Tata 2017

Is it just me, or does the field look slightly weaker than usual?:

Carlsen

Aronian

So

Karjakin

Harikrishna

Giri

Nepomniachtchi

Eljanov

Wojtaszek

Andreikin

Rapport

Wei Yi

Adhiban

Van Wely

Carlsen can win it for the sixth time, and I think Aronian and So are the only other players with reasonable chances of stopping him. Aronian usually does well in Tata, and So has been doing well recently, but maybe lacks some sharpness to win here. My guess is 1.Carlsen 2.Aronian 3.So 4.Giri 5.Nepomniachtchi 6.Karjakin 7.Eljanov 8.Wei Yi 9.Andreikin 10.Rapport 11. Adhiban 12.van Wely 13.Harikrishna 14.Wojtaszek

If Aronian wins he will equal Carlsen's five Tata victories.

A great win by Rapport from Tata 2014:

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1744267

Just how impressive Aronian's 4 and Carlsen's 5 tournament wins in 9 Tata starts are one can see by just looking at for example Kramnik's last ten finishes in the tournament: 3,2,3,4,6,4,4,7,2,5

Ratings-wise it doesn't look very weak to me. Maybe it's that in the past the players in the Harikrishna/Eljanov/Wojtaszek range in the world rankings were guys that we are more accustomed to seeing as winners of major tournaments, or at least tournaments that we know of (Mamedyarov, Ivanchuk, Giri a few years ago, etc).

"Ratings-wise it doesn't look very weak to me"

No, the average rating is after all 2750+, but players like Caruana, Anand, MVL and Naka would have been nice to see. Kramnik too, of course, but it's been six years since he participated.

Anand scored great results last year, with a plus in all the top tournaments he played, Candidates, Sinquefield, Tal Memorial and London, finishing at worst shared third. Aronian is much more uneven, but when he is in form he can win the strongest events even with Carlsen present, like Tata 2012, Tata 2014 and Sinquefield 2015.

It's nine years since Anand won a tournament with Carlsen present, Linares 2008, when Carlsen was not yet in the top 10 and finished 0.5 behind in second place.

It is FIDE-category 21 with average rating 2753

Could be worse than that 

That the average rating of the field is between 2751 and 2775.