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.

The 2009 Tal Memorial, being held in Moscow, boasts one of the strongest tournament fields in recent memory; you won't find many 10-player round robin events where the lowest rated participant is rated 2739 (that honor being jointly shared by Vassily Ivanchuk and Ruslan Ponomariov).  World Champion Viswanathan Anand is there, as is former champion Vladimir Kramnik, and the world's #2 player, Magnus Carlsen. Levon Aronian, Boris Gelfand, Peter Leko, Alexander Morozevich and Peter Svidler round out the field. All in all, the Memorial appeared to have the kind of field that would inspire a lot of excitement and plenty of fascinating games.

Instead, we started with two rounds that failed to produce a single decisive game! To be fair, there wasn't a problem with short draws; many of the early games were exciting games that ended with both sides picking up a half-point, not boring skirmishes where neither side had any interest in winning. Things have picked up a little since, but after four rounds, there have still only been four total wins in the tournament. Vladimir Kramnik currently has the lead with a score of 3/4, having scored wins over Morozevich and Svidler in the last two rounds. Anand and Aronian are each just a half-point back, with Anand also having scored a full point against Svidler in round three.

Another developing subplot: Carlsen entered the tournament with a reasonable chance of passing Topalov as the top-rated player in the world with a good result here (I believe he'd have to finish +2 to do so). However, Carlsen has fallen ill (he has a fever and a throat infection, which you can read about in Norwegian, or in English on ChessBase) and is taking antibiotics. He has started the tournament with four draws, so it remains to be seen if he'll be able to break through in the second half.

Vugar Gashimov scored the critical win for Azerbaijan in the final round of the European Team Chess Championships, allowing them to defeat the Netherlands 2.5-1.5 and slip ahead of Russia in the final standings to take first place. Azerbaijan and Russia entered the final round tied for first, and one of the two were guaranteed to take first unless both teams lost in the final round.

Russia, though, stumbled slightly in their final round encounter with Spain. While Alexander Morozevich scored a board two victory over Francisco Vallejo Pons, Evgeny Alexseev gave the point back to the Spaniards by losing to Ivan Salgado Lopez on the fourth board. The 2-2 draw opened the door for Azerbaijan to win outright by defeating the Netherlands.

The battle for third was also fierce, and was ultimately won by Ukraine, which scored a win over Israel in the final round to take the bronze medal on tiebreaks over Armenia.

In the Women's division, the battle for first between rivals Russia and Georgia came down to tiebreakers. In the end, the Russian women had two more board points than Georgia, which was enough to give them the gold. Georgia settled for second, while Ukraine nipped Azerbaijan for third on tiebreaks, far behind the leaders.

The tournament, held in Novi Sad, Serbia, attracted 38 Open and 28 Women's teams from across Europe. In the end, there were few surprises, but the event produced a great deal of exciting chess. Much like the European Championships in soccer (or football, for the Europeans reading this), which are second only to the World Cup in international competition, this event is likely the second biggest team competition on the chess schedule after the Olympiad. You can expect the top finishers here to figure prominently in the standings at the 2010 Chess Olympiad, scheduled for Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia.