This year the Sparkassen Chess Meeting will be held between the 2nd and 12th of July at the quaint old city of Dortmund in Germany. There will be eight Grandmasters competing for the spoils at the 36th Dortmund International chess tournament.

GM Peter Leko is the title defender from last year , when he finished with a +2 result in a field comprising of the then World Champion GM Vladimir Kramnik & GM Vassily Ivanchuk among others. Leko has been very consistent at this torunament, finishing third in the 2007 edition of this tournament. However this year the battle may be tougher with the inclusion of the Norwegian chess sensation 'the Mozart of chess' - Magnus Carlsen.

However, in my view, the clear favourite this year will be GM Vladimir Kramnik. He showed signs of recovering from his disastrous battle for the world championship with GM Vishwanathan Anand of India at the 'Battle for Bonn' event last year, with a joint second position finish in the 18th Amber blindfold and rapid chess Tournament held from March 14 to March 26th 2009 in Nice, France.

Apart from the above mentioned Super GM's (excepting Ivanchuk), this year's tournament also includes players like the World No 7, GM Dmitry Jakovenko, who has been consistently performing well over the past few years, without being considered part of the Elite group of chess players. This is his first big opportunity to make a mark at one of the oldest and prestigious chess tournaments. Jakovenko could also become the highest rated chess player from Russia, if he is able to finish with higher points than Kramnik (who without playing any rated events managed to reach 4th position in the Fide World chess ratings list).

GM Etienne Bacrot and GM Arkadij Naiditsch are the other two competitors this year. All the players are rated above the magical ELO Mark of 2700, making this a very strong event.