Dortmund 2008

The annual Sparkassen Chess Meeting, sponsored by the German bank in Dortmund of the same name, will take place from June 28th to July 6th, in the Dortmund Civic Theater.

Former world champion Vladimir Kramnik is no stranger to Dortmund being one of his favorite tournaments.  He's a big favorite to win and add to his record eight titles there, and heads the 8-player field that also includes top ten players Shakriyaz Mamedyarov, Peter Leko and Vasily Ivanchuk.   This  will be Kramnik’s first Classical outing since his failure at Corus Wijk aan Zee at the start of the year and one of his last before he attempts to wrest the title from Vishy Anand in the autumn in Bonn, Germany.

The full line-up (in rating order from the April Fide list) is: Vladimir Kramnik (Russia), Shakriyaz Mamedyarov (Azerbaijan), Peter Leko (Hungary), Vasily Ivanchuk (Ukraine),  Loek van Wely (Holland), Ian Nepomniachtchi (Russia), Arkady Naiditsch (Germany), Jan Gustafsson (Germany). 

You can find the round-by-round pairings here.  

The ICC Chess.FM team (though minus Macauley Peterson) will also be covering Dortmund, with host Mig Greengard being joined each round by GMs Joel Benjamin, Larry Christiansen, Nick De Firmian, Ronen Har-Zvi and Gregory Kaidanov.  Play will get underway each day at 9:00AM ET (Final round 7:00AM ET).  Our full schedule can be found here.

On ICC: fingerDortmund08