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

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/