'Checkmate Cancer' is a project of the 13-year old Lukas Muth to support the German leukemia research aid for children with cancer. Lukas' initiative is getting more attention from the public, both within the chess world but also outside of it. He also wants to inspire as many people as possible by portraying chess as a cool and exciting mind sport. As part of the GRENKE Chess Classic & Open the participants were able to attend the chess-themed movie "Pawn Sacrifice" at the Filmpalast in Karlsruhe. The entree fee of only €5 included popcorn and a drink. The total income of about €600 goes to the project. You can find all the information about Lukas Muth's initiative on the Facebook page "Setz' Krebs schachmatt". We also interviewed Lukas and his mother. You can watch the videos below.
It has become a tradition that many young players take part in the GRENKE Chess Open in a bid to get a sought-after GM scalp. One of them went one step better in round 3. 15-year old Luis Engel from Hamburg beat Hungarian Grandmaster Gabor Papp, who thus became Luis’ first +2600 victim. Vincent Keymer is another young talent who is off to a promising start as the 13-year old drew against Ukrainian super GM Anton Korobov. The top seed, Etienne Bacrot from France, also dropped half a point, as did Alexei Shirov from Latvia. The clash between two favourites for the women’s prize, Anna Zatonskih (USA) and Melanie Lubbe, ended in a long and fighting draw.
Gabor Papp resigns against Luis Engel | Photo: Fiona Steil-Antoni
A new record for the GRENKE Chess OPEN: 1482 players found their way to the Schwarzwaldhalle in Karlsruhe to play the biggest open chess tournament in Europe. We counted 787 players in the A_Open, almost 300 of them are titled players. 528 players have registered for the B-Open, and in the C-Open 169 chess lovers play their games during Easter. Before the start of the first round, tournament director Sven Noppes opened the Chess Open and invited the 10 players of the GRENKE Classic on stage for the draw of their event, starting on Saturday, 30 March. Many chess fans are delighted to see the clash between Magnus Carlsen and Fabiano Caruana in the first round! .
Chess Classic & Open
