Dortmund Rd6 – The dark horses strike

From Thursday July 13 to Sunday July 22, 2012 the 41st edition annual Sparkassen Chess-Meeting is taking place in Dortmund, Germany. It is a ten-player round robin played. Draw offers are not allowed – a game can only be declared a draw, by the arbiter, if there is no possible win for one side, or if a position is repeated three times. The winner of the tournament will be determined after nine rounds.

Games start at 15:00h = 3 p.m. local time (CEST, = 17:00 Moscow, 14:00 p.m. London, 9:00 a.m. New York). All games will be broadcast by the official web site's "Live Games" page and on the Playchess.com server. As in the previous year the moves of the Sparkassen Chess-Meeting will be transmitted on the Internet with a delay of 15 minutes – which means that the moves stay in the playing hall for that period, before they are broadcast to the rest of the world. This is an important anti-cheating measure that has been proposed to FIDE since October 2005 and has the support of most of the top players. We commend the Dortmund organisers for taking the initiative.

Round six

It was a day for the unexpected, a day for the dark horses. The first major result was Arkadij Naiditsch’s win over Jan Gustafsson, who seems to never have recovered his equilibrium after the shock against Kramnik. For Naiditsch, and the German fans, it was more than a second straight victory, it was a taste of gold, even if shared, as he climbed to 4.0/6 and joined Vladimir Kramnik and Sergey Karjakin.

Arkadij Naiditsch moved into shared first to the delight of the home crowd

As to the other leader, Ruslan Ponomariov, it was a fall from heaven as he lost to Mateusz Bartel, the lamb sent to the slaughterhouse in every round but one until now. As much as he tried, Bartel would not wilt as he had done previously, and instead it was Ponomariov’s hand that shook on move 40, leaving him with an awkward position.

Ponomariov suffered a bitter blow in round six

Seven moves later, he blundered, and this time there was no salvation as he lost, while Bartel will leave the tournament with the comfort that at least once blood other than his was drawn in his duels.

A relieved Bartel finally scores

Ponomariov dropped to second with 3.5/6, a half-point behind the leaders.

Standings after six rounds

Schedule and results

Links Official tournament site All games in PGN The games are being broadcast live on the official web site and on the chess server Playchess.com. If you are not a member you can download a free Playchess client there and get immediate access. You can also use ChessBase 11 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs.

Previous reports

• ChessBase reports on Dortmund 2011
• ChessBase reports on Dortmund 2010
• ChessBase reports on Dortmund 2009
• ChessBase reports on Dortmund 2008
• ChessBase reports on Dortmund 2007
• ChessBase reports on Dortmund 2006
• ChessBase reports on Dortmund 2005
• ChessBase reports on Dortmund 2004
• ChessBase reports on Dortmund 2003

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