The World Blitz Championship is in Moscow, the traditional after-event for the Tal Memorial. There will be 22 participants playing in a double round robin, with 14 rounds a day for three days. Of the 22, nine are from the Tal Memorial (all the participants but Shirov), plus 13 other very strong players including Carlsen but not Topalov (no surprise there - he's a relatively weak blitz player) or Anand (somewhat of a surprise). 2007 and 2008 winners Ivanchuk and Dominguez aren't playing either, so the field clearly isn't as strong as it could be. That said, it's still plenty strong, especially with internet blitz king Nakamura making his first appearance. Here's the field:
From the tournament:
Levon Aronian, Sergey Karjakin, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, Alexander Grischuk, Hikaru Nakamura, Wang Hao, Vladimir Kramnik, Boris Gelfand and Pavel Eljanov.
Other invitees:
Magnus Carlsen, Teimour Radjabov, Ruslan Ponomariov, Peter Svidler, Sergei Movsesian, Ian Nepomniachtchi, Fabiano Caruana, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Dmitry Andreikin, Rauf Mamedov, Boris Grachev and Boris Savchenko.