The Dortmund Sparkassen Chess Meeting was until 2020 an elite chess tournament held every summer in Dortmund, Germany. Dortmund was an invite-only event, with the exception that one slot at Dortmund was awarded to the winner of the annual Aeroflot Open in Moscow. After an interruption due to the covid pandemic, the meeting was relaunched as the Sparkassen Chess Trophy International Dortmund Chess Days.

The elite tournament was usually played in a round-robin or double round-robin format. However, it took the form of a series of heads-up matches in 2002 and 2004. The 2002 Dortmund event was also notable in that it served as the Candidates Tournament for the Classical World Chess Championship 2004. Péter Lékó won, defeating Veselin Topalov in the finals.

A flagship event of the newer incarnation is the No Castling Masters (see No Castling Chess). It is accompanied by large open events and invite-only cup competitions.

The title sponsor is Sparkasse Dortmund, the local public savings bank.

List of winners

Events by year

1990s

1990

1991

1992

1993

1994

1995

1996

1997

GM Romuald Mainka won Open A tournament with the result 7½ out of 9.

1998

1999

17-year-old Olaf Wegener won Open A Swiss-system tournament with the score 8/10.

2000s

2000

28th Dortmund Sparkassen Chess Meeting (July 7 – 16, 2000)

2001

29th Dortmund Sparkassen Chess Meeting (July 12 – 22, 2001)

IM Arkadij Naiditsch (2524) defeated IM Almira Skripchenko-Lautier (2494) in Dortmund Sparkassen Match with the score 7:3.

The Dortmund Sparkassen Man-Machine Match between GM Robert Hübner (2612) and Deep Fritz ended in a draw with the score 3:3 (all the games were drawn).

2002

30th Dortmund Sparkassen Chess Meeting (July 6 – 21, 2002)

Candidates Tournament

The main event was a Candidates Tournament to determine a challenger for Vladimir Kramnik's Einstein Group World Chess title.

Side events

IM Tigran Nalbandian (2458) won Dortmund Open Swiss-system tournament with the score 9/11.

The match between GM Arkadij Naiditsch (2581) and GM Jan Timman (2623) ended in a draw with the score 4:4.

David Baramidze (2351) defeated IM Alisa Marić (2470) in Dortmund Sparkassen Match with the score 4½:3½.

2003

31st Dortmund Sparkassen Chess Meeting (July 31 – August 10, 2003)

GM Victor Bologan qualified as the winner of Aeroflot Open 2003.

IM Yuri Boidman (2407) won Dortmund Open A Swiss-system tournament with the score 8/9 and performance rating 2616.

GM Vladimir Belikov (2499) defeated IM David Baramidze (2470) in Dortmund Match with the score 6:4.

2004

32nd Dortmund Sparkassen Chess Meeting (July 22 – August 1, 2004)

GM Sergei Rublevsky qualified as the winner of Aeroflot Open 2004.

Preliminaries

Knockout

2005

33rd Dortmund Sparkassen Chess Meeting (July 8 – 17, 2005)

GM Emil Sutovsky qualified as the winner of Aeroflot Open 2005.

2006

34th Dortmund Sparkassen Chess Meeting (July 29 – August 6, 2006)

GM Baadur Jobava qualified as the winner of Aeroflot Open 2006.

2007

35th Dortmund Sparkassen Chess Meeting (June 23 – July 1, 2007)

GM Evgeny Alekseev qualified as the winner of Aeroflot Open 2007.

2008

36th Dortmund Sparkassen Chess Meeting (June 28 – July 6, 2008)

GM Ian Nepomniachtchi qualified as the winner of Aeroflot Open 2008.

2009

37th Dortmund Sparkassen Chess Meeting (July 2 – 12, 2009)

GM Étienne Bacrot qualified as the winner of Aeroflot Open 2009.

2010s

2010

38th Dortmund Sparkassen Chess Meeting (July 15–25, 2010)

GM Lê Quang Liêm qualified as the winner of Aeroflot Open 2010.

2011

39th Dortmund Sparkassen Chess Meeting (July 21 – 31, 2011)

GM Lê Quang Liêm qualified as the winner of Aeroflot Open 2011.

2012

40th Dortmund Sparkassen Chess Meeting (July 13 – 22, 2012)

GM Mateusz Bartel qualified as the winner of Aeroflot Open 2012.

2013

41st Dortmund Sparkassen Chess Meeting (July 26 – August 4, 2013)

2014

42nd Dortmund Sparkassen Chess Meeting (July 12 – 20, 2014)

The 42nd Dortmund Sparkassen Chess Meeting took place between July 12 and July 20, 2014, in the "Orchesterzentrum NRW" in Dortmund, Germany. The eight-player round-robin tournament consisted of 7 games of Classical Chess. The field was led by Vladimir Kramnik, Fabiano Caruana, and Michael Adams. Players received 100 minutes for 40 moves, then an additional 50 minutes for 20 additional moves, and finally 15 minutes for the rest of the game plus 30 seconds per move starting from move one.

2015

43rd Dortmund Sparkassen Chess Meeting (June 27 – July 5, 2015)

The 43rd Dortmund Sparkassen Chess Meeting took place between June 27 to July 5 in the "Orchesterzentrum NRW" in Dortmund, Germany. The eight-player round-robin tournament consisted of 7 games of Classical Chess. The field was led by Vladimir Kramnik, Fabiano Caruana, and Wesley So. Players received 100 minutes for 40 moves, then an additional 50 minutes for 20 additional moves, and finally 15 minutes for the rest of the game plus 30 seconds per move starting from move one.

The tournament was also the final Dortmund appearance for Arkadij Naiditsch before his transfer to the Azerbaijan Chess Federation.

GM Ian Nepomniachtchi qualified as the winner of Aeroflot Open 2015.

2016

44th Dortmund Sparkassen Chess Meeting (July 9 – 17, 2016)

The 44th Dortmund Sparkassen Chess Meeting took place between July 9 to 17 in the "Orchesterzentrum NRW" in Dortmund, Germany. The eight-player round-robin tournament consisted of 7 games of Classical Chess. The field was led by Vladimir Kramnik, Fabiano Caruana, and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave. Players received 100 minutes for 40 moves, then 50 minutes for 20 additional moves, then 15 minutes for the rest of the game plus 30 seconds per move starting from move one.

GM Evgeniy Najer qualified as the winner of Aeroflot Open 2016.

Maxime Vachier-Lagrave won the tournament on July 16 with 1 game to spare. This was his first Dortmund tournament victory.

2017

45th Dortmund Sparkassen Chess Meeting (July 15 – 23, 2017)

GM Vladimir Fedoseev qualified as the winner of Aeroflot Open 2017.

2018

46th Dortmund Sparkassen Chess Meeting (July 14 – 22, 2018)

GM Vladislav Kovalev qualified as the winner of Aeroflot Open 2018.

2019

47th Dortmund Sparkassen Chess Meeting (July 13 – 21, 2019)

GM Kaido Külaots qualified as the winner of Aeroflot Open 2019.

FM Thomas Michalczak (2239) won Sparkassen Chess Meeting Open A swiss-system tournament with the score 7½/9 and performance rating 2533.

References

• Winners list and Reports since 1973 by Gerhard Hund (German)

External links

• Official website
• DORTMUND SPARKASSEN CHESS MEETING 2005 Archived 2011-09-27 at the Wayback Machine
• The Games of Dortmund Sparkassen 2005
• 2008 edition from TWIC