Poikovsky, Norway Chess Both Start on Sunday (Sort of)
Officially the Karpov Poikovsky tournament starts on Saturday and the Altibox Norway Chess tournament starts Sunday, but in both cases the first day of classical chess comes on the next day. So Poikovsky starts on Sunday and Norway Chess starts on Monday...except that there's a blitz tournament the day before. (Or that's what I assume. On the website it says "rapid", but it's highly unlikely that there will be a nine-round rapid event in one day, and it has been blitz the past four years.)
Here are the lineups:
Poikovsky: Ian Nepomniachtchi (Russia, 2751), Dmitry Jakovenko (Russia, 2735), Santosh Vidit (India, 2707), Vladimir Fedoseev (Russia, 2706), Vladislav Artemiev (Russia, 2704), Boris Gelfand (Israel, 2695), Anton Korobov (Ukraine, 2678), Vladislav Kovalev (Belarus, 2650), Emil Sutovsky (Israel, 2647), and Victor Bologan (Moldova, 2610).
Norway Chess: Magnus Carlsen (Norway, 2843), Fabiano Caruana (USA, 2822), Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (Azerbaijan, 2808), Ding Liren (China, 2791), Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (France, 2789), Sergey Karjakin (Russia, 2782), Wesley So (USA, 2778), Hikaru Nakamura (USA, 2769), Levon Aronian (Armenia, 2764), Viswanathan Anand (India, 2760).
Of course the second tournament will be the main event, but there are some terrific players in the first one too, and the rating disparities make it more likely that we'll see lots of blood. Also, while half the players in that tournament are rated below 2700, all but Kovalev have been rated above 2700. (Gelfand has for much of the past three decades been rated well above 2700, with a peak of 2777; Korobov has been 2723, Sutovsky 2703, and Bologan as high as 2734.)
Reader Comments (2)
Since Gelfand's peak rating of 2777 in 2013, not long after his failed world championship bid in 2012, he has lost quite a few points, and I presume part of this is due to a dip in playing strength and/or competitive drive, but I also wonder if part of this is because he is no longer playing (or presumably being invited to) as many elite tournaments, and thus he is losing some points to lower rated opponents when they happen to beat him (points his fellow elites don't lose because they don't face as many lower rated opponents).
I’m not sure why but I’m going to predict a nightmare tourney for Caruana,
Lagrave and Carlsen will run away with it.
So yeah one prediction is not a struggle to make, but Fabiano isn’t a big guy and he’s been very active and traveling a lot,
At some point exhaustion kicks in and the body says no more.
[DM: Hmm...a few weeks ago and I'd agree, but he has been off for a month now. He's also just 25 years old and while thin, clearly exercises regularly. Whatever difficulties he may have, if your prediction is right, it shouldn't have anything to do with fatigue.]