Participants Biel & Dortmund Announced
The two strong tournaments in Biel and Dortmund, both traditionally held in July, have announced their field of participants well in advance.
The Sparkassen Chess Meeting will take place 27 June - 5 July (so a bit earlier than normal) in Dortmund, Germany. Last year the tournament moved from the Opera Theater to the Orchestra Center, where it will be held again.
There's always a small open as well, but this event is all about the main group. It's a single round robin with eight players:
2015 Sparkassen Chess Meeting | Participants
| # | Name | Fed | Rating | Born |
| 1 | Fabiano Caruana | ITA | 2803 | 1992 |
| 2 | Wesley So | USA | 2778 | 1993 |
| 3 | Vladimir Kramnik | RUS | 2777 | 1975 |
| 4 | Ian Nepomniachtchi | RUS | 2728 | 1990 |
| 5 | Arkadij Naiditsch | GER | 2720 | 1985 |
| 6 | Hou Yifan | CHN | 2686 | 1994 |
| 7 | Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu | GER | 2655 | 1976 |
| 8 | Georg Meier | GER | 2654 | 1987 |
Every time when GM Vladimir Kramnik plays, he is the favorite in Dortmund — according to the tournament website, that is. And maybe there's some truth in it. “Mr Dortmund” has won the tournament already ten times.
His last title dates from 2011, though. Fabiano Caruana and Sergey Karjakin tied for first in 2012, Mickey Adams won in 2013 and Caruana last year.
Caruana will be playing two top events back-to-back; he also plays in the Norway Chess tournament (15-26 June).
GM Wesley So missed out on the Grand Chess Tour, and so it's good to see that he has found other places to play. It will be interesting to see how GM Hou Yifan will fare in this field. GM Ian Nepomniachtchi qualified from the revived Aeroflot Open earlier this year.
More info on the tournament website.
The Biel Chess Festival will take place 18-31 July in Biel, Switzerland. The top group, called Grandmaster Tournament, will be a double round robin with six players. Here are the participants of this year:
2015 Biel Chess Festival | Participants GM Tournament
| # | Name | Fed | Rating | Born |
| 1 | Maxime Vachier-Lagrave | FRA | 2754 | 1990 |
| 2 | David Navara | CZE | 2751 | 1985 |
| 3 | Radoslaw Wojtaszek | POL | 2746 | 1987 |
| 4 | Michael Adams | ENG | 2740 | 1971 |
| 5 | Pavel Eljanov | UKR | 2718 | 1983 |
| 6 | Richard Rapport | HUN | 2671 | 1996 |
GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave has a very busy summer. We already knew that he will play the FIDE Grand Prix in May, then Norway Chess in June and the Sinquefield Cup in August. In between these events, he will also participate in Biel.
He will face a variety of opponents, from five different federations, and with very different playing styles as well.
The festival includes many more side events, including a strong open. This is a tough one: it's a Swiss with not 9 (standard), not 10 (like in Gibraltar or Reykjavik) but 11 rounds!
The participants list has GMs Alexander Moiseenko (2697), Tigran Petrosian (2660) and Tigran Gharamian (2645) as the top seeds right now.
More info on the tournament website.
