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.