Aronian Takes Lead At Amber
The first round of the combined blindfold/rapid Amber tournament in Nice provided the usual mix of impressive play and unfortunate mishaps.
Blindfold move of the day was Bxf7, which was played by 2 different people! Kramnik found 15.Bxf7 against Morozevich and Anand finished his game against Leko with 35.Bxf7 to set up the classic queen sacrifice in the corner, a la Petrosian (see the famous Petrosian-Spassky game below).
Morozevich and Leko recovered to gain revenge in their rapid games, as did Kamsky who blundered a piece with 15...Bb3?? in his blindfold game with Carlsen, but bounced back in their rapid encounter.
The only player to lose both games on the opening day was Ivanchuk who struggled against the defending champion Aronian (pictured). Aronian's queen sac on move 10 of their blindfold game is actually known theory (it wasn't a blunder!).
The full results in round 1:
| Blind | Kramnik-Morozevich | 1 - 0 |
| Radjabov-Topalov | ½ - ½ | |
| Karjakin-Wang Yue | ½ - ½ | |
| Blind | Carlsen-Kamsky | 1 - 0 |
| Anand-Leko | 1 - 0 | |
| Aronian-Ivanchuk | 1 - 0 | |
| Rapid | Morozevich-Kramnik | 1 - 0 |
| Topalov-Radjabov | ½ - ½ | |
| Wang Yue-Karjakin | ½ - ½ | |
| Rapid | Kamsky-Carlsen | 1 - 0 |
| Leko-Anand | 1 - 0 | |
| Ivanchuk-Aronian | 0 - 1 |
