitulate, allowing the young Russian to join the leaders at the top with 3.5/5.

You'd never think those hunched shoulders of Fabiano Caruana hid a confident predator
just waiting to pounce on his opponent Jan Gustafsson.

Standings after five rounds

Schedule and results

Links Official tournament site All games in PGN The games are being broadcast live on the official web site and on the chess server Playchess.com. If you are not a member you can download a free Playchess client there and get immediate access. You can also use ChessBase 11 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs.

Previous reports

• ChessBase reports on Dortmund 2011
• ChessBase reports on Dortmund 2010
• ChessBase reports on Dortmund 2009
• ChessBase reports on Dortmund 2008
• ChessBase reports on Dortmund 2007
• ChessBase reports on Dortmund 2006
• ChessBase reports on Dortmund 2005
• ChessBase reports on Dortmund 2004
• ChessBase reports on Dortmund 2003

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