After a lull in the chess calendar, Big Chess has resumed in the biggest (or second-biggest) way with the Chess Olympiad in Batumi, Georgia. 185 teams are participating in the Open ("Men's", but there are probably some female players participating) division and 151 in the Women's. Practically all the world's top players are participating, with the notable, unfortunate, and understandable exception of World Champion Magnus Carlsen, who presumably wants to keep his training going and to hide his preparation. His challenger, Fabiano Caruana, has apparently decided that the benefit of playing outweighs the risks of tipping his hand concerning his opening preparation, or else he's making a patriotic statement. (Or both. Carlsen, for his part, will be playing in a shorter, less testing event starting immediately after the Olympiad finishes: the European Club Cup.)
My focus will be on the Open division, where the U.S. men are the top seeds and the defending champions, with an average rating of 2772. The Russians are the second seeds (2764), China third (2756), then Azerbaijan (2748), and India (2724, thanks to a rare Olympiad appearance by Viswanathan Anand) rounds out the teams with 2700+ average ratings.
As the event is a Swiss (of 11 rounds), the first-round pairings are relatively easy for the top seeds. The U.S. is playing Panama, whose average team rating is 2297. (About this pairing, it would be especially appropriate for one of the variations named for Esteban Canal to be employed, but alas.) So you're all still entirely welcome to guess who's going to win this event. Be patriotic, or objective (i.e., pick the U.S.) - whatever you want.
On the distaff side, you might expect the Chinese team to be the top seed, given their domination of the Women's World Championship title over the past 27 years. They are one of the favorites - they are the third seed, with an average rating of 2485 - but as Hou Yifan isn't playing they aren't the dominant force they would have been. Instead, the Russians are the top seed (2523), and the Ukranians are #2 by a razor-thin margin (2486). The U.S. team is #10 (2382), but possibly a bit underrated. (Not underrated enough to be close to the top three in terms of their strength on paper, but enough to compete well and win or draw a match against the favorites if all goes well.)
Readers: There are too many games for any of us to follow unless we're full-time chess people, so if you see some especially interesting or beautiful games this round or in any round, in the Open or the Women's section, please leave a comment about it in the appropriate post. Thanks!