Other Events: TCEC, Poikovsky, Isle of Man and the Women's Grand Prix
The World Cup is the biggest show in chess, but it will end tomorrow, one way or another, and there are other events clamoring for the chess world's attention.
First, there's the "real" world championship, season 8 of the Thoresen Chess Engines Competition. It's still in stage 2, and this time around it's Komodo (9.2) that looks more impressive than Stockfish, whereas in stage 1 it was the other way around. In this stage there are 10 other engines pretending to have a chance, but it looks almost certain that in the finale it will be Komodo and Stockfish fighting it out for first place once again.
Second, the Karpov tournament in Poikovsky is marching on, with six of nine rounds in the books. Right now there's a three-way tie for first with Ernesto Inarkiev, Emil Sutovsky and Viktor Bologan sharing the honors. They each have four points, half a point more than Anton Korobov. The biggest names aren't faring so well: Alexei Shirov has three points, while Alexander Morozevich is alone in last place with a point and a half.
Third, there's a big open event in the Isle of Man. It has a number of current 2700s (Michael Adams, Pentala Harikrishna, David Howell and Laurent Fressinet) plus a number of ex-2700s (Nigel Short and Sergei Tiviakov).
Finally, the 2015-6 FIDE Women's Grand Prix has just started, and the inaugural event is taking place in Monte Carlo. (I think they're only going to hold it once rather than thousands or even millions of times, however*.) Participants include world champion Mariya Muzychuk (who is off to a 2-0 start) and women's #1 Hou Yifan (1-1 after a loss to Humpy Koneru, for years her main rival for the women's championship title). A question to anyone who might know: why isn't Irina Krush playing? She would be a lower seed, but three of the players in this event are lower-rated than she is, and it can't be that someone else has taken a regional slot from her as no one from the Western hemisphere is playing.
* Go here if you didn't get the joke.