At the anniversary tournament, the organisers of the Dortmund Sparkassen Chess Trophy celebrated a record number of participants in the Open with almost 550 players, including several German national players. Vladimir Kramnik and Fabiano Caruana, runner-up at the 2018 World Championship, provided the glamour of world champions at the NC Masters. | Photo: Veterans of the Dortmund Chess Festival | Photos: Michelle Lassak
The pianist Volker Ahmels regularly organises music festivals in Schwerin, Germany, to remember and to honour ostracised and persecuted musicians. One of these musicians was the composer Arnold Schönberg, who had to flee Austria because he was persecuted by the Nazis. Schönberg is the creator of 12-tone music but he also invented a chess variant, which he called "Coalition Chess". Last week, Volker Ahmels and the cabaret artist Matthias Deutschmann tried their hand at this demanding form of chess.