Coming Soon: Hainan Danzhou, Dortmund, Bilbao, and Ding-Grischuk
After a couple of weeks after super-grandmasterlessness in the chess world, our collective nightmare will come to an end in a couple of days.
First, a super-strong event begins in China in a couple of days (July 7), with Ding Liren, Pentala Harikrishna, Wang Hao, Yu Yangyi, Bu Xiangzhi, Vasil Ivanchuk, Wang Yue, Ian Nepomniachtchi, and Peter Leko.
Two days later, Dortmund begins and includes the world's #2, 3, and 4 players: Vladimir Kramnik, Fabiano Caruana, and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave. Leinier Dominguez and Ruslan Ponomariov are also 2700+, and the field also includes Evgeniy Najer, former 2700-rated player Dieter Liviu-Nisipeanu, and Rainer Buhmann.
But what about the world champion? No problem: he jumps in on the 13th in Bilbao, where he'll contend with Hikaru Nakamura, Anish Giri, his pending challenger Sergey Karjakin, Wesley So, and Wei Yi in a double round-robin.
Finally, Ding Liren and Alexander Grischuk will play four classical games in China starting on the 18th. (Those who read Chinese or with other information can let us know if there will also be rapid and/or blitz games in addition, or if it's just a four-game match.)
This ought to keep us all out of trouble for a while.
Reader Comments (2)
Some additions: Regarding Hainan Danzhou, Dennis (unable to read Chinese) may have consulted 2700chess.com which (on the main page) only mentions the nine participants rated above 2700. The tenth player is Hou Yifan - born in Xinghua where the tournament takes place. [Mentioned at the 2700chess Women section and the chess24 live transmission page]
Mentioned at ruchess.ru: 12-22 July Gelfand and Inarkiev will play a match in Magas, Republic of Ingushetia - six classical and six rapid games (15+10') apparently counting equally towards the final result.
Maybe "beyond the horizon" of this blog post but still in July: Poikovsky (22 July - 3 August) with Andreikin, Wojtaszek and Jakovenko, can't find info on the rest of the field. Biel apparently suffered from budget cuts: no round-robin but a match between Vachier-Lagrave and Svidler - 4 rapid games on July 24, 4 classical games 25-29 July.
Unfortunately, I can't come to Dortmund. I was there twice and really would like to see big Vlad in action. Sadly he again has more blacks than whites. This seems to be the case in most tournaments he takes part.