Monaco Melody Amber Chess 2011

Monaco (click the picture to expand!)

http://www.amberchess20.com/

March 11 - March 25 2011

Participants

Viswanathan Anand (India),

Magnus Carlsen (Norway),

Levon Aronian (Armenia),

Vladimir Kramnik (Russia),

Veselin Topalov (Bulgaria),

Alexander Grischuk (Russia),

Vasily Ivanchuk (Ukraine),

Sergey Karjakin (Russia),

Boris Gelfand (Israel),

Hikaru Nakamura (United States),

Vugar Gashimov (Azerbaijan)

Anish Giri (The Netherlands)

Sadly, the 20th and last edition of an incredible chess tournament I had the privilege to attend in person several times.

You can review several games from previous tournaments on this blog, for instance:

http://www.top10chess.com/2009/03/amber-round-2-aronian-leko-rapid.html

http://www.top10chess.com/2009/03/carlsen-kramnik-blindfold-brilliancy-10.html

Round 7 at Amber : Tactics !

Radjabov-Kamsky, Amber Blindfold (7)

White to play a strong move !

17.?

Leko-Morozevich , Amber Rapid (7)

White to play and win (easy!)

40.?

Tournament Standings :
Anand to face Kramnik tomorrow in a key match, as the two players currently lead the combined tournament at Amber

Amber 2009 Rapid round 1

Leko-Anand (Rapid, Amber 2009)
White to play and take the advantage

Full game replayable here
http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?tid=67594&crosstable=1

Official Site: http://www.amberchess2009.com/

Amber 2009 Round 1 (BLINDFOLD !)

Nice (picture)

ANAND-LEKO (BLINDFOLD, 2009 AMBER).

White to play and win

Full game replayable here
http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?tid=67595&crosstable=1

official tournament site:

http://www.amberchess2009.com/

Next top chess tournament in Nice,France

Nice, France below

http://www.amberchess2009.com/
(Amber Chess Tournament 2009 Official Site)

18th Amber Blindfold and Rapid tournamentMarch 14-26, 2009 Nice, France



The twelve participants are (in alphabetical order):

World Champion Viswanathan Anand (India),

Levon Aronian (Armenia),

Magnus Carlsen (Norway),

Vasily Ivanchuk (Ukraine),

Gata Kamsky (United States),

Sergey Karjakin (Ukraine),

Vladimir Kramnik (Russia),

Peter Leko (Hungary),

Alexander Morozevich (Russia),

Teimour Radjabov (Azerbaijan),

Veselin Topalov (Bulgaria)

and Wang Yue (China).

Remarks:
I am highly appreciative of Mr Van Osterom, the Melody Amber sponsor for more than 15 years, as he helped create an original, entertaining and top-notch formula over the years. This tournament remains unique in many aspects (no ratings, blindfold chess) , whether it is played in Monaco (earlier years) or nowadays Nice. Vive la Cote d'Azur !

I do notice that the line-up is very prestigious and highly "correlated" with the Corus and Linares tournaments. For instance, Dominguez,Wang Yue, Radjabov,Aronian,Carlsen and Ivanchuk will play Corus, Linares and Amber back to back if I am not mistaken. While it is probably the strongest line-up one could think of, I would welcome the inclusion of the following top grandmasters:

H. NAKAMURA
E. BACROT
D. JAKOVENKO

as they have proven they can compete with the very best in rapid and classic tournaments. Also it would bring interesting match-ups varying from Corus and Linares.

Would you agree with this suggestion ?

Melody Amber Previous winners ( Overall)

Here's the list of winners (combined rapid+blindfold) and location of previous Amber Chess tournaments :

Nice, France
2008 Aronian

Monaco
2007 Kramnik
2006 Anand,Morozevich
2005 Anand
2004 Morozevich,Kramnik
2003 Anand
2002 Morozevich
2001 Kramnik,Topalov
2000 Shirov
1999 Kramnik
1998 Kramnik,Shirov
1997 Anand
1996 Kramnik
1995 Karpov
1994 Anand
1993 Ljubojevic
1992 Ivanchuk

Overall Kramnik won it 6 times and Anand 5 times ! Let's say that Morozevich, with 3 wins in the last 6 editions is more than a serious contender too.

Who will win the 2009 Amber edition ?
http://www.amberchess2009.com/