Aronian Leads Amber With One Round To Go

The Amber blindfold/rapid chess tournament in Nice, France, continues to entertain and amaze in equal measure.  Round 9 was relatively quiet, with just one win in the blind games (Ivanchuk beating Kramnik in a great game) and two in the rapids (Aronian beating Morozevich in a crazy tactical game, and Carlsen overcoming Karjakin).

In comparison, round 10 was incredibly dramatic as every single blind game ended decisively!  Particularly notable was Kramnik's complete demolition job on Carlsen and Anand losing track of the position and blundering his queen against Morozevich.

After all that excitement, only one of the 10th round rapid games ended with blood spilt, and it was Topalov on the receiving end as Kamsky meted out some revenge for his earlier loss in their blindfold game (not to mention their recent match!)

So going into the last round tomorrow, Carlsen leads the blind standings on 7/10, Kamsky and Aronian lead the rapid standings on 6.5/10, and in the overall combined table Aronian is a point clear of Anand and Carlsen.

The draw for the final round is:

Carlsen getting taught a painful blindfold chess lesson by Kramnik (picture courtesy of the Association Max Euwe)