From Today starts a pinnacle of fast and furious chess play.
Amber Chess Tournament which is the epitome of the rapid chess format is starting from today in city of Monaco.
As per the recent tradition it is being played in Rapid and Blindfold formats.
Rapid Format :
The games are fast, with 25 minutes to each player with 10 seconds addition for each move. So in about an hour and little more the game is over.
Blindfold Format :
The format is same except that players cant have chessboard in from them to make strategy. The moves are communicated in PGN notations format.
It is highly tiring and taxing for the players as they have to imagine the whole situation and then play.
Participants this year :
World Champion Viswanathan Anand (India)
Levon Aronian (Armenia)
Magnus Carlsen (Norway)
Vasily Ivanchuk (Ukraine)
Gata Kamsky (United States)
Sergey Karjakin (Ukraine)
Vladimir Kramnik (Russia)
Peter Leko (Hungary)
Alexander Morozevich (Russia)
Teimour Radjabov (Azerbaijan)
Veselin Topalov (Bulgaria)
Wang Yue (China)
With all the top 12 players participation it will exciting to watch and follow.
I am not much hopefull for Anand though as last two tournaments he played he fared horribly. I think he is starting to think about his championship match against Topalov this year.
You can follow the tournaments here:
Tournament Home Page Live Games
The games start at 14.30 local time which is 3.30 hours behind IST.
There will be 4 sessions daily. 2 Blinddfold and 2 Rapid.
18th Amber Rapid and Blindfold Chess tournament, Monaco 
