The Black players had big problems in the fifth round of the NC World Masters of the Sparkassen Chess Trophy 2023: Fabiano Caruana and Dmitrij Kollars beat Vladimir Kramnik and Pavel Eljanov convincingly.
Kramnik opened spectacularly with the Sicilian Dragon Variation in No Castling Chess. Early on Caruana was able to take the initiative with 11.e5! Kramnik reacted inaccurately and the world no. 3 played a flawless game to win. The opening move was played by DSB President Ingrid Lauterbach. She works as an honorary arbiter at the 50th International Dortmund Chess Days.
On the side board, Dmitrij Kollars managed to bring a consideration from home onto the board. Although, according to the interview, he slept badly after his missed win against Caruana, Kollars also played a perfect game and gave Pavel Eljanov no chance after his weak opening: Interview mit Kollars
In the Sportland NRW Cup it is certain that a GM norm will be earned one round before the end: Dinara Wagner and Ruben Gideon Köllner won their games, especially Wagner after a long fight against her national team colleague Jana Schneider. Now she goes into the last round with a half-point lead over Köllner. With a draw Wagner achieves her second norm for the title of Grandmaster, with a win Köllner earns his second GM norm!
Frederik Svane leads the A-Open
The A-Open saw three German and three Indian Grandmasters on the stage: The German duel Alexander Donchenko against Rasmus Svane ended in a draw after Donchenko tried for a long time. The two Indians Raja Rithvik and Leon Luke Mendonca agreed earlier on a draw on board 3. That left the door open for Frederik Svane on top board: With a fabulous preparation (22 moves!) in the open Sicilian, he gained an advantageous middlegame position. After 5 hours he was finally able to make use of his extra pawn in the rook ending! Svane now leads the field by half a point before the last round and has the best chance of winning the first prize of € 5,000.