For the diehard chess fan there's good news: you don't have two do with just two top tournaments anymore. Besides London and Sao Paulo, there's a third strong event starting tomorrow : the 13th Karpov Tournament in Poikovsky, Russia. The pairings for the first round are Short-Rubslevsky, Jakovenko-Bologan, Onischuk-Wang Yue, Ponomariov-Bruzon and Motylev-Wojtaszek.

The 13th Karpov Tournament will take place 27 September - 8 October in Poikovsky, Russia. Poikovsky is located in the Nefteyugansk region of the Khanty-Mansiysk autonomous area. It's about 150km eastern of Khanty-Mansiysk. Its name comes from the nearby river Poyka. The population is close to 30,000 people and the main economic drive is the extraction of oil and gas.

Last year the tournament, named after the 12th World Champion, was won by Etienne Bacrot, who edged out Sergey Karjakin on tie-break. This year the participants are Ruslan Ponomariov (UKR, 2729), Dmitry Jakovenko (RUS 2724), Radoslaw Wojtaszek (POL, 2713), Lazaro Bruzon Batista (CUB, 2713), Viktor Bologan (MDA, 2712), Nigel Short (ENG, 2698), Sergei Rublevsky (RUS, 2693), Wang Yue (CHN, 2691), Alexander Onischuk (USA, 2672) and Alexander Motylev (RUS, 2658). They play a round-robin of 9 rounds with a rest day on October 3rd.

The rounds start at 15:00 local time which is 11:00 CET. The games in London start four hours later, and five hours after that, the first moves are made in Sao Paulo. For a number of days, (European) chess fans can follow top chess all day long.

Karpov Tournament (Poikovsky) 2012 | Schedule