The Amber chess tournament (officially the ''Amber Rapid and Blindfold Chess Tournament'', previously ''Melody Amber'') was an annual invitation-only event for some of the world's best players, from 1992 to 2011. Since the second edition, the event uniquely combined
blindfold chess
Blindfold chess, also known as ''sans voir'', is a form of chess play wherein the players do not see the positions of the pieces and do not touch them. This forces players to maintain a mental model of the positions of the pieces. Moves are commu ...
and
speed chess
Fast chess, also known as Speed chess, is a type of chess in which each player is given less time to consider their moves than normal tournament time controls allow. Fast chess is subdivided, by decreasing time controls, into rapid chess, blitz ...
, and has been held in
Monte Carlo
Monte Carlo (; ; french: Monte-Carlo , or colloquially ''Monte-Carl'' ; lij, Munte Carlu ; ) is officially an administrative area of the Principality of Monaco, specifically the ward of Monte Carlo/Spélugues, where the Monte Carlo Casino is ...
. The tournament was sponsored by the
Dutch
Dutch commonly refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
* Dutch people ()
* Dutch language ()
Dutch may also refer to:
Places
* Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States
* Pennsylvania Dutch Country
People E ...
businessman and world champion of
correspondence chess,
Joop van Oosterom
Joop van Oosterom (12 December 1937 – 22 October 2016) was a Dutch billionaire, chess and billiards sponsor, and twice correspondence chess world champion. His fortune, made with the Volmac Software Group, was estimated by Dutch financial ma ...
. Named after his daughter, the tournament was usually held in March. Her sister was the eponym to the
Crystal Kelly Cup.
Vladimir Kramnik won the most overall titles with six.
Viswanathan Anand
Viswanathan "Vishy" Anand (born 11 December 1969) is an Indian chess grandmaster and a former five-time World Chess Champion. He became the first grandmaster from India in 1988, and is one of the few players to have surpassed an Elo rating o ...
is the only player to have won both the rapid and blindfold events in the same year (he did it twice, in 1997 and 2005). The most rapid events have been won by Anand (nine times), and the most blindfold events have been won by Kramnik (nine times).
Nearly every world class player has played in the tournament but
Garry Kasparov
Garry Kimovich Kasparov (born 13 April 1963) is a Russian chess grandmaster, former World Chess Champion, writer, political activist and commentator. His peak rating of 2851, achieved in 1999, was the highest recorded until being surpassed by ...
.
Vassily Ivanchuk is the only player to have played in all 20 editions.
The 20th Amber Tournament was held in 2011 in Monaco, as was the first Amber Tournament.
Winners
Melody Amber 1992
The first tournament was played from 3 to 13 February 1992 in
Roquebrune-Cap-Martin as a double
round robin
Round-robin may refer to:
Computing
* Round-robin DNS, a technique for dealing with redundant Internet Protocol service hosts
* Round-robin networks, communications networks made up of radio nodes organized in a mesh topology
* Round-robin schedu ...
competition of rapid chess. The first round-robin was won by
Viswanathan Anand
Viswanathan "Vishy" Anand (born 11 December 1969) is an Indian chess grandmaster and a former five-time World Chess Champion. He became the first grandmaster from India in 1988, and is one of the few players to have surpassed an Elo rating o ...
, undefeated with a score of 8/11, closely followed by
Vassily Ivanchuk with 7.5 points. In the second half of the tournament,
Victor Korchnoi
Viktor Lvovich Korchnoi ( rus, Ви́ктор Льво́вич Корчно́й, p=vʲiktər lʲvovʲɪtɕ kɐrtɕˈnoj; 23 March 1931 – 6 June 2016) was a Soviet (before 1976) and Swiss (after 1980) chess grandmaster (GM) and chess writer. H ...
appeared the strongest with 7/11. Anand lost three games (including his final round game with white against Larsen), which allowed Ivanchuk to take over the lead in the very last round. Ivanchuk scored a total of 14/22. Anand finished second with 13.5 points, while
Anatoly Karpov
Anatoly Yevgenyevich Karpov ( rus, links=no, Анато́лий Евге́ньевич Ка́рпов, p=ɐnɐˈtolʲɪj jɪvˈɡʲenʲjɪvʲɪtɕ ˈkarpəf; born May 23, 1951) is a Russian and former Soviet chess grandmaster, former World Che ...
,
Victor Korchnoi
Viktor Lvovich Korchnoi ( rus, Ви́ктор Льво́вич Корчно́й, p=vʲiktər lʲvovʲɪtɕ kɐrtɕˈnoj; 23 March 1931 – 6 June 2016) was a Soviet (before 1976) and Swiss (after 1980) chess grandmaster (GM) and chess writer. H ...
and
Ljubomir Ljubojević
Ljubomir Ljubojević (; born November 2, 1950) is a Serbian chess grandmaster. He won the Yugoslav Chess Championship in 1977 (tied) and 1982.
Life and career
Ljubojević was born on 2 November 1950 in Titovo Užice, Yugoslavia (now Užice, S ...
shared third place with 12.5/22. Remarkable was the participation of 15-year-old
Judit Polgár
Judit Polgár (born 23 July 1976) is a Hungarian chess grandmaster, generally considered the strongest female chess player of all time. In 1991, Polgár achieved the title of Grandmaster at the age of 15 years and 4 months, at the time the yo ...
, who finished 10th. The oldest player in the field was Korchnoi at age of 61, while prize money totalled US$100,000 with US$20,000 for the winner.
A separate Blitz tournament, with the same participants plus
Larry Christiansen
Larry Mark Christiansen (born June 27, 1956) is an American chess player of Danish ancestry. He was awarded the title Grandmaster by FIDE in 1977. Christiansen was the U.S. champion in 1980, 1983, and 2002. He competed in the FIDE World Champ ...
and
Susan Polgar, was played on 7 February. Ljubojević won with a score of 10/13.
Tournament books
A book on the first tournament was published in 1992.
[Erik Bouwmans; et al.,''Melody Amber Rapid Chess Tournament'', Schaaknieuws, 1992, ]
In the following six years (1993–1998), tournament books were published on each tournament for that year. The first four were produced by
Guido den Broeder
Guido is a given name Latinised from the Old High German name Wido. It originated in Medieval Italy. Guido later became a male first name in Austria, Germany, the Low Countries, Scandinavia, Spain, Portugal, Latin America and Switzerland. The me ...
, in association with chess grandmasters such as
John van der Wiel
Van der Wiel in 1983, thumb
John van der Wiel (born 9 August 1959) is a Dutch chess grandmaster. He is a two-time Dutch Chess Champion.
Chess career
Born in 1959, Van der Wiel won the ''Daniël Noteboom tournament'' in Leiden in 1976 and 197 ...
and
John Nunn
John Denis Martin Nunn (born 25 April 1955) is an English chess grandmaster, a three-time world champion in chess problem solving, a chess writer and publisher, and a mathematician. He is one of England's strongest chess players and was forme ...
. The last two were produced by
Dagobert Kohlmeyer
Dagobert or Taginbert is a Germanic male given name, possibly from Old Frankish ''Dag'' "day" and ''beraht'' "bright".
Alternatively, it has been identified as Gaulish ''dago'' "good" ''berxto'' "bright".
Animals
* Roi Dagobert (born 1964), ...
, in association with John Nunn.
References
*
External links
Official website for the 19th Amber Blindfold and Rapid Chess Tournament 2010Official website of the 20th and final Amber tournament
{{Chess tournaments
Chess competitions
1992 in chess
Recurring events established in 1992
Chess in Monaco