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.)