I needed to do some catching up with the rest of life after the Candidates, and also spent a couple of days in fabulous Columbus, Ohio, at the National K-6 Championships. A good time was had by all, and now it’s time to resume blogging, at least a little at a time. (Special posts for paid subscribers are coming soon.)
For now, just an FYI that an interesting event is afoot in Malmo, Sweden, the 28th Sigeman & Co. tournament. It features eight players, five of whom are or have been rated over 2700. (The sixth hit a peak of 2694, the seventh is the current World Junior Champion, and the eighth is the current Women’s World Champion.) After three rounds of seven there are three co-leaders: Vincent Keymer, Anton Korobov, and Arjun Erigaisi (the current #5 player in the world), each with 2.5/3. Peter Svidler has 2 points, and then the players drop into minus territory: Nodirbek Abdusattorov, #5 in the world at the start of the event, is a winless 1-pointer, as is Nils Grandelius. Ju Wenjun has half a point to her credit, and Marc’Andria Maurizzi has as many points as the rest of the world combined.
Coming soon (May 8-12): the Grand Chess Tour comes to Warsaw for the Superbet Rapid & Blitz. The field includes Magnus Carlsen, Candidates champ Dommaraju Gukesh, Erigaisi, Abdusattorov, Keymer, Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa, Anish Giri, Jan-Krzysztof Duda, Tata Steel winner Wei Yi, and Kirill Shevchenko (a relative outsider but still rated 2694).