After a bit of a break, I'm back, and blogging will now resume. I had a busy few weeks, but it was also a rare break in the tournament schedule, so when it came to elite chess there was nothing too special to report. (Well, there was one major story to report, which I'll mention soon, though it's likely that all of you already know about this. For those who don't know, there's a hint, below.)
For now, let's start with the most immediate reason to resume blogging: a major tournament starts today. The 2021 Magnus Carlsen Invitational runs from the 13th through the 24th of this month, and as has been usual in these online events it will take place in two stages: a preliminary stage in which the 16 players will be whittled down to eight finalists, who will then face off in a series of knockout mini-matches.
The preliminary stage is a single round-robin, with the action beginning at 11:00 ET today. (I'm not sure if that will be true come Sunday, when we here in the U.S. "spring forward", setting out clocks an hour ahead. Europe generally makes the change on a different date [or rather, different dates] than we do over here.) I don't know the pairings yet, but here are the participants: Magnus Carlsen, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Hikaru Nakamura, Levon Aronian, Ian Nepomniachtchi, Daniil Dubov, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, Teimour Radjabov, Wesley So, Anish Giri, Sergey Karjakin, Alireza Firouzja, David Anton Guijarro, Nils Grandelius (qualifier), Alan Pichot (qualifier), and Jorden Van Foreest.
Predictions? Obviously Carlsen is a favorite - the favorite - but Dubov has done extremely well in these events, and so has Radjabov. And of course, there are the three Americans...