Dortmund 2012 Line-up Announced
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:
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| 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 |
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Viktor Bolgan's win against Vishy Anand in 2003:
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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 |
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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 |