In the Russian Championship "Higher League" (English language coverage here), a qualifying event for the Russian Championship later this year, Alexander Morozevich is once again playing like the super-GM he has been for most of his career. His 8th round win over Artyom Timofeev propelled him into clear first, and with another win today in round 9 he maintained that spot. He has 7 points, putting him half a point clear of Timofeev and a point ahead of the next six players. Two rounds remain.
There's a very strong tournament in New Delhi, with one 2700 (Fabiano Caruana), three near-2700s (Viktor Laznicka, Krishnan Sasikiran and Wesley So), plus the talented juniors Parimarjan Negi and Hou Yifan (who is also the women's world champion). After three rounds of this 10 game double-round robin, Caruana leads with a perfect score, Laznicka is second with two points, and Hou is getting pushed around: she has as many points as we do.*
In the U.S. Junior, I last noted that Gregory Young's 4-0 streak had been broken with a loss in round 5, putting him in a three-way tie for first. It didn't last long: he won again in rounds 6 and 7, beating top seed Daniel Naroditsky in the latter game, and leads by a point and a half with two rounds to go. Naroditsky, Conrad Holt and Alec Getz are his closest pursuers.
* Alternative euphemism: she has castled queenside.