Both round-robin tournaments in the Sparkassen Chess Trophy remained close until the last round. The Sportland NRW Women´s Cup was the first to be decided.
The two leading women met: Zoya Schleining, however, came badly out of the opening against the apparently excellently prepared Lara Schulze. She therefore offered an early draw to at least secure second place. But this half point was enough for Lara Schulze to win the tournament thanks to her better second score (more winning games)!
In the Sportland NRW Youth Cup, Jonathan Carlstedt and Artem Lutsko went into the last round tied on points. Carlstedt could be very satisfied with half a point after the game against Tom O'Gorman and now had to wait for the result of the young Ukrainian. Lutsko did not come out of the opening at all well against Timo Leonard. But he managed to open the black king position in the middlegame and to decide the game tactically. With 6.5 points from 9 games, he is the clear winner of the round robin tournament. As a reward, there is an IM norm on top of that with the performance he achieved!