This year marks the 40th edition of the Dortmund Sparkassen chess meeting in Germany, which takes place from 13-22 July.
The modern Dortmund tournament has been held continuously since 1973, and over the past decade it has become a firm favourite of Vladimir Kramnik, who in 2011 achieved his 10th title!
The 2002 competition was a decider to pick the challenger for the then world champion Vladimir Kramnik (which Peter Leko won), and the 2003 edition was memorable for a fantastic underdog victory from the Moldovan GM Viktor Bologan.
The format for the 2012 competition is different to recent years. Instead of a 6-player double round-robin it will be a 10-player single round-robin, headed by Kramnik in search of an 11th title.
The four extra players are the gold medal-winning German team from the 2011 European Team Championships: Arkadij Naiditsch, Daniel Fridman, Georg Meier and Jan Gustafsson.
The full 2012 line-up looks like this:
.
| Name |
Nat |
Elo |
| Kramnik, Vladimir |
RUS |
2801 |
| Caruana, Fabiano |
ITA |
2767 |
| Karjakin, Sergey |
RUS |
2766 |
| Ponomariov, Ruslan |
UKR |
2727 |
| Leko, Peter |
HUN |
2720 |
| Naiditsch, Arkadij |
GER |
2702 |
| Bartel, Mateusz |
POL |
2665 |
| Fridman, Daniel |
GER |
2653 |
| Meier, Georg |
GER |
2647 |
| Gustafsson, Jan |
GER |
2642 |
.
Viktor Bolgan's win against Vishy Anand in 2003:
.
The 2003 results table:
| Name |
Nat |
Elo |
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
Pts |
| Viktor Bologan |
MOL |
2650 |
x x |
½ ½ |
1 0 |
½ ½ |
1 ½ |
1 1 |
6.5 |
| Vladimir Kramnik |
RUS |
2785 |
½ ½ |
x x |
½ ½ |
1 ½ |
½ ½ |
½ ½ |
5.5 |
| Viswanathan Anand |
IND |
2774 |
0 1 |
½ ½ |
x x |
0 ½ |
½ 1 |
1 ½ |
5.5 |
| Teimour Radjabov |
AZE |
2648 |
½ ½ |
0 ½ |
1 ½ |
x x |
½ ½ |
0 0 |
5.0 |
| Peter Leko |
HUN |
2739 |
0 ½ |
½ ½ |
½ 0 |
½ ½ |
x x |
½ ½ |
4.0 |
| Arkadij Naiditsch |
GER |
2574 |
0 0 |
½ ½ |
0 ½ |
1 0 |
½ ½ |
x x |
3.5 |
.
Full list of past winners (via Wikipedia)
| 1973 |
Heikki Westerinen |
| 1974 |
László Szabó (chess player) |
| 1975 |
Heikki Westerinen |
| 1976 |
Oleg Romanishin |
| 1977 |
Jan Smejkal |
| 1978 |
Ulf Andersson |
| 1979 |
Tamaz Giorgadze |
| 1980 |
Raymond Keene |
| 1981 |
Gennady Kuzmin |
| 1982 |
Vlastimil Hort |
| 1983 |
Mihai Suba |
| 1984 |
Yehuda Gruenfeld |
| 1985 |
Yuri Razuvayev |
| 1986 |
Zoltán Ribli |
| 1987 |
Yuri Balashov |
| 1988 |
Smbat Lputian |
| 1989 |
Efim Geller |
| 1990 |
Alexander Chernin |
| 1991 |
Igor Stohl |
| 1992 |
Garry Kasparov |
| 1993 |
Anatoly Karpov |
| 1994 |
Jeroen Piket |
| 1995 |
Vladimir Kramnik |
| 1996 |
Vladimir Kramnik and Viswanathan Anand |
| 1997 |
Vladimir Kramnik |
| 1998 |
Vladimir Kramnik Michael Adams and Peter Svidler |
| 1999 |
Péter Lékó |
| 2000 |
Vladimir Kramnik and Viswanathan Anand |
| 2001 |
Vladimir Kramnik and Veselin Topalov |
| 2002 |
Péter Lékó |
| 2003 |
Viktor Bologan |
| 2004 |
Viswanathan Anand |
| 2005 |
Arkadij Naiditsch |
| 2006 |
Vladimir Kramnik and Peter Svidler |
| 2007 |
Vladimir Kramnik |
| 2008 |
Péter Lékó |
| 2009 |
Vladimir Kramnik |
| 2010 |
Ruslan Ponomariov |
| 2011 |
Vladimir Kramnik |