Dortmund Sparkassen Chess Meeting 2011 pairings announced

Chess blog for latest chess news and chess trivia (c) Alexandra Kosteniuk, 2011

Hi everyone,

The names of all the participants and pairings for the 39th Sparkassen Chess Meeting - from July 21 to 31 - have been announced. The line-up includes Vladimir Kramnik, Ruslan Ponomariov, Hikaru Nakamura, Anish Giri, Le Quang Liem and Georg Meier.

The 39th edition of the Dortmund chess festival takes place July 21-31 in the city theater of Dortmund, Germany. With Kramnik (2785, Russia), Ponomariov (2743, Ukraine), Nakamura (2774, USA), Giri (2690, Netherlands), Le Quang Liem (2689, Vietnam) and Meier (2669, Germany), at the moment the tournament boasts of an average rating of 2725. The tournament keeps the format of recent years: a 6-player, double round-robin.

For the second time Dortmund uses the Sofia rule. This is stated in the press release (without calling it the Sofia rule): Draw ban: In this year ‘s edition the grandmasters are not allowed to offer a draw during the game. The game will be declared a draw when a win for either side is not possible anymore, or in case of a three-fold repetition.

Traditionally the drawing of lots for the Dortmund tournament always takes place months in advance to help players start preparing. You can access the official website here.

Tweet

From Alexandra Kosteniuk's

www.chessblog.com

Also see her personal blog at

www.chessqueen.com