If the first round of the FIDE World Cup was kind to the favorites, the second made up for it by seeing several of the tournament's biggest names eliminated from the event. Alexander Morozevich went down 2-0 to Viktor Laznicka, while Teimour Radjabov and Vassily Ivanchuk both lost their first games and were unable to recover against Konstantin Sakaev and Wesley So respectively. The top three seeds, however -- Boris Gelfand, Vugar Gashimov and Peter Svidler -- have all made it through to the round of 32. Svidler had some difficulty, needing to win the second game against Finland's Tomi Nyback to force a tiebreak, then winning the rapid match 2.5-0.5 to advance.

Ivanchuk found his defeat difficult to take, as he expressed in an interview with FIDE. In the interview, which comes across as somewhat surreal, Ivanchuk claims he's done with professional chess, and will become more a fan of the game rather than a player from here on out. It remains to be seen how he'll feel after he's had some time to cool down from what seems to have been an emotionally taxing loss.

As for the American contingent, only Gata Kamsky remains, having defeated Zhou Weiqi 1.5-0.5 in the second round. Alexander Onischuk fell to German grandmaster Arkadij Naiditsch, while Alexander Shabalov lost in a rapid tiebreak to David Navara. Varuzhan Akobian tried to win another marathon match, but instead was defeated 3-1 in the rapid tiebreakers by Ruslan Ponomariov.

There are several marquee matchups on tap for the third round. Gelfand will be taking on Judit Polgar, who is much more dangerous than her 32nd seed would suggest, while Navara will battle with young superstar Sergey Karjakin, along with several other matches featuring notable players facing off against each other. American fans might be interested both in Kamsky-So and Fabiano Caruana's match against Evgeny Alekseev. Perhaps the best pairings chart can be found over at Wikipedia; most of the matches in the 3rd round have something of interest to chess fans, and the favorites -- at least those who remain -- will quickly run into each other in the next two weeks.

There were few major upsets in round one of the FIDE Chess World Cup, as the top 14 seeds have all advanced to the second round in their quest to earn a spot in the next Candidates Tournament. The World Cup is a 128-player knockout event, with players facing off in mini-matches (in the early rounds, just two games) to decide who advances. In the end, only one player will earn the Candidates invite.

While the top names at the tournament have avoided early upsets, there were a few notable names that won't be advancing. Sergei Movsesian fell 1.5-0.5 to China's Yu Yangyi, while both Leinier Dominguez Perez and David Navara were forced to rapid playoffs by their opponents (David Smerdon and Darwin Laylo respectively). The results for American players were mixed; Gata Kamsky, Alexander Onischuk have advanced to the next round, while Alexander Shabalov, Yuri Shulman, and Varuzhan Akobian will be playing rapid chess tomorrow to try to sneak into round two. Young guns Robert Hess and Ray Robson have been elimination, as have Alexander Ivanov, Josh Friedel and Jan Ehlvest.

For players facing tiebreakers tomorrow, here's how they work. First, the players will face off in four game rapid matches (Game in 25 minutes, plus a 10 second increment). Should either player hold a lead at the end of this match, they are declared the winner. If not, a series of two-game blitz matches begin; as soon as a player wins one of these mini-matches, they advance through to the next round. If five matches (ten games) of blitz are played without a winner being declared, a final "Armageddon" game will be played to decide who advances to the second round.

Like I said before, while a knockout format like this isn't ideal for choosing a World Champion, it works perfectly for giving away one spot into the Candidates Tournament. Since there are other ways to qualify, nobody is forced to go though with the format if they feel it's a waste of their time, and with just one spot on the line, every match is critical. Even without most of the world's top players (who have already qualified for the world championship cycle, or have other tournament commitments) participating, this tournament is still worth watching and should produce plenty of drama and excitement over the next few weeks.

Following the Tal Memorial which wrapped up last week, most of the participants remained in Moscow, where they were joined by more of the world's top players. In all, 22 players competed in a 42 round, double round-robin spectacular: the World Blitz Championship. Played over three days, the tournament had a superstar field and plenty of upsets.

If there were two favorites in the tournament, they were likely Viswanathan Anand, who is not only the World Champion but is also known as a tremendous rapid and blitz player, and Magnus Carlsen, who has been playing extremely well as of late. The two players were in the lead from start to finish, with Anand holding a two point lead after the first day. However, it was Carlsen who ended up on top, finishing clear first with a 31/42 score -- three points ahead of Anand, who finished in second.

Carlsen won the event on the back of an impressive 28 wins, drawing just six games and losing eight. Conversely, Anand actually lost fewer games -- only six -- but also drew 16. Carlsen also pulled away by dominating the other leaders; he won both games against Anand, as well as against third place finisher Sergey Karjakin (25/42) and Vladimir Kramnik, who finished fourth (24.5). The tournament was competitive throughout the field, with even Alexandra Kosteniuk (last place, 12.5) scoring wins against both Carlsen and Anand.

Of course, blitz tournaments don't mean much in the grand scheme of things. Still, this is another notch in the hat for Carlsen, for whom 2009 has been a very good year. We'll soon see if he can top things off at the London Chess Classic in December, where he'll have a chance to finish the year with a tournament victory, and secure his #1 spot on the FIDE rating list.

Vladimir Kramnik may be best known for his solid play, but he's certainly capable of winning a game or two when the need arises. In the case of the Tal Memorial, he won three, which was just enough to take clear first in what was likely the strongest tournament of 2009. Kramnik finished with a 6.0/9 score, a half-point ahead of Magnus Carlsen and Vassily Ivanchuk.

There was a fair amount of drama heading into the final round, as Ivanchuk and Viswananthan Anand each trailed Kramnik by just a half point, and Ivanchuk had White against Kramnik. Anand took himself out of contention by losing to Levon Aronian with the white pieces in just 25 moves. Ivanchuk managed to get an advantage against Kramnik, but couldn't find a way to convert it, leading to an agreed draw after 29 moves, and a tournament win for Kramnik.

The other big winner was Magnus Carlsen, who recovered from being sick earlier in the tournament to finish strong with two victories in the final two rounds (over Ruslan Ponomariov and Peter Leko). Before the tournament, it was believed that a +2 score by Carlsen would be enough to overtake Veselin Topalov (who did not play in Moscow) as the number one player in the world. Sure enough, the live rating list now has him .6 points ahead of Topalov; if these ratings hold until January, Carlsen would appear on the next FIDE list at 2806, and Topalov at 2805. However, Carlsen will be playing in London next month, so it remains to be seen who will top the first official ratings list of 2010.