Hello again everyone!

   Today begins Day 2 of the Amber Tournament going on in Monaco right now with many of the top names in chess today.

   Remember, there are 4 different sessions to this tournament throughout each day of the event. The first two sessions are Blindfold chess, 3 games per session. Then there are two Rapid sessions with 3 games a piece, a total of 12 games.

   Here is the first session lineup of Blindfold chess games:

Topalov/Karjakin

Kramnik/Anand

Gelfand/Grischuk

   So here is the first finished game of the 1st session, Kramnik/Anand in the Symmetrical English:

   The second game we'll be looking at is Topalov/Karjakin in the Nimzo-Indian Rubenstein:

   And finally Gelfand/Grischuk in a 69 move marathon in a King's Indian Classical opening:

   That will do it for session 1 of the Blindfold group today. The next three games to be played in this group are:

Carlsen/Gashimov

Giri/Ivanchuk

Nakamura/Aronian

   Each group will have the results posted separately in their own post and the games will be starting soon enough.

   Here is the official site for the tournament.

   All the games I've been posting have come through playchess.com via Fritz 12 

   -Mark

  The second group of Blindfold games are just about finishing up and the first one will be Giri/Ivanchuk in a Queen's Indian 62 move game:

Naka/Aronian are up next with Aronian taking down Naka in a 71 move Fianchetto Grunfeld: Symmetrical:

   Magnus/Gashimov just ended in a 85-move Grunfeld, with Magnus having two Queens to Vugar's one but he finally gave up knowing it was just not worth it.

   Now begins the ending of the 1st session games of Rapid chess as the 1st game has just finished up between Karjakin and Topalov, in a 26 move draw using the Caro Kann Advanced Variation:

   Grischuk/Gelfand is now over after a QGD: Ragozin:

   Finally, Anand/Kramnik has just ended and we've gotten the 3nd draw of the session in a QGA 37 move game:

  Now for the final session of the day with one result already, and yes, another draw, but this one is between Ivanchuk and Giri in Caro Kann Exchange and Panov-Botvinnik Attack:

Aronian and Naka just finished up in a King's Indian, ending in another draw, making that 5 draws out of 6 games so far today in the Rapid Chess part of the event.

   Magnus was the only one to score a decisive game today as he played Black against Gashimov in a French Classical Alekhine Chatard Attack:

   That's the end of the Amber games today. Round 3 will resume tomorrow at 14:30 (8:30 AM Eastern)  Enjoy your last part of the weekend wherever you are 

   -Mark