Just a quick update; I'll add more information on the final eight participants later this week. Despite the characterization of the Chess World Cup as a lottery, the top seeds have done remarkably well; if this were the NCAA basketball tournament, the lowest remaining player would be a #6 seed (that honor going to the 22nd seeded Vladimir Malakhov), and three of the #1 seeds would still be alive in the forms of the top three players in the tournament: Boris Gelfand, Vugar Gashimov and Peter Svidler. There haven't been any real "bracket busters" as we've had in previous years, and considering the length of the tournament (remember, we started with 128 players, not 64), the favorites have done remarkably well.

Here are your quarterfinal pairings; these matches will begin on Thursday, with tiebreakers scheduled for Saturday:

• Boris Gelfand (#1 seed) vs. Dmitry Jakovenko (#9)
• Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (#13) vs. Sergey Karjakin (#12)
• Vugar Gashimov (#2) vs. Ruslan Ponomariov (#7)
• Peter Svidler (#3) vs. Vladimir Malakhov (#22)

Filipino chess prodigy Wesley So is on a roll at the World Chess Cup. Coming off a victory over Vassily Ivanchuk, So has now defeated the last American in the field, Gata Kamsky, to advance to the fourth round. So won the first game of their match as Black and held a draw as White in the second game to move along in the tournament.

The other major story of the round was the forfeiture of two Chinese grandmasters during the rapid playoffs following the third round. Both Wang Yue and Lie Chao had drawn the first games of their respective matches and had headed outside for a quick smoke. Unfortunately, both returned to playing hall late and fell victim to the "zero tolerance" rules in effect at the event. As the players were late for their games, even by just a couple minutes, both were subject to forfeiting the game they were late for. Both players also went on to lose their third games (on the board), eliminating them from the competition. I've never been a fan of these rules -- I feel that there should always be some leeway, or some ability for the arbiter to use discretion when deciding what penalty to assess -- and it's a shame to see them affect the results of a major event such as the World Cup. On the other hand, the players themselves knew what the penalties would be and considered the result of their tardiness to be fair, according to an interview posted on ChessBase.

As for the players still in the event, the remaining field contains a mix of favorites and surprises, with the top three seeds still alive. Here are the "sweet sixteen" matchups that will be contested in the fourth round:

• Boris Gelfand (#1 seed) vs. Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (#17)
• Alexander Grischuk (#8) vs. Dmitry Jakovenko (#9)
• Viktor Laznicka (#61) vs. Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (#13)
• Nikita Vitiugov (#28) vs. Sergey Karjakin (#12)
• Vugar Gashimov (#2) vs. Fabiano Caruana (#50)
• Ruslan Ponomariov (#7) vs. Etienne Bacrot (#23)
• Peter Svidler (#3) vs. Alexei Shirov (#14)
• Wesley So (#59) vs. Vladimir Malakhov (#22)

If there was one thing wrong with the recent World Blitz Championship -- held in Moscow after the Tal Memorial -- it was a name that was missing: Hikaru Nakamura. While the current US Champion can't be considered more than a dark horse when it comes to contending for the World Championship in regular chess (according to the live ratings list, he's 24th in the world at the moment), Nakamura is a bullet and blitz legend, especially on Internet chess servers. He's recently co-authored a book on the subject, too. With that in mind, it's fair to say that Nakamura's absence from any blitz championship is a bit disappointing.

On the other hand, Magnus Carlsen is no slouch when it comes to speed chess himself; he dominated the tournament in Moscow, finishing three points ahead of Viswanathan Anand (who himself was three points ahead of the rest of the field). So when both Carlsen and Nakamura were confirmed to be taking part in the BNBank Blitz tournament in Oslo, Norway, chess fans hoped the two would make it to the finals to see a match between the two stars.

Sure enough, both players advanced to the final round without incident, and the four-game championship match was on. Carlsen won the first game, and was dominating the second when disaster struck: he failed to find the correct continuation, allowed Nakamura back into the game, then blundered in a still winning endgame to allow the American grandmaster to tie the match 1-1. After that, it was all Nakamura; he won games three and four to take the match 3-1.

Of course, anything can happen over the course of just four games, and I doubt I'm alone in hoping to see more high profile games between the two, both in blitz -- I hope we can assume Nakamura will get an invitation to the next blitz championship? -- and in classical chess. The latter will happen soon, as both players will be participating in the London Chess Classic. If you'd like to see footage of the games in their recent match in Oslo, a somewhat shaky video of the first game on YouTube links to the other games as well.

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.