Anand starts with white game against Kramnik at the Sparkassen Chess Trophy 2021

The 15th World Chess Champion Viswanathan Anand opens the highlight of the Dortmund Chess Days on 14 July against the 14th World Chess Champion Vladimir Kramnik. This marks the start of the NC World Masters in no castling chess at the Westfalenhallen Congress Centre. The first tournament of the event already starts on 10 July with the Sparkassen Online Open. In the "Deutschland Grand Prix", top national players will compete with top international players from 13 July. At the same time, two Sportland NRW Cups will be held for aspiring youngsters from the region.

"We are very pleased that the most prestigious chess tournament in Germany is finally getting underway and that we can offer spectators and players outstanding innovative tournament formats," says event director Carsten Hensel, looking forward to the chess highlight of the year. The event in Dortmund will be held under the best possible hygiene conditions in the Westfalenhallen. Not only the chess games played, but also the pictures will be broadcast live all over the world. Chess fans from all over the world can thus enjoy insights into the match of the world champions and the grandmaster tournament.

Andreas Heimann gets his chance in the Deutschland Grand Prix

Luke McShane was very much looking forward to the Grandmaster Tournament as part of the Sparkassen Chess Trophy - 48th International Dortmund Chess Days - which starts next Tuesday. Although the entry regulations between England and Germany were somewhat simplified yesterday - England has been downgraded from a risk variant area to a high incidence area as of today - participation is no longer feasible. The required quarantine of five full days, the PCR tests to be carried out in advance and the travel preparations now make McShane's participation practically impossible. Tournament director Andreas Jagodzinsky had been trying to get a special permit for McShane in order to avoid the quarantine.

In the end, there was a positive decision from the Ministry of the Interior yesterday, but there were hardly any practical possibilities for the English top player to fulfil all time and organisational conditions to come to Dortmund. McShane regrets this very much, as he is in top shape, wanted to play at all costs and thought he had a good chance in the tournament.

AlphaZero to analyse “no-castling” match of the champions

For the first time, the internationally-renowned chess tournament Dortmund Chess Days will host a special match between legends Vladimir Kramnik and Viswanathan Anand playing the "No-Castling" chess format. The rich, creative possibilities of this chess variant were recently explored by the ground-breaking artificial intelligence system AlphaZero, created by world-leading AI company DeepMind. Online audiences will now get to experience novel AlphaZero insights first hand in the post match-commentary of the no-castling tournament, as part of DeepMind’s support for Dortmund Chess Days. Demis Hassabis, DeepMind Founder and CEO, says: "It’s been incredibly exciting to see world-class players like Vladimir Kramnik use AlphaZero to explore new possibilities for the game of chess. I’m looking forward to seeing two former world champions play the no castling variant in Dortmund and hope the games - and AlphaZero’s insights - inspire chess players everywhere”.

Chess world looks forward to exciting games in Dortmund 2021

The fields of participants for the three events of the Sparkassen Chess Trophy 2021 are fixed and we reported. The draw of the lots has now taken place, this year only as an online draw due to the pandemic. This has the advantage that the draw was completely recorded and can be found here: 

YouTube

In the first No Castling Match, Vishy Anand will start the first game with White and it is of particular suspense how both sides will open this match on 14 July. 
Furthermore, the complete pairings for the NC World Masters, the Deutschland Grand Prix and the Sportland NRW Cup can now be found on the respective tournament page.