The Sinquefield Cup is the most notable event of the moment, but there are at least two more tournaments deserving of mention, the ACP Cup in Riga, Latvia and the World Junior Championships (one open event and for girls alone) in Kocaeli, Turkey.
The ACP Cup (HT: Thomas Richter) is a 16-player rapid event (g/25' + 10") run on the knockout system (with blitz tiebreaks each round, if necessary). It's a very strong event, with such elite players as Alexander Grischuk, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, Peter Svidler, Vassily Ivanchuk, Ruslan Ponomariov, Teimour Radjabov, Alexander Morozevich.
The tournament started Friday, with the following results:
Grischuk - Fressinet 3-1 (i.e. 1-1, plus 2-0 on tiebreaks)
Mamedyarov - Kovalenko 1.5-.5
Nepomniachtchi - Moiseenko 1.5-.5
Svidler - Jakovenko 2-0
Radjabov - Shirov 1.5-.5
Malakhov - Eljanov 1.5-.5
Ponomariov - Morozevich 1.5-.5
Wojtaszek - Ivanchuk 1.5-.5
In today's quarterfinals, the results were
Grischuk - Wojtaszek 2-0
Ponomariov - Mamedyarov 2-0
Nepomniachtchi - Malakhov 3-1
Svidler - Radjabov 1.5-.5
The tournament ends tomorrow, so both the semi-final and the final rounds will occur then. I believe the pairings for the semis are Grischuk - Ponomariov and Nepomniachtchi - Svidler.
As for the World Juniors, that monster event started on the 12th and will run through the 27th. The top seed in the men's/boy's event is Yu Yangyi (2662), well ahead of second seed and defending champion Alexander Ipatov (2601). Among the interesting slightly lower seeds is 14-year-old Wei Yi, who made a big splash in the recent World Cup. Can he perform up to that same level here? Finally, a family sweep isn't impossible, as Jorge Cori (2587) is the third seed in the open division, while his sister Deysi Cori (2433) is the second seed in the girls' section, only a point lower-rated than top seed Alina Kashlinskaya.
For my fellow American readers, I will now list our participants in full: . Isn't our national federation wonderful?