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.

A recent Wall Street Journal editorial in favor of abolishing women's titles in chess has generated a lot of discussion online. For a while now, this -- and similar issues, such as the necessity of female-only events in chess -- have simmered, becoming hot topics now and again whenever an article like this WSJ editorial pops up.

Reaction, not surprisingly, has been mixed. Some, like Russian GM Alexandra Kosteniuk, are strongly against taking away these titles, while Mig Greengard and others fall on the opposite side. Still others have made the point that the editorial's author, Barbara Jepson, is not a chess player herself, which may make her understanding of the issues involved less than ideal.

What is your take on women's chess titles? I honestly feel very ambivalent about them; while they do help promote strong female players who have yet to gain the equivalent "open" title (i.e., WGM vs. GM), they also lead to confusion, and can even promote the idea that lower standards are fine for woman, despite the fact that many women have proudly earned the GM and IM titles. As several other commentators have pointed out, though, women's tournaments are another issue entirely. While there shouldn't be too many of these events (I'm not sure anyone would like to see female players playing a schedule of tournaments that effectively keeps them separated from male players), these tournaments do help promote promising players, and from an early age give girls and young woman a more comfortable environment in which to develop their chess talent -- not to mention giving many girls more reasons to stay with chess, something I think most chess players would like to see.

The World Chess Championship finally has a host. The match has been awarded to Sofia, Bulgaria, thanks to a bid worth 3 million Euros backed by the Bulgarian government. According to a report by ChessBase, Turkey and Singapore were also in the running to host the event, but dropped out when Bulgaria's bid -- which includes a 2 million Euro prize fund for the players -- was submitted.

This effectively gives challenger Veselin Topalov home field advantage for the match, though the Bulgarian government has guaranteed neutrality. I think it's unlikely that there would be any material advantage for Topalov anyway, beyond the comfort of playing at home, which shouldn't be dismissed. While hometown venues have been a subject of complaint by players before, it's hard to imaging Viswanathan Anand making much of a fuss about this.

As for the 2011 World Championship, FIDE has made a decision on the Candidates Tournament designed to work around the tensions between Armenia and Azerbaijan. The tournament scheduled for late 2010 and/or early 2011, will take place with two groups of four players competing in two different countries: one group in Azerbaijan, and the other in another country -- though not Armenia. This solution allowed Azerbaijan to host a portion of the tournament, while ensuring that Armenian grandmaster Levon Aronian would not have to play in Azerbaijan. If one of the finalists is Armenian (specifically, Aronian), the tournament will be played in a neutral country; if it is between a player from Azerbaijan and a player other than Aronian (or between two players from other nations), it will be held in Azerbaijan.

It seems like a lot of work to please all sides, but at least the end result still appears to be a fairly reasonable event. Having two groups (the structure of how a winner will be determined is unclear, but a double-round robin or short matches seem likely) and a final match between the two group winners is as good a way to pick a challenger as any. If this is the most inconvenient thing FIDE has to do during the 2011 World Championship cycle, I think everyone will call this cycle a success.