Ruslan Ponomariov goes into the "Deutschland Grand Prix" with good memories

In 2010, the Dortmund Super Tournament consisted of 6 grandmasters competing in double rounds. It had reached category 20 and Ruslan Ponomariov caught Peter Leko and Vladimir Kramnik of all people in the first two rounds. But he started with two victories, with the game against Kramnik in particular attracting a lot of attention worldwide and later being named the best game of volume 109 in the Chess Informant. Ponomariov thus played the tournament from the top and in the end won by a full point! 

Of course, this was not his first great success, as he became World Youth Champion U18 at a very young age and as a 19-year-old he won the title of FIDE World Champion in 2002. Since then he has been a fixture in international chess and thus fits perfectly into the field of participants of the Deutschland Grand Prix. "I have very good memories of Dortmund," he says. 

Ruslan Ponomariov in Dortmund 2010 | Picture: Christian Lünig, Arbeitsblende

GM Rustam Kasimdzhanov as a participant in the "Deutschland Grand Prix"

He is well-known and popular in the chess world and especially in Germany: Rustam Kasimdzhanov - chess grandmaster, chess trainer, author and commentator - is an extremely esteemed personality in the chess scene. Born in Tashkent, he has been living in Germany for some time and thus fits perfectly into the field of participants of the grandmaster tournament, in which national and international top grandmasters compete. Kasimdzhanov gained enormous fame through his victory in the FIDE World Championship in 2004, so that he then participated in several tournaments of the absolute world elite. But so far a participation in Dortmund is missing in his CV, so he says:
"I am so looking forward to Dortmund! It was always kind of strange for me that I had never played in Dortmund."

16-year-old grandmaster makes his debut in Dortmund in 2021

Vincent Keymer is a household name on the German chess scene: International Master at the age of less than 13 in 2017, since then a regular player in the 1st Bundesliga for SF Deizisau. In 2019 Keymer won the open Grenke Chess Classic with an outstanding Elo performance of 2795 and has been able to call himself Grandmaster since February 2020. Now he is scratching the 2600 Elo mark, although the pandemic hardly lets him play rated games. All the more reason for him to look forward to finally meeting top national and international grandmasters at the chessboard again in the "Germany Grand Prix" in July.

Vincent Keymer 2019 | Picture: Georgios Souleidis

Matthias Blübaum takes part in the "Deutschland Grand Prix"

In the Germany Grand Prix of the Sparkassen Chess Trophy the German elite will duel with international grandmasters in Dortmund in July. Fittingly, Matthias Blübaum is the first participant. With a current FIDE Elo of 2670, Blübaum is the German number 1 and has known the Dortmund Chess Days since his childhood. We spoke with the 23-year-old.