The 17th Amber Blindfold and Rapid Chess Tournament is held from March 15 to March 27 (last round) at the five-star luxury Hotel Palais de la Mediterranée, ideally situated at the famous Promenade des Anglais in Nice. Twelve top grandmasters from ten different countries take part and the total prize-fund is 216,000 Euro.
The Amber tournament is organised by the Association Max Euwe in Monaco and generously sponsored by Mr and Mrs Van Oosterom. The Amber tournament is one of the most prestigious chess events in the world and the only one in which half of the games are played blindfold, i.e. without the players seeing board and pieces.
1-2. Vishy Anand, India (2)
1-2. Vladimir Kramnik, Russia (1)
3. Veselin Topalov, Bulgaria (3)
4. Alexander Morozevich, Russia (4)
5. Shakhriyar Mamedyarov , Azerbaijan (6)
6. Peter Leko, Hungary (8)
7. Vasily Ivanchuk, Ukraine (9)
8. Levon Aronian, Armenia (10)
9. Boris Gelfand, Israel (11)
10. Magnus Carlsen, Norway (13)
11. Sergey Karjakin, Ukraine (14)
12. Loek van Wely, The Netherlands (35)
Here is the official website.
The average rating of the players is 2752, which is a Category 21 FIDE event.
This is a tournament where GM Arthur Bisguier would truly shine.
favorites are Anand for Rapid and Kramnik for Blindfold. Also Karjakin has a chance to prove that he should be invited to super tournament and he is no less than Magnus Carlsen.
well let’s not forget Morozevic. He has an excellent record at Melody-Amber.
This is going to be wild! Pop the corn!
I can’t wait to see how this one turns out! GO MAGNUS!!!!
Go Peter! Go Hungary!!!!
As an aside to this, a Category 21 tournament? When, if at all, will rating inflation be slowed or adjusted for historically. Just since the year 2000 there were just over 10 players above 2700, now there are nearly 30. While ratings remain a valid way to compare current players, they are just horribly skewed compared to even players of the 90s. In 10 years there will be category 25 tournaments…whatever that might be. Someone will break 3000 in the next 15-20 years I wouldn’t doubt.
How come and Van Wely plays??
Ok at tournaments in Netherlands he is the local player and it makes sense. But why here? He is far lesser player than the rest and there is a big gap between him and the next (Karjakin!), where many other players (younger also) could have been invited
I predict Magnus will have another great tourney and come in joint first with one or two other people. Vishy will end up in second place, Drawnik will make draws and end up in the middle of the field, and Boris Gelfand will be in last place. (Poor Boris… I hope for his sake he is not)
I hope Peter Leko does better than he did in Morelia-Linares; he didn’t really deserve his bad score there…
Go Magnus!!!