In the NC World Masters and German Grand Prix important matches were scheduled on Friday. But both tournaments are still open before the two final rounds.
Nenad Tomasev (DeepMind) with opening move
A special guest had the honour of making the first move for Viswanathan Anand on Friday. Nenad Tomasev, programmer at DeepMind, is currently a guest at the International Dortmund Chess Days. He is one of the brains behind the famous artificial intelligence AlphaZero and in this capacity he already analysed the No Castling Chess games with Vladimir Kramnik and press spokesman Patrick Zelbel last year. Today he was also a guest on the live commentary and reported on exciting projects in the field of artificial intelligence.
For Anand, as so often in No Castling chess, he opened with 1.c4 and an isolated position developed early on for Kollars against Dmitrij Kollars. But he defended skilfully, activated his rook and held the game in a draw. Another exclamation mark from Kollars, who is only half a point behind the leader Anand:
1st Anand 2.5 / 4
2nd/3rd Adams 2 / 4
2nd/3rd Kollars 2 / 4
4th Fridman 1.5 / 4
Eljanow with strong defence against McShane
Pavel Eljanov chose the solid Berlin Wall for the top pairing in the German Grand Prix. McShane gained an advantage and tried long. But in the rook ending with two pawns against one pawn, there was no way to win. Thus, last year's winner Eljanow is in the race with good prospects. McShane is currently in the lead, but has only one game left and is free on Sunday.
In the Sportland NRW Youth Cup the trend of the last days intensified: IM Jonathan Carlstedt seems to be in really good shape, won his third game in a row and leads Artem Lutsko by one point. An IM norm is still possible for the U16 player. For that he needs 1.5 points from the last 2 rounds.
Lara Schulze leads by half a point over local hero Zoya Schleining in the closed women's tournament. Fittingly, the direct duel between the two players will take place in the last round on Sunday. Lara Schulze also needs 1.5 points from 2 games for a WGM norm - the Sportland NRW Women's Cup is the only round-robin tournament in Germany in 2022 where this norm is possible.
In the Sparkassen Open A Max Warmerdam rejected an early draw offer from his opponent IM Thomas Beerdsen and won the Dutch duel well worth seeing. He presented his king's attack in the interview after the game:
Max Warmerdam shows his winning game
For Thomas Beerdsen, a final GM norm is thus no longer possible in Dortmund. GM Andreas Heimann is on 6 out of 7, as is FM Jasper Holtel, who is playing an outstanding tournament so far.