Who will win Amber? - second preview video
Preview video by Macauley Peterson
The world's number one player, Magnus Carlsen, is the top-seed in Nice. Also present are Levon Aronian, the winner of the past two Amber tournaments, and Vladimir Kramnik, who won the Amber tournament a record six times. These three players are clearly the big favourites, but what about Alexander Grischuk, who replaced Alexander Morozevich less than a week ago? Or the ever unpredictable Vasily Ivanchuk? Or Ruslan Ponomariov, who is back among the world's elite?The following twelve grandmasters will take part (between brackets their country and their rating in the March 1, 2010 world rankings): Magnus Carlsen (Norway, 2813), Vladimir Kramnik (Russia, 2790), Levon Aronian (Armenia, 2782), Alexander Grischuk (Russia, 2756), Boris Gelfand (Israel, 2750), Peter Svidler (Russia, 2750), Vasily Ivanchuk (Ukraine, 2748), Vugar Gashimov (Azerbaijan, 2740), Ruslan Ponomariov (Ukraine, 2737), Sergey Karjakin (Russia, 2725), Leinier Dominguez (Cuba, 2713) and Jan Smeets (The Netherlands, 2651).
Every day four sessions will be played, two blindfold sessions and two rapid sessions. The first session starts at 14.30 CET. The fourth session finishes around 20.00 CET. The final round on March 25 starts at 12.30 CET. March 17 and 22 are rest days. The rate of play is 25 minutes per game per player. With every move made in the blindfold games 20 seconds is added to the clock, with every move made in the rapid games 10 seconds is added.Like in previous years, many more will be posted on the official website during the tournament. Besides, you can expect something new this year: live chess with audio commentary, streaming footage from the playing hall and live commentary sessions with the top GMs!