Here's the first list of pre-registered players for the 2013 Sponge Towels Quebec Open. You can note the 12 (!) GMs that already registered and the presence of promising players (Song, Chiku-Ratté, Preotu, Wang...). Also, this year again, the FQE invited a delegation of young chess players from Haïti to play in the tournament. Many of them actually played last year and have managed to come back again this year, with the support of the FQE.

http://www.fqechecs.qc.ca/cms/story/...e-inscriptions

The average FIDE rating of the invitational section is 2426.