Dortmund Field Announced, Pairings Ready

The playing field and pairings for the 42nd Sparkassen Chess-Meeting in Dortmund has been announced, traditionally two months before the start of the tournament. This year Vladimir Kramnik, Peter Leko, Ruslan Ponomariov, Fabiano Caruana, Michael Adams, Arkadij Naiditsch, Georg Meier, and David Baramidze will play a single round robin.

The presentation of the tournament on May 12th - image courtesy of the official website

On May 12th, 2014 the 42nd edition of the Sparkassen Chess Meeting was announced at a press meeting in Dortmund. After two years with ten players, this time the tournament went back to eight players. 

The organizers tend to stick to traditions and that includes the players - the field doesn't contain big surprises: Vladimir Kramnik (Russia), Peter Leko (Hungary), Ruslan Ponomariov (Ukraine), Fabiano Caruana (Italy), Michael Adams (England), Arkadij Naiditsch (Germany), Georg Meier (Germany), and David Baramidze (Germany). Only Ponomariov and Baramidze didn't participate last year.

The International Dortmund Chess Days – since 1994 "Sparkassen Chess-Meeting" – celebrated its "birth event" in 1973, which was won Heikki Westerinen of Finland. Over the years the tournament grew into a world-class event where almost all of the best players competed, including Garry Kasparov, Anatoly Karpov, Viswanathan Anand, Judit Polgar and Vladimir Kramnik.

As always the tournament will be held in the Dortmund Theater, while the open tournament will again take place in the City Hall. Traditionally, the pairings for the top group were done in advance as well:

Dortmund 2014 | Pairings