Stars Turn Out For Amber
The annual Melody Amber tournament is understandably very popular with the players and chess fans alike. The competitors get to play for the considerable prize fund of €216,000 in the beautiful location of Nice, France and because the games are either rapid or blindfold, they don't even have to worry about the results affecting their ratings.
So it's no surprise that this year's 18th Amber tournament has attracted an absolutely fantastic field yet again:
| Veselin Topalov | BUL | 2796 |
| Viswanathan Anand | IND | 2791 |
| Vassily Ivanchuk | UKR | 2779 |
| Magnus Carlsen | NOR | 2776 |
| Alexander Morozevich |
RUS | 2771 |
| Teimour Radjabov |
AZE | 2761 |
| Vladimir Kramnik |
RUS | 2759 |
| Peter Leko |
HUN | 2751 |
| Levon Aronian |
ARM | 2750 |
| Wang Yue |
CHN | 2739 |
| Gata Kamsky |
USA | 2725 |
| Sergey Karjakin |
UKR | 2706 |
Phew! That's just about anyone who's anyone in the chess world, including 8 of the top 10 rated players and all the top 6 - a truly mouthwatering prospect!
The tournament runs from 14-26 March, with four games every day - two rapid games and two blindfold games. The time control is 25 minutes per game, with an increment of 10 sec/move in the rapids and 20 sec/move in the blindfold games.
The first session of games starts at 14:30 CET (GMT+1) each day and finishes around 20:00 CET, except the last day which starts at 12:30 CET. March 18 and 23 are rest days.
Last year's winner was Lev Aronian (pictured). See his blindfold victory in round 8 against Vishy Anand below.
The official website is here. Look out for coverage at Chess.com!
